With the continuous news of layoffs, shutdowns, and urban withdrawals, how should the community group buying model continue?

Following a new round of reshuffle brought about by the cooling of the industry in 2021, the community group buying track encountered a "spring cold" this spring.

Recently, new and old players such as Meituan Preferred, Orange Heart Preferred, Jingxi Spelling, Taocai Cai, and Shihui Tuan have successively reported the news of layoffs and closures or withdrawals from the city, which has caused the community group buying that was originally pushed to the outlet by the epidemic to fall rapidly.

Today's community group buying track, the "old three groups" are still actively fighting, but the battle value is not as good as before; the "new three groups" us group selection, more groceries and orange heart preferred, backed by the Internet giant, are also shrinking the front and personnel optimization, basically turning from attack to defense.

Industry insiders believe that the main reason for the frequent shrinking of the front line and the layoffs and withdrawal of the city by the community group buying platform is the internal friction of the industry caused by the burning money for the scale and the loss for the traffic model. At present, community group buying belongs to the subsidiary format model, which needs to rely on mature formats such as e-commerce for development.

Community group buying platforms frequently spread the word that layoffs are shut down or withdrawn from the city, and the industry has entered the "spring cold"

In February this year, Meituan's community group buying platform "Meituan Preferred" was exposed to layoffs, involving direct operations and agency teams. At the same time, according to the late Late Post report, Chen Liang, senior vice president of Meituan In charge of meituan's preferred business unit, announced as early as January this year that he would leave the front line of business and focus on organizational construction and strategic research.

For the layoffs, the US group has not responded. According to the reporter's understanding, the Early Stage of Meituan's Preferred Conducted a Round of Personnel Optimization adjustment according to business development, in addition to the departure of some employees, some positions are also continuing to recruit people, so there is a situation of personnel flow. At present, the Meituan Preferred APP and its WeChat Mini Program can place orders normally.

By early March, a user who was certified as a "Didi Chuxing employee" broke the news on a social platform that Didi's community group buying business "Orange Heart Preferred" had been shut down as a whole, and all relevant industry and research personnel had been laid off. However, Didi did not respond to this.

The reporter found that at present, orange heart preferred mini program on the WeChat terminal has no product information. A person familiar with the matter told reporters that since the second half of 2021, the C-end business of Orange Heart Preferred has gradually shrunk and turned to To B business such as wholesale, and its current business focus includes "Orange Treasurer".

Coincidentally, in addition to the Internet giant, the community group buying business under the head e-commerce has also reported similar dynamics. Among them, Jingdong's community group buying business "Jingxi Spelling" was exposed to optimize the layoffs and withdrawal of the city, the specific layoff ratio was 10%-15%, and the business layout of the city was reduced to single digits; at the same time, Ali's "Tao Cai Cai" was also exposed to open the layoff mode and would close some group points. However, none of these messages received an official response, and both platforms are currently in operation.

As one of the players of the "old three groups" of community group buying, the Shihui Group is on the verge of collapse. According to Interface News, The company has recently shut down all its operations in cities across the country, and the company has entered the aftermath stage, mainly dealing with the liquidation of suppliers' payments and the settlement and payment of employees' wages.

At the same time, the reporter found that at present, the Ten HuiTuan APP and WeChat Mini Program cannot be opened, and it is suspected of being suspended; the latest developments of the official Weibo of the Ten Huituan are still stuck on October 20, 2021, and the last updated tweet of its WeChat public account is stuck on January 25, 2022.

In response to this rumor, the official of the Ten Hui Group has not yet made any response or explanation. A person familiar with the matter told reporters, "The national shutdown is not enough, the Ten Hui Group still retains the operation of several cities, but the number of employees has shrunk by more than 90% compared with the peak period, and it is still surviving." ”

The price war has brought internal friction, and the industry has undergone many rounds of reshuffle

In fact, this is not the first round of reshuffle of community group buying. If the timeline is extended, the community group buying has experienced the "outlet period" twice in 2018 and 2020, and it has also begun to cool down shortly after the vent period, and players from all walks of life have rearranged their troops.

