All Customers "Farewell" Business

After a year of reflection and adjustment, the business tycoon, who was a guest of all sincerity, declared a quarterly profit in the four quarter of 2012. Its annual sales volume reached 6 billion 540 million yuan, but net profit remained negative for the whole year. In January 27th, its founder Chen predicted that sales of all customers will grow by 50% in 2013, and strive to achieve full year profits.

In 2011, all customers lost nearly 600 million yuan, and four rumors of bankruptcy. Nowadays, Van guest It is possible to become the second large scale electricity supplier with large scale profit in China besides Alibaba, which is of great significance to all customers and the Chinese electricity supplier industry with low profit.

In the 2012 China B2C website scale report released by AI consulting, customers account for 1.2% of China's B2C market share, ranking tenth in Tmall, Jingdong mall, suning.com, Amazon China, Dangdang, Gome and vip.com.

The unique feature of everyone is that it is the only independent brand electric supplier. The other nine are all platform type or channel type electricity suppliers. This means that when Tmall, Jingdong mall, suning.com and other electricity providers compete for the scale of the platform, they will explore another profitable mode for Chinese e-commerce providers.

"Customers can already have their own blood, and we don't need any financing before going public." In an interview with Chen in January 21st, he said that he had thought about the way ahead.

Customers will return to the common sense of the brand, take stock turnover and brand premium as the core, and realize the simultaneous growth of scale and profit, instead of focusing on the expansion of the electronic business platform.

In 2013, customers will focus on creating two supply chains: basic funds. Clothes & Accessories Production oriented low-cost, large-scale supply chain, and a variety of small, fast fashion style clothing production oriented rapid reaction supply chain. The industry described it as: UNIQLO +H&M or ZARA mode.

The new mode of van guest is no longer a purely electronic business mode, but a continuation of the operation mode of traditional brand enterprises. E-commerce is only a means of service. In public, Chen no longer emphasizes that he is an e-commerce company. He believes that customers should first be Brand Company, followed by Internet Co.

"Our previous infatuation with Amazon mode may not be suitable for China's soil." Regrets. However, a number of people interviewed by reporters believe that the new mode of van guest may not be able to provide sample value for Chinese electricity providers. First, the capital advantage and cheap flow of its initial access have basically disappeared, and the two is that the customers are already not strictly the electricity providers.

Electricity supplier mode dilemma

Before entering the electricity supplier industry, Chen is just a writer or editor who has not much fame. In 2000, he participated in the creation of the excellent network, responsible for writing books that will not be concerned to become hot book reviews. In 2004, the excellent network was sold to Amazon. Chen then founded "I have a network" but ended up in failure.

In 2007, Chen founded all customers, positioning the Internet. clothing The brand started with men's shirts. At that time, the goal was to earn 200 million yuan in three years, but in second years, the goal was achieved. In 2010, sales of van customers amounted to 2 billion yuan. When the Chinese electricity supplier collectively set up the satellite era, all customers were also impetuous. In 2011, the two annual sales target was raised, and finally it was locked at 10 billion yuan, but it only finished 3 billion 800 million yuan. In the same year, all customers received sixth rounds of $230 million in financing. When this round of financing was made, the valuation reached a peak of $5 billion. The total cost of the six round of financing is US $422 million.

Chen told reporters that the business model determines the year's business model.

At present, there are three main modes of e-commerce in China: platform type, self operated channel type and brand type. Taobao and Tmall are representatives of platform electricity providers. They earn income by earning annual fees, advertising fees and trading volume of merchants, and have already made profits. In 2012, the total transaction volume of Ali's Taobao + Tmall exceeded 1 trillion yuan, becoming China's first e-commerce platform with a scale of over trillion yuan.

Jingdong, suning.com, etc., as representatives of self operated channel electricity suppliers, are essentially retailing formats, earning the difference between sales and sales. Because there is no self owned goods, but directly to the consumer supply, so low gross profit margin and need to invest a lot of money in logistics and warehousing construction, short term can not be profitable, can only rely on capital strength to squeeze competitors. This model has the largest number of electricity providers, the largest individual and the most competitive competition. In the past two years, Jingdong have been trying to expand the number of third party businesses and move closer to the platform electricity providers who have found a stable profit model. This is the way Amazon has walked.

