Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Xu Xiaoqian
Image source: Visual China
The community group buying track, which has been low-key for a long time, finally has a new dynamic.
Recently, the news that more vegetables are going to be express delivered has spread in the express circle. Duoduo buys vegetables and claims that it has signed cooperation agreements with express delivery companies such as Zhongtong, Yuantong, Shentong, Yunda, Post, Jitu, and Bestway, to open up the signing system and launch high subsidies to attract collection points to settle in.
This move means that more vegetables are bought and openly played against the rookie station. According to times finance, the person in charge of the rookie station has received a notice, "with more systems into the warehouse, it will face permanent withdrawal." Times Finance found that after the blind expansion was frustrated, the major community group buying platforms have reached a fork in the road. Some have quietly fallen in the competition, and the players who have stood firm in the top three have a new abacus.
Buy more vegetables to make a station, and grab the rookie rice bowl?
Entering the express delivery track, buying more vegetables continues to use the old way of high subsidies. Times Finance found that duoduoduoduoduo has launched strong publicity on social platforms such as douyin, Tieba and forums, recruiting stations to settle in, and has a unified name: "Duoduo station".
According to the introduction of duoduo station business promotion personnel, if the express delivery outlet or station chooses to join the duoduoduo grocery collection point, it can enjoy four major subsidies, including 3,000 yuan settlement subsidy, daily package subsidy of up to 500 yuan, free SMS and intelligent voice notification, PDA and printer. For the settlement platform, the prerequisite for applying to join the Duoduo Station collection point is that it must become a group purchase site in the Duoduo shopping community.
Subsidy rules of Duoduo Station Image source: Douyin screenshot
Buy more vegetables to enter the express delivery industry, and the veteran player Rookie Station can't sit still. Li Ji, the owner of Jiangsu Cainiao Station, told Times Finance that in the past two days, Cainiao officials will check whether there are outlets connected to the system of other stations. Another person in charge of Henan Cainiao Station revealed to Times Finance that the station system has given a hint that if it is found that it is stored with more than one system, it will face permanent withdrawal.
In response to the strong subsidies of Duoduo Station, Li Ji is not without his heart, as the dividend period of the rookie station franchise fades, he also wants to rely on the new platform to harvest the subsidies in the early stage of development. "There are more and more rules for rookies, such as requiring home delivery and strict management of outbound items, and if there is a mistake, you will face fines."
However, Li Ji's biggest concern is that entering other platforms will affect the total number of orders. Under normal circumstances, the number of rookie stations he runs can reach 1,000 orders per day, and 1,700 orders can be reached during the e-commerce promotion period, which is far greater than the 800 orders of the highest reward subsidy threshold given by Duoduoduo, if you choose Duoduo Station aggressively, you may "pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelon".
The webmaster who has access to the multi-food collection service point has given feedback to Times Finance that since the trial operation, the number of express mail at the station is not much, and "two hours can sort out the amount of one day's storage".
"Fortunately, I ran fast and would never enter the community group buying again"
The new action of buying more vegetables is the performance of community group buying players seeking new growth points. In June last year, major platforms received rectification requirements, among which Meituan's "penny spike" goods were required to be removed from the shelves, and other platforms had to shrink subsidies.
This triggered a series of chain reactions: including a decline in the volume of platform orders, a decrease in the revenue of grid operators, and a crisis of trust in the platform by suppliers.
The first actively adjusted orange heart is preferred. Affected by the company's main business, Orange Heart Preferred fell into passivity in the top three competitions of community group buying not long after Didi was punished.
In September last year, Orange Heart Preferred's service scope was greatly reduced, reducing the previous nine regions to three regions. From the latest financial report released by Didi, the embarrassment of Orange Heart Preferred can also be perceived. In the third quarter of 2021, Didi's revenue data fell sharply, with a net loss of 30.6 billion yuan in the third quarter, of which the loss of Orange Heart Preferred reached 20.8 billion yuan.
