Tencent Invest In Super Shopping Guide In Retail Chessboard And Fall Again

Tencent has another one on the big chessboard of retail.

A few days ago, a number of retail practitioners broke the news that the Tencent had recently invested in a brand name retail digital intelligent operation platform called super guide, and the two sides may still be communicating investment details.

The super shopping guide was established in 2014 to provide terminal system training and management for the retail industry.

According to the official website, the super shopping guide hopes to enable enterprises to achieve headquarters and terminal interoperability, and through staff training, terminal mutual help, intelligence feedback system, to help enterprise headquarters information precipitation and decision-making.

Tencent re layout

A person familiar with the matter said to Tencent that the reason why Tencent chose to invest in super shopping guide is not only to see its terminal shopping guide resources, but also to Tencent's own layout in the retail industry. We hope that we can go deep into the retail industry through super tentacles such as shopping guide.

"Tencent has always wanted to make benchmarking in retail industry, so it is constantly seeking partners to try.

This investment, Tencent may also hope that the super guide to make precise drainage and other cases, at the same time will also provide some resource support, the two sides should be in talks.

These people added.

Prior to that, super shopping guide did not disclose the company's financing situation, the specific amount of this financing has not yet been known.

At present, its cooperative brands include Semir's Barbara children's clothing, nine Mu Wang men's wear, XTEP sports, Emma electric vehicle, Gujing Gong liquor and so on.

It is understood that since the establishment of more than four years, the super shopping guide business operation SaaS platform, to help retail chain enterprises to build a digital and intelligent operation system.

At present, the business of super shopping guide mainly includes two aspects: enterprise operation and staff management.

Among them, enterprise operation, including retail business operation, membership operation, establishment of enterprise decision system, and so on, can help enterprises achieve interoperability between headquarters and terminals.

Staff and shopping guide business is another highlight of super shopping guide.

Through the brand communication with the super shopping guide, the billion power company learned that at present, the super shopping guide mainly provides shopping guide OA training services, and App brings together the functions of online training courses, staff exchange communities and so on.

In an ideal state, employees can complete online learning through games and communities. Enterprises can also directly understand and collect feedback from shopping guides.

In view of Tencent's investment in super shopping guide, the super shopping guide has communicated with each other, but the other party has not yet made a clear reply.

Meanwhile, Tencent said it would not comment on the matter for the time being.

Advanced shopping guide

Shopping guides are like the capillaries that are distributed throughout the physical retail industry. No matter how the brain of the corporate headquarters changes, if it can not be passed to the terminal shopping guide, a better idea is also a "castle in the air".

In the face of rapidly changing industry trends and constantly iterated consumers, how to coordinate internal resources, how to deal with the high wastage rate of shop guide shopping, how to improve the business ability of the first line shopping guide and the use of new tools.

How to digitally precipitate end sales and customer resources has become an unavoidable challenge for enterprises.

With the pformation of physical retail, the Internet giant, which has more powerful traffic and digital capabilities, has entered the field.

Since 2018, the discussion on the pformation of brand guided shopping has sprung up, and the key role in the middle is the nail attached to Ali and the WeChat of Tencent.

At the end of 2017, Ali new retail launched a shopping assistant solution with nails and handlebars, which is mainly aimed at the front-line shop assistants, shopkeepers and supervisors. The purpose is to make the offline, offline shop personnel who are originally loose and unsystematic manage online.

Brands can deposit customers and membership data into stores and establish long-term interactive communication channels.

In June 2018, the nail was officially announced and the hand washing system was fully opened, and the intelligent shopping guide system was launched.

Tmall has also launched two major tools related to shopping guide, iPromoter and iBA.

According to Tmall's official introduction, the main purpose of iPromoter is to "empower shopping guides, from sales attributes to marketing attributes", while iBA products should be promoted through various ways such as positions, tools, etc.

Meanwhile, in January of last year, WeChat began to interoperate with WeChat.

This means that shopping guides can be connected to customers through WeChat, through a series of tools to manage customers, attract potential customers and upgrade repeat customers.

