"Ice And Fire" Of Community Group Buying: How Far Can The Giant Enter The Blue Ocean Market And Seize The Offline Share With Low Price?

At 9:50 a.m. on December 13, Aunt Wang tasted her first order on the "Duoduo shopping" platform under pinduoduo.

"I bought a catty of tomatoes, a catty of carrots, two catties of potatoes and half a catty of mushrooms, which cost 8.26 yuan." "It's really cheap," Wang sighed to the 21st century economic reporter

Aunt Wang, who lives in a fourth tier city in Hubei Province, used to choose local supermarkets or vegetable markets. However, recently, she suddenly found that more and more people use "buy more vegetables" and "meituan preferred" to buy community group buying. "Many friends sent me their shopping links and recommended them to me."

Nevertheless, Aunt Wang is not "cold" about this new thing. According to his description, after placing an order for more vegetables, he needs to wait for the goods to be ready (often the next day) and go to the pick-up point near home. For example, the order she placed on December 13 had to wait until 4 p.m. on the 14th.

After experiencing the "community closure" of the new epidemic at the beginning of this year, she felt that this was similar to the form of shopping by community under the epidemic situation. However, after the emergency period of the epidemic, such a mode was not very attractive to her. "Since I want to go out, why don't I go to the local food market and supermarket to buy vegetables? If you buy it now, you can see and touch it. " Said Aunt Wang.

Of course, there are also users who are interested in it, otherwise the fire of community group buying will not burn until the last month of 2020. On the evening of December 11, Jingdong group announced its strategic investment of US $700 million, and restructured Jingxi business group to compete for community group purchase. Before Jingdong, technology enterprises such as meituan, pinduoduo and didi have entered the track in a fancy way, and many giants even positioned it as the strategic development direction of enterprises.

Is it a new air outlet or a chicken feather? Is it the "barbarian" at the door of offline vendors or the transformation direction of fresh retail in the future? Standing at the crossroads of the current maze, every step of the community group buying will affect its final fate.

Community group purchase should improve the circulation efficiency and solve the problem of inefficient production and waste of resources on the supply side. Visual China

Magnate's enthusiasm

With the booming of Jingdong's strategic investment, group buying in community has become more and more popular.

In fact, this year's capital to the favor of community group buying is obvious. According to the statistics of the 21st century economic report, in 2020, more than 10 times of financing have taken place in China's community group buying and fresh e-commerce, with a total amount of 10 billion yuan. Among them, 10 Hui group has been invested four times this year, with a total financing of 445.7 million US dollars. The investors include Alibaba, Zhenge fund, Qiming venture capital, etc.

Taking into account the latest one, Xingsheng has been invested twice this year. The last round of C + financing was launched in July with investors including Tencent, KKR and Sequoia Capital, with an amount of US $800 million. After the investment of 700 million US dollars, Xingsheng has become the "king of financing" for this year's community group buying with a total financing amount of 1.5 billion US dollars.

The difference with previous years is that, behind the completion of a new round of financing by the head companies of traditional community group buying, Alibaba, Tencent, Jingdong and other giants began to appear. At the same time, meituan, pinduoduo and even Didi, who did not specialize in selling goods in the past, are also building their own community group buying business.

According to the 21st century economic report, in June this year, Didi's "orange heart optimization" was launched; in July, meituan set up the optimization business department and launched its app; on September 1, pinduoduo's "buy more vegetables" went online, and in the same month, Ali announced the establishment of HEMA optimization division. In October, meituan set the community group purchase as a first-class strategic project, and didi founder Cheng Wei boasted that "there is no upper limit on investment" in this track.

The reason why new and old players are so keen on community group buying is that they see the blue ocean market behind them. Li Yongjian, director of the E-commerce Research Office of the Institute of financial strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the 21st century economic reporter that community group buying has its unique advantages in terms of focusing on the emerging flow of people in the sinking market, fresh products with low penetration rate of long-term e-commerce, and high-frequency and rigid demand scenarios.

"Group buying in communities is fresh products, which is high-frequency consumption. The industry estimates that the frequency of regular customers in a single month can reach more than 6-8 times, or even higher." Zhao Gang, vice president of liangpin shop, told the 21st century economic reporter. In contrast, the average frequency of shopping in the convenience store of the community is 5-6 times a month, and the frequency of "group buying in the community" is higher than that of going to the store

Data can tell everything. According to questmobile's wechat applet report, the monthly live user scale of Xingsheng optimization in September 2020 is 32.045 million, which is close to the level of 42.77 million vipshop. By comparison, Wal Mart and famo app had 17.73 million and 16.49 million monthly lives, respectively.

Zhao Gang said that community group buying is seizing the main decision makers of household consumption. In the future, after cultivating the consumption habits of users, group buying in the community may transfer the medium and low frequency consumption to sites. And this is the important reason why the giants are anxious and running into the arena.