Independent brand electric providers such as fans, Masa Marceau, Chu Ming, Wei cotton, dream bazaar and so on, have their own brand goods, realize their business value through the brand premium, this should be more profitable than other electricity supplier mode, but the problem is that the nature of the electricity supplier determines that it must embark on a "large-scale listing" road. In order to get more customers, they value Internet marketing rather than supply chain and brand management, and lose the brand premium in a vicious cycle of losing money.

Masa Marceau founder Sun Hong recalled that Massa Marceau realized profits very early, but in 2011, after its introduction of Sequoia Capital, it began to discount in order to expand its scale, resulting in its high-end brand being damaged. In 2012, Martha Marceau was handed over to suning.com. A similar model of cotton is directly closed down, the first moment is being sold, and the dream Baasha listing is also stranded due to inability to make profits.

Everyone is not alone. "In 2011, we thought that we would quickly become a manufacturing enterprise, everything was ordered by us, everything was designed by us, what kind of products can be done, and it can be sold as long as LOGO is posted." Chen told reporters that before 2010, customers had made three profits for a short time, but he gave up making profits because capital should allow everyone to run faster.

At that time, in fact, it became a huge wholesaler, that is, to purchase goods from suppliers, and then to sell them to consumers on the self built platform, but only the "Vancl" label was added to the products. Van guest tries to drive the brand with e-commerce rather than brand driven e-commerce. This has nothing to do with the self operated channel electricity supplier mode. Two. Wholesalers may be able to make large scale quickly, but they are doomed to be unable to become brands.

With the promotion of capital, customers have even begun to switch from a brand to a platform for business providers in exchange for larger scale and faster growth. The third party V+ platform was born in the second half of 2010, where customers try to build an online shopping mall with fashionable brands. This also pushed up the total number of SKU (product category), which had a maximum of 240 thousand, and sold products from T-shirts and canvas. shoes To accessories, cosmetics, household items, and even mops and kitchen knives.

A large number of independent brands represented by Van customers were almost at the time of the "fake brand" road without brand premium. A similar path led to a similar operational crisis in 2011 with independent electric providers such as Massa Marceau. Media reports said that over expansion led to a total inventory of 1 billion 445 million yuan at the end of 2011, with a total loss of nearly 600 million yuan. At the beginning of 2012, van guest tried to ease the pressure on the capital chain by listing blood, but failed. In early 2012, even people in the industry expected that customers would die.

Just like what is reflected in the past, in the past, the mode of customer choice was wrong, and this mode was destined for the great leap forward, high inventory and high loss. But what is right?

The industry is pessimistic: electric business development for ten years, in addition to the Ali family, there has been no convincing profit model, even if Jingdong, easy to buy horse racing enclosure, still have to face how to get rid of the problem of serious dependence on capital. There is no answer to the question of when China's e-commerce will achieve healthy and benign growth. Chen said, at present, investors have basically ignored the B2C industry.

At present, the only way to see a clear profit pattern is the Amoy brand. It belongs to the brand electric business mode. The difference is that the Amoy brand is not completely independent. Instead, it relies on Taobao or Tmall platform to get stable traffic support and gain profits through brand premium. They are well-known brand names. They are expected to sell 800 million yuan in 2012 and 500 million yuan in profits and losses.

But the biggest problem of Amoy brands is that they can not quickly expand their scale. The establishment time of Han Du house and rip and silk is almost the same as that of customers, but its scale is far from the 6 billion 540 million yuan of customers.

In the case of various modes of constraints, how can customers choose? Can China's electricity suppliers get out of the dilemma of the mode? {page_break}

　 Back to brand knowledge

On Christmas Eve in 2012, when he was sorting and packing in Beijing storehouse, he had no idea what mode he would choose. But in the past year, there are only three things that Chen knows to do: adjusting structure, clearing inventory and optimizing supply chain. For all customers at that time, ensuring the normal operation of enterprises is more urgent than choosing models.

The sale scale of all customers has been 6 billion 540 million yuan in five years. If only from the perspective of clothing brand, the sales scale that Li Ning Co has reached 1 billion yuan in ten years is now only about 8 billion yuan annual sales. But in 2011, the management mode of van guest is still starting from a start-up e-commerce company, rather than a nearly 5 billion yuan Brand Company.

In the second half of 2011, Chen began to reform the management structure of all passengers, but his original intention was to control costs and streamline policies. At that time, he did not realize the problem of brand management.

