Vertical Electricity Providers How To Survive

Sitting on the platform Online retailers During the great expansion period, most vertical electric providers seem to be swaying: to be a brand or to be a platform? But when Taobao, Jingdong, suning.com and other platforms continue to clamour for war, it also means the opportunity of vertical electric providers. The focus is on how to join the revellers with their own advantages.

Compared with our familiar platform, Tmall, Jingdong, Taobao and Dangdang, the vertical electric business is a kind of e-commerce mode that is deeply operated in a certain industry or market segment. Its advantage lies in providing products and services that meet the needs of specific consumers more attentive and professionally, so as to satisfy users' habits in specific areas.

At present, Mcglaughlin, who was once listed on the NASDAQ as a "aura of China's B2C first share", has gradually withered. In August 2013, it came to the news that the domestic electricity supplier was backdoor listing on sale in 2010. In addition, the highly anticipated customer service company is also experiencing the biggest crisis since it broke out. In the past, from 2012, Marceau, red boy, poly net, excellent vegetable net, to the early 2013, hot customers, cool sports and so on, a group of fallen vertical electric business brands fade out of the circle, all kinds of signs that many people can not see the way out for vertical electric business. However, in fact, the death of the vertical electricity supplier will eventually disappear with the advent of the new year. Dawn will also be on the road of growth.

This winter is everybody's winter.

In the past year, the so-called "Chaoyang" industry has not been well developed. Most of the brands experiencing rapid growth have begun to face various problems. Internal adjustment, capital fragmentation and transformation difficulties all show that the winter of this industry has long arrived.

In fact, as early as 2012, clothing The high inventory problem of the industry has laid the foreshadowing for this industry's e-commerce platform. Look at the past and now struggling vertical electric business brand, mostly to operate. Clothes & Accessories Commodity oriented: Masa Marceau, who always takes the high-end image as its own, frequently offers promotional discounts. In March 2013, jumei.com and Lok bee networks in the cosmetics industry each produced tit for tat advertising slogans. The United States spent more than a year on advertising budgets, but after that, the two sides also stopped. Fresh electric business is no exception. Once known as the "blue ocean" market in the field of electric business, it has also formed a ten pattern of battle. The bottlenecks of each state are highlighted. WAL-MART's No. 1 store needs to wait for the opportunity to make waves again.

Tmall's double eleven and Taobao's two dozen times have been successful. The war between Beijing and Suzhou has been rampant, and many PE have begun to waver. They can no longer hope for the vertical brands of electric power as before. For many vertical electric providers who burn money, they will have to declare bankruptcy or resale after lack of financial support.

From 12 to 13 years, the cold wind of the whole winter night is blowing the electricity supplier industry. But if winter comes, can spring be far behind?

The end is also the starting point.

2013 is a year of rapid expansion of the platform business. The sales volume of Tmall double eleven was 35 billion yuan on the same day. At the same time, many vertical electric providers also did well in the battle by differential competition. Its sales volume increased by 4-6 times in Jingdong, shop 1, Amazon, Dangdang, and so on. The sales volume of the online shop of the platform electricity supplier increased by more than 500 thousand times. The sales volume of the official website of Le bee network reached a minimum of 3 million yuan per hour, compared with that of 2012. The combination of the weekly public sale with Tmall double eleven, ranked the first place in the brand list with the sales of 541 million yuan; the automobile home accumulated a total of 17776 cars on the same day, and the order amount was 2 billion 643 million yuan; on the same day, the cumulative number of cars on the easy drive network was booked for more than eleven yuan, and the order amount exceeded the yuan. During the double eleven period, the order volume of excellent purchase network increased by 4 times, and the conversion rate also increased by 4.

On the other hand, in October 25, 2013, the "Dehua mall" officially settled in Dehua County e-commerce Pioneer Park, which plans to vigorously seize the domestic market under the help of a strong electronic business platform. In November 9th, YOHO! President of goods, from laughing, announced that he had another way to divide the electricity supplier. In November 11th, the jewellery vertical e-commerce platform "East Mabel mall" was formally launched, indicating that the jewelry industry had a new vertical mode.

In any case, the end point can become a new starting point. The electricity supplier team is constantly changing.

Vertical electricity providers first have a vertical "mentality".

Many vertical electric providers have concluded that it is time to spend money on users and buy traffic. Compared with Tmall and Jingdong, there is not enough money, traffic is not enough, and users are not enough. These views seem reasonable, but in fact they are not. For a platform electricity supplier, traffic is really important, because the consumer of the platform electricity supplier has a low repeat consumption rate, which is absolutely fatal. The vertical electricity supplier is to focus on a niche, to meet specific needs, repeat purchase rate is not a problem, vertical electricity supplier competitive competition is precise differentiation positioning, always thinking of doing big and full platform electricity supplier is absolutely willing to stop at the bottom.

It is important to strive for more traffic, but at the same time, the value of communication from an affordable customer is unlimited. The beauty and the development of mogujie.com platforms are enough to explain the importance of the value of existing customers. What vertical electricity providers want to do is not only to let consumers repeat their purchases, but also to spread their brands and word-of-mouth to attract more new customers through their high-quality shopping experience. This is the best choice for free access to high-quality users. Vertical electric providers want to be stable and deep, they must change from traffic mode to service mode.

