Wen | Yang Qian
Editor| Mao Shiyang
The community group purchase is cold, and the head of the group commission is reduced
Between the ups and downs of the community group buying, the group leaders felt the earth-shaking changes in the community group buying and experienced a "double heaven of ice and fire".
When the community group buying platform grabbed the head of the group, Henan Xingsheng preferred to recruit the "group leader" with a commission of 10% to 15%, and told the leaders of the participating platform that "they can earn more than 5,000 yuan per month", which is a very competitive salary in many places in Henan.
Zhang Zhi, the head of the group buying platform who joined the community group buying platform at the end of 2020, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the initial commission given by the platform was 10% of sales, and sometimes there were other subsidy activities, and the sales of 1,000 yuan were rewarded with an additional reward of 50 yuan.
But the subsidy war around the regimental commander lasted less than 2 months, and Zhang Zhi said that the commission was reduced from 10% to about 7%, and the reward for the activity was also reduced.
The money-burning war in 2020 lasted for a long time, and by 2021, subsidies in the community group buying industry also tended to be flat. But in some areas, there is still a dark competition between platforms.
In January 2021, Yang Yangyang, the owner of a community supermarket in Langfang Dachang, had just taken over a supermarket, and he told the "Finance and Economics World" weekly that the previous two people could not make money in partnership, and finally they were unwilling to do it. He paid a transfer fee of 30,000 yuan and took over the business of power equipment, community group purchase and cooperative express delivery.
"When I first took over, the community group purchase was also quite wonderful, the rewards were more and less, the US group was commissioned according to 10%, and the first few days were purchased by community acquaintances." Yangyang said that not long after the dry, due to various force majeure, "Meituan, Duoduo, and Jingdong all stopped selling." ”
According to his understanding, that period of Wumei also joined in, Wumart with more points to deliver goods, but the category is small, the price is high, and after the Meituan and Duoduo resume delivery, Wumei will not have many people to place orders, "Finally Wumei docked with our group also closed." ”
(Courtesy of the interviewee)
Another community group buying platform, Orange Heart Preferred, he has only been doing it for half a year. "When Orange Heart preferred to enter our precinct, the first month of earning money, followed by 'playing soy sauce'. After the reward shrank, the regiment leader was also reluctant to promote it, and after half a year of doing orange hearts, he gave up." In his impression, in the summer of 2021, Orange Heart Preferred had stopped for half a month, and suppliers were not willing to do it.
This money-burning war seems to have begun to show a stable pattern from the second half of 2021. According to media statistics, after the fall of the old players, the community group buying platform has formed the first echelon of meituan selection and more food purchases, with a market share of more than 30%; the second echelon is Taocai, Xingsheng Preferred, and Jingxi Spelling.
Since Yangyang participated in the community group buying, he also found that since the second half of last year, his platform has only left three in Jingdong District, Duoduo, and Meituan. Among them, the competition between Meituan Preferred and Duoduoduo is particularly fierce.
In August 2021, among the platforms participated in by Yangyang, the commission income of Duoduoduo was only 77 yuan, the commission income of Meituan Preferred was only 60 yuan, and the purchase of Jingdong District was 80 yuan. By October, Tao Cai Cai was in his nearby area of Kaicheng, but it did not set off a storm.
Until January 2022, due to many force majeure, the warehouse in Tianjin was affected and the warehouse was replaced.
"During that time, the group that bought more vegetables was cut off at 9 p.m., resulting in many users who placed orders from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. to be very unaccustomed." Yang Yang told the "Finance and Economics World" weekly that it was also at this time that the number of orders preferred by the US group exceeded that of Duoduo. The commission brought by Meituan Preferred is sometimes more than 2 times that of Duoduoduo, and after the Jingdong District District Purchase was renamed Jingxi Spelling, the single amount gradually declined, and the commission was less than 100 yuan.
Yangyang lamented that for a small supermarket, the monthly commission of the group purchase platform can be maintained at about 5,000 yuan, plus express delivery and delivery, supermarket sales, and a monthly income of 10,000 yuan is still OK. "You can't earn big money, you can only make small money to make a living."
His Langfang dachang is only a corner of the community group buying platform war, and the entire industry has gradually emerged since 2021.
(Source: Visual China)
Community group buying suppliers to collect debts from "disappearing" companies
The earliest "old three groups" either disappeared or fell silent, leaving behind a bunch of "debt collection" suppliers.
Tongcheng Life and Food Sharing Club have closed down one after another, and the Ten Hui Group has recently fallen into the storm of layoffs and debts.