From the point of view of solving the problem, there is not much difference between the logic of WeChat and nails. Both sides are offering office tools outside, trying to deepen the operation level of enterprises, help enterprises to precipitate more terminal data and improve operational efficiency.

But the genes behind the two giants also have their own advantages and disadvantages.

And the hand nail can be helped by the hand shopping scene, closer to the paction and consumers, but slightly worse in fission and social interaction.

WeChat, a company backed by WeChat, has inherent advantages in social fission but is relatively short of pactional genes.

"For the super shopping guide itself, the advantage is still based on the operation and training contents inside the enterprise, and they are also trying to improve their ability in the trading side.

In fact, in a sense, the more powerful content of the super shopping guide and strong trading terminals may be more complementary.

A person familiar with the situation said.

The vision of Tencent CSIG

After getting the investment from Tencent, how to further cooperate with WeChat is worth paying attention.

At the WeChat open class conference at the beginning of this year, when Zhang Xiaolong mentioned enterprise WeChat, he clearly stated: "people are services."

The next direction of enterprise WeChat is to enable every employee to provide services directly, and because of this employee, brands and stores can be more recognized by consumers.

"Zhang Xiaolong refers to" people "is shopping guide, enterprise WeChat next will pay more attention to B terminal and shopping guide.

Super shopping guide has been focusing on online shopping and content training, and the platform accommodates millions of shopping guides.

The future is likely to be embedded in WeChat, or open up to enrich the content of WeChat.

But the two problems are far from the paction. How to solve this problem is a problem they need to face.

A brand leader, who is working with super shopping guide, said.

Super shopping guide has also said that the role of shopping guide is changing. Shopping guide is not only the brand self media position, but also can reach potential customers through friends circle.

Or brand communication channels, which can convey brand value.

"In the past, super shopping guide solved the problem of brand buyers reaching directly from headquarters to the middle level.

Now, the super shopping guide should start building another capability to help guide shopping to achieve 24 hours online sales, so that shopping guides are not only sold in stores, but also can be sold on mobile phones.

This is the next step of super shopping guide. We call it shopping guide.

But it's not easy to go deep into the trading session.

"If we want to achieve distribution through shopping guide, we must first form a closed loop paction, such as shopping guide App and offline POS, order system and small program mall and so on.

At the same time, there are differences between brands and brand stores. How to form a distinction between brand distinction, shopping guide and shopping guide, so that shopping guides and C terminals can continuously generate fission, which are the next step that Tencent and super shopping guide need to solve.

A brand North China market leader pointed out.

It is worth noting that a number of people familiar with the matter revealed that Tencent cloud played an important role in this investment.

At the end of September last year, Tencent's organizational pformation was attributed to Tencent's newly established cloud and intelligent industry group (CSIG, Cloud and Smart Industries Group).

The business group also integrates industry solutions such as Internet +, smart retailing, education, healthcare, safety and LBS.

Tang Daosheng, President of CSIG, said in an interview with the interface news that Tencent wants to integrate different teams and work together to create solutions for the industry.

The demand of TO B is very broad and diverse. Even if Tencent adds all the strength, it may not cover all the needs of customers.

He also stressed that Tencent will introduce a large number of partners, they will provide important module complete solutions, and there will be service partners to help service customers.

TOB is a personalized demand, and the requirements of services are very different from those of TO C. Therefore, ecology is particularly important in this industry.

Billion power understands that in 2017, Tencent had invested in krypton, a consumer service provider, while krypton paid attention to the data assets of its members, and also provided the store with the ability to guide and distribute the store.

The super guide for this Tencent investment is obviously also a partner Tang Daosheng said to provide module solutions and help customers.

In fact, Tencent and Ali have already begun to actively join ISV to join their own ecosystem. Cloud computing vendors need to rely on the collaboration of ISV in vertical subdivision to further take the SaaS layer.

From the long-term vision of CSIG, the Tencent ecosystem needs more "super guide buyers". However, in the market of heroes and competitors, when can the case story become standard and replicable, it deserves more attention and consideration.