Why can Jingdong, Dangdang and Amazon succeed in transforming into integrated platforms? In the era of electricity generation, these brands have been making efforts to serve and accumulate stable users. Both in quantity and quality, they have enough customers to support their excessive transformation, timing and financial support are the two major contributions to their successful transformation. In addition, in the face of cross industry problems such as inventory, logistics and supply chain, the three groups first set up the management team of this category, then excavate talents from traditional enterprises and pursue steady development.

According to statistics, in the top ten electricity suppliers in the United States, only one platform business enterprise, the other nine are vertical retailers after the transformation of traditional retailers. Fanatics is an online e-commerce retail companies that sells the official licensed products of sports industry in the United States. After accepting the injection of Ali group, the company has become the largest franchised product supplier in the United States, and its revenue in 2013 is expected to reach US $1 billion.

As a vertical electricity supplier, the most fundamental thing is to clarify its position, from product strategy, brand strategy to promotion strategy. Only when the mentality is vertical, can the road go smoothly.

　 From addition to subtraction

Transformation from traffic mode to service mode, from scale expansion to fine operation, product line transformation is the first to bear the brunt. The development of electricity providers to the present stage, consumer choice is no longer tending to price leadership, but rather to take into account product quality and brand, which is very consistent with the nature of vertical electricity supplier. The rapid expansion has made the fans once lost. Until the beginning of the "millet transformation" in June 2013, customers once again decided the direction: restarting their efforts to study products, streamlining product lines, concentrating on limited core categories, and finally establishing T-shirts, shirts, trousers and canvas. shoes There are seven or eight limited categories: ultra lightweight down coats, POLO shirts and so on.

The reduction and specialization of product lines will be able to meet the needs of users on the differentiation of products. After that, we must strictly control the quality of upstream supply. At present, minimizing the supply chain as far as possible is a more effective way to ensure stable supply quality. For vertical electric providers, especially for the non standardized products such as clothing, the electricity supplier, controlling sales volume and ordering and maximizing the management advantages of suppliers is also a very important part of subtraction. By reducing and controlling the product's listing cycle and controlling the quantity of products, the optimal control of material cost and inventory transportation cost can be achieved.

　 Hard work, deep tillage downstream

The expansion will inevitably bring about an increase in operating costs. It is reported that there were more than 10000 people in the peak of 2011, the rental cost reached 6 yuan per square meter, and Marceau has always had a high marketing cost, accounting for almost 50% of the total sales. The vertical electricity supplier's operating cost should be controlled at least within 25%, in order to ensure its late profits. High operating costs consume fixed capital, and team bloated will inevitably lead to slow operation.

For all electric providers, how to reduce the delivery cost and reduce the cost from all orders to consumer acceptance confirmation is the core of the whole downstream work. The cost saved by these links is entirely the net profit of the enterprise. The cost of delivery mainly includes related warehousing, logistics, customer service and after-sale costs. The establishment of warehouses and distribution of goods are to be accurately calculated and allocated so as to achieve the best purpose of saving logistics costs. All of these are determined according to the coverage of existing districts and regional growth. So the establishment of intelligent systems and the handling of information are particularly important. Amazon's cloud processing system enables it to make effective use of warehousing and logistics, and to dilute the cost of warehousing and logistics systems. On the other hand, the part that can be quickly started is the product's page presentation, very careful product description and full and effective evaluation content, which can reduce the number of customer service staff and reduce the return rate of customers.

The ultimate experience of differentiation

　　 Vertical electricity supplier The first is the vertical supply chain, followed by the vertical category, but the most important thing is the vertical aspect of customer service experience. The differentiation of vertical electricity providers should not only differentiate products and brands, but also differentiate them from user experience. Terminal consumer experience is the most recent part of customers, and it is also the most fundamental presentation of all vertical electric providers' work. The standard of measuring user experience is the quality of word of mouth and the effect of the two communication.

Picture clarity, font combination, page layout, text description, etc., we can think of a lot about user experience. For the electricity supplier, the user experience can be divided into two parts. The front-end mainly includes access speed, page beauty, product recommendation, search convenience, shopping process security and so on. The back-end is mainly the efficient distribution, refund and convenience, customer service reflects quickly. The promotion of these two parts can be divided into two dimensions, one is the rational dimension considered from the basic needs level, the other is the convenient shopping experience for consumers. The two is the perceptual dimension considered from the spiritual needs level, while satisfying the consumer's sense of security and belonging, appropriately adding some emotional guidance factors can help solve many problems before and after sales.

It is worth noting that, in comparison with other comparisons, we can not ignore the differentiated design of user experience at the same time, which is the core of cultivating fans. "365 days without demolition and replacement", "one day, four delivery", "overdue no reason to refund" are all the special services of the existing electricity suppliers. There are too many things to be explored in user experience. As long as the breadth and depth of circulation is continuously enhanced, every experience user has the opportunity to become a loyal fan of his own.