In the first place, it took a month to lay off 5% of the employees, and then divided the original "new product department" and "basic product department" into five major business units, and independently produced marketing centers and production centers, but this was only an expedient measure for adjustment. At the same time, the number of storehouses decreased from 30 to 6, and the direct delivery of them to the city was also reduced to 6.

Four months later, the new year was adjusted again, and the newly released marketing center was put back to the business department. At the same time, it reduced the number of 240 thousand SKU to 60 thousand, cut off the appliances, digital, department stores and other categories that were not good at it, and focused on the field of clothing. Chen Chi, vice president of van guest, said that today, customers have been split into six big six small 12 business departments, 19 products line. Each division is responsible for its own product design, development, cost accounting and marketing promotion activities. Previously, the company had a large number of product lines distributed in the two major business units of the basic business unit and new product division, of which at least three departments had made knitwear, which eventually led to identical products and inventory.

After the adjustment of organizational structure, Chen began to require the process to be meticulous, making decisions before making a decision, and doing the sales forecast analysis through the data center. The assessment standard of the Division also changed from SKU quantity and sales volume to gross profit and inventory turnover rate.

If a brand trader has a large inventory, either the product or brand problems will lead to terminal sales, or the supply chain's turnover efficiency is too low. The daily orders of van customers are up to millions, and the obvious problem is the supply chain.

In the autumn of 2012, after visiting the traditional clothing brand manufacturers such as Anta, Semir and nine Mu Wang (601566, stock bar), they realized the importance of the optimization of supply chain efficiency. Soon, the number of suppliers for all customers was cut from 200 to 100. Quality suppliers concentrated in three locations in Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Beijing. At the same time, small suppliers with fast speed and low cost were added.

More importantly, the quality of customers will be pre - test, products from the supplier production to the local warehousing, efficiency increased by 50%, only this one will shorten the turnaround time of about five days. At present, the total inventory turnover time of all customers has dropped from less than three months to less than 30 days, reaching 16 days in the fourth quarter of 2012. It is understood that the average inventory turnover time of domestic garment enterprises is 185 days to control the ZARA, known as the speed of the supply chain, and it takes about 15 days to complete a supply chain turnover.

Chen Chi said that the goods in the old warehouse had not been stocked for a year, and now efficiency has improved, making it possible to sell products in batches, purchase goods in batches and quickly turn over the bill.

Hansen, general manager of the century supply chain consulting firm Huang Gang, believes that the effect of supply chain optimization driven by all customers in 2012 is very obvious. After the supply chain is optimized, customers will not face new inventory pressure, and can clean up old stock.

In 2012, customers kept cutting prices to clean up inventory. In December 12th, the "double sales promotion" reached its peak. It was called the "mad dog type sale" by the industry. After that, there were nearly 20 days of "zero profit rush for winter wear", including many sweaters, shirts and "99 yuan rush price" of the "9 yuan rush price". During the promotion period, the daily orders exceeded 1 million orders, the average price of the guests was about 200 yuan, and the single day sales amounted to 200 million yuan. At this time of 2011, the average daily orders per customer were only 130 thousand.

The big promotion not only emptied the inventory of over one year, but also recovered more than ten billion yuan of cash. Chen told reporters: "our cash flow in the fourth quarter is excellent. It's a mess."

But for the industry, 2012 is not a good year, and the apparel industry under the line is in a predicament of stagnation and inventory. In the first half of 2012, 42 listed apparel companies including Anta, XTEP and XTEP were listed. Spin The total inventory of enterprises is as high as 48 billion 300 million yuan. Until the end of last year, Lining was still cleaning up stocks, investing 1 billion 400 million yuan to 1 billion 800 million yuan at a time to offset accounts receivable and repurchase channel inventory.

After a year of management reform, Chen said he suddenly realized that as long as he returned to the common sense of the brand, the common sense of fashion brand management and the balance of scale and profit with inventory turnover efficiency, customers could get rid of the curse of e-commerce and gain both scale and profit.

Old age is moving towards tradition. Brand clothing The transformation of business ideas: effective control of supply chain, establishment of data center, establishment of circular information feedback mechanism, consumption oriented, quantitative production based on data, and ultimately the fastest turnover of inventory. This is also a successful mode of large-scale fashion clothing brands such as UNIQLO, H&M and ZARA.