Earlier, Orange Heart Preferred was once a business that Didi had high hopes for. According to Didi's prospectus, Orange Heart's future plan is independent financing and independent listing.
After experiencing the ups and downs of the platform, Xia Wei, a supplier of Orange Heart Preferred, withdrew from the ranks of supplying community group buying, and said that "fortunately, it ran fast and will never invest in the community group buying business again.".
"Now there is no advantage in supplying the platform, the subsidy is greatly reduced, and the price of the supplier has begun to be fought." The impact on first-tier brands is small, but fresh suppliers have become more stringent in terms of fulfillment capabilities and product quality. Xia Wei confessed to Times Finance.
Xiao Zhe, the person in charge of a grid warehouse in Hunan, and the Shihui regiment launched a long-term division war. The change occurred in August last year, Xiao Zhe did not receive the delivery fee settled by the platform for two consecutive months, Xiao Zhe tried to go to the company's headquarters to ask for compensation, but the platform never gave a solution that satisfied the supplier. Today, Xiao Zhe's grid warehouse is still vacant, and the arrears of tens of thousands of yuan have never arrived.
At the same time, the ten groups also launched a new round of layoffs and capital throttling, according to the internal operation staff revealed to Times Finance, as early as last June, the company withdrew the performance reward, and the employees who received the optimization notice could only get the salary of the month, and there was no additional compensation.
The change in community group buying has touched the bottom group leaders. Meituan Preferred has launched a more refined management, including attaching importance to the operation of the head of the private domain traffic, requiring after-sales pickup to be completed within 3 hours, on the other hand, the profit space of the head of the group has also been further compressed.
"Meituan requires each leader to build a group to maintain user relations, if the user is not purchasing from the link end of the leader, even if they choose to pick up the goods in the same location, they will not earn commissions." The commission commission for fresh products is as low as 1%-2%, and the monthly income is only 200-300 yuan. A head of the Shanghai delegation told Times Finance.
The money is burned out, where is the next station for community group buying?
After experiencing financing, expansion and contraction, community group buying enterprises have to face a cruel transition period, and many seed players have fallen into "a chicken feather" under the pressure of funds.
At the beginning of last year, both the Xingsheng Preferred and the Ten HuiTuan of the old three groups were favored by capital, the former receiving more than $3 billion in strategic financing, and the latter with a financing amount of $750 million.
Xingsheng Preferred belongs to the more cautious member of the old three groups, although there is no news of business contraction, but it is also seeking further profit space. In addition to testing the water on the cosmetics category, Xingsheng Preferred has added a new category of clothing, launched a large number of women's clothing, the price is concentrated within 200 yuan, covering young users and middle-aged groups, all clothes are shipped by SF.
According to the Tianyancha APP, as early as October 27, 2021, Xingsheng Preferred invested in Hunan Enyi E-commerce Company with a 40% share, and the company's business scope includes clothing production and sales related businesses.
After the business contraction, Orange Heart Preferred and Shihui Group have also made business adjustments and laid out to the upstream supply chain.
Orange Heart preferred to force the group batch (group leader wholesale) business in the original market, mainly promoting "orange wholesale", providing a transaction matching platform for small shop owners and wholesalers, and charging 1%-2% of the transaction amount to wholesalers as a commission. In September last year, the Ten Hui Group also began to lay out the group batch, in central China to build a new cloud warehouse, focusing on the operation and selection of the group leader, in the group batch business, the original platform mastered the group leader resources began to layout commodity wholesale, the platform only needs to wholesale the goods to the group leader, the group leader to complete the subsequent conversion and marketing of private domain traffic.
Since the major platform business has been hit hard, Xiaofeng, a third-party service worker who connects with suppliers, feels more pressure. Due to the insufficient number of suppliers, they have to compete with interested suppliers every day for cooperation opportunities. "At present, the rules and systems of meituan's preferred, more grocery shopping, and prosperous preferred platforms have been clarified, but it is difficult for us to predict who will collapse next."
(The interviewees in this article are pseudonyms)