Specifically, community group buying ushered in capital contraction and sharp cooling in 2019, and players such as Miao Life, Ji and Fresh, Dull Radish, Squirrel Spelling have successively fallen into financial difficulties or even closed down, and the industry has experienced a round of "great purge". By 2020, community group buying has once again stood on the cusp under the "home economy" spawned by the epidemic, attracting all kinds of capital to pour into it, and Internet giants such as Meituan, Didi, Ali, JD.com, and Pinduoduo have also personally fought.

However, after a huge amount of funds piled into the game, the "burning money for the market" style of play began to be staged in the community group buying track, even if it was backed by the platform of the Internet giant, it was also saddled with heavy performance pressure.

According to the latest financial report released by Meituan and JD.com, in 2021, the new business sector in which Meituan Preferred is located has an operating loss of about 38.4 billion yuan, and the new business sector in which Jingxi is located has an operating loss of nearly 10.6 billion yuan; Didi's previously released financial report shows that Orange Heart Preferred lost about 20.8 billion yuan in the third quarter of 2021.

According to a later Late Post report, in 2021, the three community group buying platforms of Meituan Preferred, Duoduocaicai and Taocaicai have not completed the expected performance targets; among them, Meituan Preferred and Duoduoduo have completed GMV of 120 billion yuan and 80 billion yuan respectively, and have not completed the target of 150 billion yuan; Taocaicai has completed 20 billion yuan of GMV, and its goal is as high as 120 billion yuan.

In addition, when various platforms rely on price wars to attack the city, many low-price competition models have gradually evolved into vicious competition, which has made problems such as imperfect rules, unreasonable order, and illegal operation more and more intense, directly leading to strict supervision of the industry.

Since 2021, the community group purchase that has entered the period of strict supervision has cooled down again, and a group of players such as the "old three groups" who live with the Ten Hui Group and the Food Enjoyment Club have either transformed, or withdrawn from the track, or laid off bankruptcy, and the industry's "naked swimmers" have begun to appear, accelerating a new round of reshuffle.

Nowadays, the "old three groups" of the community group buying track are only actively fighting, but according to media reports, Xingsheng Preferred is also shrinking the front line and laying off employees, and the combat value is not as good as before; the "New Three Regiments" Meituan Preferred, Duoduo Buy Vegetables and Orange Heart Preferred also have the situation of shrinking the front and optimizing personnel, basically turning to attack and defend.

There are views in the industry that the new and old players of the community group buying platform have recently frequently spread news such as shrinking the front, laying off employees and withdrawing from the city, the main reason is still the platform burning money for scale, loss for traffic model. "The internal friction of the industry brought about by the price war is very large, and in the end, it is often not only to consume the opponent, but also to consume a lot of 'bullets' of oneself, forming a lose-lose situation." An industry insider sighed.

How can the community group buying model be sustained?

In the face of the current increasingly prominent decline of various players, there are many talk of "community group buying collapse". At present, practitioners have to think about an important issue, that is, whether community group buying still has vitality and value, and how should this model be sustained?

"As a community retail, community group buying is a new form of retail, and it is very difficult for this form of retail to be made into a model alone." Bao Yuezhong, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and a new retail expert, said, "Its best development direction is to integrate with the store or the home retail, which is vital." ”

In his view, it will be very difficult to simply take out community retail and community group buying to do it separately, and its biggest problem is that it is difficult to establish a supply chain system, and it is difficult to form a system of drainage and user retention. If this system cannot be established, the value of this model does not exist.

Coincidentally, Zhuang Shuai, the founder of Bailian Consulting, also believes that at present, community group buying belongs to the subsidiary format model and needs to rely on mature formats (such as e-commerce, supermarkets, convenience stores, etc.) for development.

"After the community group purchase track has fully entered the era of giants, the price and the rebate of the group leader have become the norm, and no one can achieve positive benefits in the short term, and the service innovation and experience innovation on the user side have stagnated, and the entire industry has serious internal consumption." The community group buying model will continue to exist for a long time based on mature formats. Zhuang Shuai said.