Chen believes that for a fashion apparel brand, inventory turnover is very important. "Even if there is a good profit, the problem of inventory turnover can not be solved. It is the biggest problem in the clothing industry."

Zhao Yingguang, CEO, told reporters that in the past, the real supply chain of ZARA was mostly Amoy brands. clothes From the order to the return, it only takes ten days to maintain 40 new items per day. The electricity supplier is only one of the tools for channel and closer to user needs. "Although the Internet can create a business miracle, some enterprises are jumping away from the conventional development trajectory to achieve explosive growth, but the basic business rules have not changed."

Chen also admitted that he was learning the ability to quickly turn the brand and the ability to produce new products. At present, the brand positioning has been combed out in the past: fashion, high cost performance and good service. On this basis, the high inventory turnover rate is the first demand, and then according to the characteristics of products, different supply chain management modes are formed.

In January 21st, fan's fashion women's wear channel was on line. The past object of learning is UNIQLO to produce a large number of basic clothing, and the women's wear channel is H&M, ZARA, TOPSHOP and other international fast fashion women's clothing brand: fashion design, quick response, a variety of small amount, customer unit price is also promoted accordingly.

Van guest tried to form a model of UNIQLO +H&M or ZARA. The two mode requires two supply chains. Last year, the structure adjustment of all customers provided the possibility. Chen said, the 12 division is like 12 independent companies, each division has its own production center and suppliers, and draws out different departments and operates two supply chains.

Chen thought he had found a sustainable profit model. This mode will avoid direct competition with big platforms such as Tmall, Jingdong, suning.com and so on. At the same time, the scale of platform promoted by large capital and large volume of cheap traffic can drive its brand volume.

　　 Mode to solve problems

Chen has rarely mentioned his role as an electric supplier. He hopes to pay more attention to the brand.

But a paradox is that, according to the insider, V+ products have been connected to all customers since January this year. Chen tried to connect BELLE's excellent purchase network to V+ platform. Recently, some employees have been transferred to a new project group similar to the "vip.com" mode, which indicates that customers may try to buy merchandise. Such practices are designed to allow customers to realize traffic flow, but also the traditional mode of operation of the electricity supplier.

Cui Xiaoqi, chief operating officer of V+, wrote an email asking the question: what is the value of a customer if so, what is the value of V+?

Are customers still wandering between Amazon mode and their own brand models?

Chen responded by saying that customers will be steadfast in their own brand. V+ is just a supplement to profit. "But it clearly makes money, and I do not spend my energy. There is no need to abandon it in order to maintain the purity of my mode." Chen disclosed that the V+ platform has been profitable for four consecutive months, which surprised him greatly.

On how to solve the problem of mode integration between platform and private brand, Chen believes that he should learn from BELLE, a traditional brand enterprise. BELLE's mode is to develop its own brand plus channel platform. It owns ten independent brands and acts as the more than 10 major international brands, such as Nike, Adidas and new brun.

Its core is to grasp all links from the industrial chain of product design, development, production, marketing, promotion, distribution, retailing and so on. On the basis of fully controlling the supply chain and channels, it grasps the subdivided crowd and extends from its own brand to the platform brand.

But growing up as a BELLE model is not easy. There seems to be too many traditional models for everyone to learn, such as UNIQLO, H&M, ZARA and BELLE. What is the future of every customer?

In addition, customers need to face an equivocal problem: the customer brand positioning at high cost performance, theoretically difficult to further enhance the brand premium. But Chen believes that there is no division of high, medium and low-end brands on the Internet. "People who buy Promotional products will still buy high priced products."

As a result, the problem is coming back again. Who should be locked in the passing of brand connotation? The new year has already begun, but there are still no specific brand plans. He also raised his doubts to reporters: "should I change the spokesperson? They are all grown up, and my users are mostly students."

In the old age, consumers of all customers are young. How much ability do they have to consume fashionable brands like H&M and ZARA?

Shaving off the phantom of e-commerce, returning to brand knowledge and doing business, customers will face the same challenge as traditional brands. Lining and Mts. Bang Wei have adequate supply capacity under the line, but they will be blocked in the brand premium and inventory turnover. This will also be the next problem facing everyone.

This is probably not a question that anyone should consider now. After the six round of financing, it is urgent for all customers to IPO as soon as possible. Under the premise that the profit mode and scale have been found, Chen said that as long as the market environment is allowed, the listing agenda will be launched at any time.