According to media reports, the office of the Beijing headquarters of the Shihui Regiment has been emptied, and even the office building of the headquarters in Changsha is empty. Beijing's security guards are also receiving dozens of suppliers who come to collect debts every day, with debts ranging from millions to tens of thousands. Even the money of the security company, the Ten Hui Group could not afford to pay.
The collapse of the Ten Clusters also seems to have foreshadowed. Around August 2021, the Shihui Group began a large-scale withdrawal and layoffs, shutting down the business of 21 urban circles across the country in one go.
During that time, Lao Liu, the supplier of Shihui Tuan Shanghai, sensed that the company's development encountered difficulties, when the business of Shihui Tuan in many regions of China was "withdrawn", and the business in Guangdong, Fujian, Shanghai and other regions was shut down one after another, and only Jinan was left in Shandong Area. But the company gave Lao Liu a reassurance on the grounds that "the strategic retreat is to find a better direction".
Until the beginning of December last year, Lao Liu's arrears of payment had accumulated to 160,000 yuan. By the end of December, as far as he knew, there were only 5 people left in Hangzhou, and every week the Beijing headquarters financial appropriations were allocated to remit remittances to suppliers in batches, and they could only apply for a withdrawal once a week, and the maximum amount of one was not more than 10,000 yuan. For Lao Liu, it will take at least half a year to put it all forward, and he may not be able to get the money.
Near the end of the year, suppliers had to go to the door to collect debts, approaching the Beijing headquarters, and even some suppliers directly found investors, drove to the Hangzhou Ali headquarters, played double flash, and drove banners around the company in a circle.
Until January 25, 2022, a "one-time settlement plan form" was circulating in the debt collection group of the Ten Hui Group. The company proposed a 30% discount solution for suppliers to settle the arrears of goods on the grounds of "limited funds and uncertainty of subsequent funds", and the final deadline was before February 10. If there are still unsettled merchants after February 10, the company will implement a 20% discount plan. The Ten Clubs advised suppliers to try to solve the problem before this date, "the further back the solution, the lower the benefits of suppliers".
With Only a few days to go until Feb. 10, suppliers don't know if they should sign.
The withdrawal of the Food Sharing Club appeared to be more "low-key". In July 2021, the headquarters of the Food Sharing Club has been empty, and the official website and mini program cannot be opened. When the outside world speculated about its closure, the founder came out to respond that "The Food Sharing Club is transformed", and the new business after the transformation is "Love Snacks", positioned as a community snack convenience store.
But the bitter thing is a group of suppliers who have not yet received the payment. On January 14, 2022, a supplier posted a message in its circle of friends asking "who has the contact information for the food club". It is understood that the food sharing association still owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment has not been settled, and so far it has not been able to find relevant people to dock this matter.
The supplier told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that since 2019, he has cooperated with community group buying such as Food Sharing Club and City Life to provide all categories of supply. "When I first joined, everyone thought I was in MLM, but I was one of the most supplied suppliers." He said proudly.
At the beginning of 2020, the platform supplied by the above suppliers can still give him 7 points of net profit. However, under the industry's internal volume, by August 2021, "the cost of performance is too high, and only 2 points of net profit can be obtained."
According to his understanding, he has accumulated losses of nearly 3 million yuan in the same journey life and food sharing meeting.
The "Old Three Regiments" are still struggling with only prosperity and preference. Although Xingsheng Preferred received 3 financings in 2021, in the face of the fall of two old players, Xingsheng Preferred is also somewhat anxious.
Recently, xingsheng preferred mini program has added a clothing column to the category, and launched a large number of women's clothing styles, covering young users to middle-aged groups. In fact, the Tianyancha APP shows that as early as November 2021, Xingsheng Preferred took a stake in Hunan Enyi E-commerce Co., Ltd., with a shareholding ratio of 40%. The company was only established in October 2021, and its business scope includes clothing production and sales related businesses.
This is also a new initiative launched after the strategic contraction of Xingsheng Preferred. Following the second half of 2021, Xingsheng Preferred has seriously declined in daily orders in Shandong, Shaanxi and other places, and Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and other places have also encountered "water and soil dissatisfaction", Xingsheng Preferred has suspended its plans to pull new and expand, and returned to Hunan and Hubei.
A number of suppliers interviewed by the "Finance world" weekly said that they had previously stepped on a number of community group purchases, and the payment could not be recovered, and they did not dare to join other platforms. At present, they insist on supplying only a few platforms such as Meituan Preferred and Duoduoduo.