Whose "leader economy"

The reason why this year's community group buying fire is related to the catalysis of Xinguan epidemic. It is no wonder that Aunt Wang once tasted fresh food, the first time she thought back to the scene when the epidemic community was closed at the beginning of the year.

"At that time, we couldn't go out. The vegetable markets and supermarkets were closed. Then there were various wechat groups with communities as the unit, and local supermarkets were responsible for the supply. When I need to buy vegetables, I will place orders in the group "The next day, there will be delivery personnel to deliver the food to the community, even to the door," Wang recalled

The "play" of community group buying is similar to this. It takes the community as the unit, carries on the group purchase sale with the help of the Internet, and takes delivery in the community. Usually, the group buying in the community will recruit team leaders and be responsible for the group buying of residents in the community, including but not limited to the establishment of wechat group, product promotion, tally at the receiving point, and after-sales service.

Because of such a special playing method and the super high supply chain complexity category of fresh food, e-commerce retail enterprises do not have an overwhelming absolute advantage. Li Yongjian pointed out to the 21st century economic reporter that the community group buying tests not only the supply chain ability itself, but also the platform's management ability to the "team leader".

"The key to the success of community group buying lies in the 'community leaders', who are the people closest to consumers and the people most trusted by consumers," Qiu Qiong, vice president of the Research Institute of China international e-commerce center, analyzed in an interview with the 21st century economic report, "no matter which e-commerce platform enters the community group buying, it needs to cultivate and maintain the" community leaders " ’To study the interests of the community, meet the needs of the community, build community trust, and continuously maintain and meet the interests of each consumer. "

However, this "leader economy" is by no means confined to "Gang building". Qiu Qiong stressed that community group buying is only a new mode of community marketing. No matter what kind of community is established, it is essential to keep in line with the interests of consumers, deepen the supply chain, and do a good job in quality and service.

Therefore, in Li Yongjian's view, the current major enterprises have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, although Jingdong has a strong supply chain management capability, it needs to strengthen its ability to manage the team leader; on the contrary, Didi has accumulated a lot of experience in the management of team leaders in the past, but the supply chain capability may become its weakness.

Where is the border?

Whose "head of the economy" has not been decided yet, but the anxious giant running into the arena has used his usual Assassin's mace: 1 cent for a box of eggs, 9 cents for a cabbage Through the loss of subsidies to win customers, price sensitive users are very popular.

On the one hand, the enthusiasm of the giants continues to rise; on the other hand, community group buying is also facing many disputes. Recently, due to a large number of serious low price phenomenon in community group purchase platform, Cangzhou Huahai Shunda grain and oil seasoning Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huahai Shunda") issued "notice on forbidding supply to community group purchase platform suppliers"; Luohe Weilong Trading Co., Ltd. also issued a similar notice.

Although community group buying focuses on fresh products, the attitude of these FMCG brands is worth pondering. "We will try on a small scale to maintain our experience in emerging channels, but the core business channel of liangpin store is still more than 2500 self owned stores in China, as well as the official flagship stores of major e-commerce platforms." Zhao Gang told the 21st century economic reporter.

"Low price subsidies are a common way for giants to seize market share. When the layout of emerging business forms, the giant uses high subsidies to obtain users, and it is inevitable to squeeze the traditional channels. " Li Yongjian said frankly to the 21st century economic reporter.

However, is it necessary for group buying in communities to become barbarians and occupy the living space of offline businesses and even husband and wife shops through low prices? The answer is clearly no. Recently, Nanjing Market Supervision Bureau issued the notification on compliance operation of e-commerce "dish community group purchase", which standardizes the operation of e-commerce platform, the responsibility of "team leader" of group buying group, and the standard of imported cold chain food.

Among them, the "notice" clearly requires that the platform shall not make up for out of stock, rush to purchase or offer preferential treatment, and shall not deceive and mislead consumers with false or misleading information.

Some people in the industry pointed out that the current community group buying has authenticity. "Fake community group buying" is to use fresh food as the flow entrance, to hit the low frequency with high frequency, not to touch the supply chain, nor to really solve the efficiency. "Enterprises without real efficiency solution will not be sustainable in the end, and will die of vicious competition or regulatory pressure."

In other words, the problems that Aunt Wang is puzzled about will inevitably expose the mode problems after the low price strategy retreats and the platform's attraction to users weakens. However, the "vegetable basket project" which is closely related to social stability, people's livelihood and agriculture, if it falls back to the ground like a "shared bicycle", it will lead to the decline of offline business, and its closing cost is incalculable.

The real community group buying should start from improving circulation efficiency, digesting inventory, reducing circulation cost, enabling socialized sales and transportation capacity through informatization, and solve the current situation of long supply, low efficiency and waste of resources on the supply side.

"The" low price "phenomenon of community group buying is only one side of community interests. As time goes on, consumers gradually become rational. Relying on" low price "can not fully meet the interests of every consumer," Qiu Qiong believes, "in the future, with the adjustment of community interests, group buying platforms will gradually establish" entry rules "consistent with consumers' interests."

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