Evolutionary Theory Of Community Group Buying: From Multi Business To Differentiated Competition

On July 22, the general office of the Ministry of Commerce and other 11 departments issued the guidelines for the construction of a quarter hour convenient life circle in cities (hereinafter referred to as the Construction Guide). By 2025, a number of urban convenient living circles with reasonable layout, complete business forms, perfect functions, wisdom, convenience, standardization and order, high-quality service and harmonious business and residence will be built by 2025, The satisfaction of residents in the pilot area can reach more than 90%.

Among them, community group buying is undoubtedly the key word to build a quarter hour convenient life circle. The convenience of community group buying also played an important role in Henan flood relief. Meituan selects and buys more vegetables. With the help of its self-help points that sink to the street stores and the leaders who are familiar with the surrounding areas, meituan provides more accurate basic living materials such as rice, noodles and fresh vegetables to the disaster area, which has won rare praise.

At the same time, the form of community e-commerce is still in continuous development. Recently, HEMA launched new business again, positioning more "sinking". On July 17, Hou Yi, President of HEMA business group, officially announced the existence of HEMA neighborhood, saying that HEMA Xiansheng was a structural change of HEMA to retail, while HEMA neighborhood was a new supplement to the traditional structure.

What kind of water spray will HEMA neighborhood arouse in the community e-commerce market? The evolution of community e-commerce has been repeated. It is worth looking forward to the formation of the most matching community e-commerce efficiency mode in accordance with local conditions after continuous development in various formats of competition on the same platform.

Community group buying participating in disaster relief

"I've been the head of the community group buying. It's just a simple thing to do. Now I'm busy distributing goods to customers." Sister Wang, the head of meituan's selection, said simply, but it was not. On July 21, a rainstorm hit Zhengzhou, and the elevator in the community was stopped. The 75 year old Ding and his wife were trapped in their home on the 21st floor.

After hearing the news that the old man was trapped for help, sister Wang set out with her two sons carrying 160 eggs, 24 bottles of water and 4 jin of noodles“ I didn't expect that the whole floor was blackout and there were no lights in the corridor. " Relying on the flashlight light on the mobile phone, sister Wang and they climbed 21 floors to deliver the supplies to Uncle Ding's house.

In view of the shortage of materials during the flood season, meituan optimized and coordinated more than 20000 mission points to join the rescue team.

Residents who need material rescue and community search can search the nearby community group points on meituan app or meituan preferred app, and contact the team leader for help. In particular, citizens who live alone in their homes can contact the head of the team through the platform. The head of the team will help the public to ensure the safety and life of the elderly living alone.

On the same day, meituan also announced that it would open the retail storage materials in Zhengzhou free of charge. The first batch of donated materials included 630000 commodities such as water, rice, flour, grain and oil, fruits and vegetables, covering 12 administrative regions of Zhengzhou.

Coincidentally, pinduoduo's community group buying business buys more vegetables. By opening all the local grid sites in Zhengzhou, such as food, medicine and other emergency materials, it can be used to protect the disaster relief and living needs of the surrounding citizens free of charge.

At present, the food purchasing staff are urgently working with suppliers inside and outside Henan Province to purchase relief and living supplies, and will provide them free of charge through nearly 20000 outlets in the city.

At the same time, pinduoduo's technical team developed the online "emergency relief material feedback portal" as soon as possible to collect the disaster relief needs of the affected areas, and provide information docking and material support. The affected people and relevant social organizations can feed back relevant information through this entrance, and help the affected people to fight against the disaster together.

"Community group buying should be precipitated in the community, combined with localized services, and more supporting convenient services should be launched to serve community residents and accumulate long-term public praise. Go deep into the community neighborhood relationship. " Pan Helin, executive director and professor of Digital Economy Research Institute of Central South University of Finance and law, pointed out in an interview with 21st century economic reporter that, on the other hand, nowadays, community e-commerce is still in the early stage, and there are some signs of excessive price competition. Proper supervision is conducive to its long-term development.

He further explained that there are two key points in monitoring community group buying. One is the quality. Poor food quality and even food safety problems need to be followed up and dealt with in a timely manner, and a logistics tracking system led by digital technology should be established. Second, low price dumping is prohibited. Community group buying can not squeeze the business of city vendors through price dumping. Instead, they should win by service instead of price war.

Since last year, regulatory authorities have paid more and more attention to the community group buying industry. It is also mentioned in the "construction guide" that the standardization and supervision should be strengthened to safeguard the public interest and social stability, the platform enterprises should be urged to undertake the responsibilities of commodity quality and food safety guarantee, the standardized cold storage, cold chain transport vehicles, Traceability Technology, pesticide residue detection and other facilities and equipment should be configured, the management system should be improved, and the "nine prohibitions" of community group buying should be implemented, Maintain the market environment of fair competition online and offline.

However, what can not be ignored is that the Internet platform directly provides the necessary materials for the residents of the community through the mobilization of grid warehouse, supply chain and community group point resources. Meituan also coordinates the head of the team and provides door-to-door distribution services, which greatly demonstrates the value of community group buying in the convenience of the people.

Differentiation is the way out

"In the future, the competition pattern of community e-commerce will become more and more fierce. Giants and emerging community group buying e-commerce have entered this field. However, community e-commerce involves offline scenarios, and also requires unified planning and arrangement on infrastructure. " Panhelin told the 21st century economic reporter, "the final result of homogenization is price competition, so differentiation is the ultimate way out for community group buying."

Recently, HEMA launched a new business form of HEMA Linli, aiming to sink the market. At the same time, Nb division was established. According to HEMA official introduction, the division will take HEMA linli service station as the core product, and make full use of the direct industrial supply chain and four temperature logistics network system established by HEMA in recent years.

Whether it is the Nb (neighbor business) division or the launch of HEMA Linli, all of them are important actions of HEMA to enter the community e-commerce.

As of May 28, the number of HEMA neighborhood stores has reached 100. At present, this scale has expanded to about 400, covering 10 cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Xi'an.

It is true that the new HEMA neighborhood is closer to the community, but it is similar to and different from the common community group buying business on the market. HEMA linli does not have the head of the team, but it is also online orders, offline pick-up every other day, the store does not sell any products, only storage, delivery and pull new functions.

It is worth noting that HEMA neighborhood will share the supply chain with HEMA Xiansheng, and all the SKUs of HEMA cloud over 20000 will be connected to HEMA neighborhood. In this way, while the quality of goods is guaranteed, the expansion of its stores will also be restrained by big stores.

Whether it's HEMA linli or community group buying, or traditional vegetable markets and husband and wife shops, the existence of various formats is to meet the diversified needs of consumers at different levels. The development of community e-commerce should not be a predatory occupation, but an online and offline supplement.

Panhelin further prospected: "differentiation will eventually form ecological community e-commerce. Not only community group buying, but also community logistics and community services will be integrated into the ecology. The core of future community e-commerce competition is ecology. "

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