Community group buying "roller coaster" development
A user described the changes in community group buying in this way: "The rise and fall, the orange heart has fallen, more and less, the US group is ugly, and the ten groups cannot open the group." ”
Looking back at 2020, community group buying ushered in an outbreak, and after the Internet manufacturers joined, the track was extremely lively.
In June 2020, Didi's community group buying platform "Orange Heart Preferred" was launched; in July, Meituan launched the "Meituan Preferred" business; in August, Pinduoduo's "Duoduo Buy Vegetables" business was launched, and Hema set up Hema Preferred Business Department; in October, Suning Vegetable Farm's community group buying platform was launched in Beijing. In November, Didi did not set a ceiling on community group buying, hoping to win the first place in the market.
In addition to new players, the "old three regiments" have also received the support of giants. The Ten Hui Group got the financing of Ali, and Xingsheng Preferred received investment from JD.com and Tencent; behind Tongcheng Life stood Yuanhe Capital and Xianghe Capital.
Enterprise investigation data also shows that between January and May 2021, the total amount of financing in the community group buying industry exceeded 26.2 billion yuan, exceeding the 17.17 billion yuan in 2020.
However, the way the Internet giants enter the game is simple and rude, heavy money into the market, the business logic of the entire community group buying has begun to become disordered, and soon the community group buying platforms have to join the inner volume.
Under the "1 cent to buy eggs" and "1 yuan to buy a carton of milk", the Internet also set off a battle for the leader of the group in Changsha, the "Heart of the Universe" of community group purchase. By December 2020, the number of Meituan preferred orders exceeded 20 million singles/day, and the number of orange heart preferred exceeded 10 million singles/day. At the same time, for the fierce competition of the Internet on the track, the old three groups can not sit still.
At this time, the industry also caused dissatisfaction among suppliers, and the "notice on prohibiting the supply of suppliers to the community group purchase platform" flowed out, and the community group purchase was boycotted by suppliers, and the supply interruption storm broke out. In December 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation intervened and proposed the "nine no's" to regulate the business behavior of Internet platforms in community group buying.
In March 2021, due to improper price behavior such as low-price dumping, the State Administration for Market Regulation imposed administrative penalties on five community group buying enterprises, including Orange Heart Preferred, Duoduo Buy, Meituan Preferred, Shihui Group, and Food Sharing Club, with a total fine of 6.5 million yuan.
In May 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation fined Shihui Tuan another 1.5 million yuan; in June, Meituan and other platforms once again received rectification requirements, of which Meituan's "penny second sale" goods were required to be removed from the shelves, and other platforms asked to continue to tighten subsidies; in September, the State Administration for Market Regulation once again raised a strict investigation and punishment of low-price dumping, price fraud and other illegal acts in the field of community group buying.
Under the further tightening of supervision, the community group buying platform began to converge. However, the sudden escalation of the war has made it too late to replenish the life and food enjoyment of the same journey. Before the two old players were out, they had told the outside world that it was the intervention of the giants that blocked their way forward.
Some insiders said that the founding team of the community group purchase project was first based on the traffic monetization of WeChat business and WeChat circle of friends, with the purpose of making a profit. But after capital intervened, the founding team began to cater to the rules of the game of capital, financing for the sake of financing, without considering how the project could take root in the consumer market and profit model. Transaction data has become one of the goals of capital assessment, and it has also become a means for these people to continuously fight for market share by subsidies, but they ignore key factors such as supply chain warehousing and logistics, quality control and traceability, and closed-loop management of procurement and sales.
By the second half of 2021, the entire industry has begun to calm down, from excessive pursuit of GMV (total commodity trading) to the pursuit of profits and moderate pursuit of scale. Jingxi Spelling also began to shrink strategically, and Orange Heart Preferred retreated most of the area until December 21, Orange Heart Preferred was officially removed from the Didi Chuxing APP, and the original "Orange Heart Preferred" entrance in the life column of all services has been removed.
In the chaotic war of community group buying, capital has also begun to slow down and hold a wait-and-see state. According to enterprise investigation data, in the first five months of 2021, there were only 8 financings related to community group buying, and after two financings in July, there were no financing incidents in community group buying during the year.
Nowadays, the tide of capital is receding, and the community group buying platforms have begun to think calmly about their own business models, and the leaders and suppliers who were competed for by the major community group buying platforms in the past can only find their own way out.
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.