"There is no first, there is no second in martial arts", and the business world is the same!
Almost all founders hope that their companies can seize the opportunity, and there have been many "first shares" in the capital market, they have not fallen in front of the door of listing, but many companies are buried in the deep pool of "after the carnival"...
Take the e-commerce industry, the former e-commerce overlord, once the "first stock of fashion e-commerce" Mushroom Street, is now less and less present in the new generation of consumers.
Mushroom Street was also very popular, merged with Meilishuo, and the company's valuation once exceeded 3 billion US dollars, and it was known as "China's first shopping guide platform". However, after listing, Mushroom Street fell into a development bottleneck, constantly transformed and never made a profit, with a total known loss of more than 5 billion, and the market value shrank by 99%!
Stepped on the stroke again and again, but was tricked by fate again and again.
It can be said that Mushroom Street "got up early and rushed to the late set", which is a sad story that keeps tossing but constantly stepping into the air!
Now Mushroom Street, which is still struggling to transform into a "stepping on the wind", the most important thing to consider is - live first!
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The e-commerce rivers and lakes have changed, and I am afraid that I will no longer see the figure of Mushroom Street on the card table!
Whether it was in the 90s when gold was everywhere, the 10s when the Internet was rising, or the 20s when everything was worth doing again under the new consumption boom, they all verified the saying "standing on the cusp, pigs can fly".
For more than 30 years, the business sea has been ups and downs, and the enterprises that have stepped on the vent of the stroke are still a minority, most of them have become small companies with "unpaid ambitions", and even many have indulged under the big waves;
Among them, the saddest thing is to stand on the cusp of the wind countless times, and several times to lee the company, such as Mushroom Street, which was once known as the "first stock of fashion e-commerce", has repeatedly transformed but has been trial and error, and has never broken through!
Its experience is magical: more than 10 years since its establishment, continuous transformation has never been profitable, the market value plummeted by 90% in 1 and a half years of listing, and after the business through the content community, overseas amoy, social e-commerce and other outlets, Mushroom Street bet all its energy on live broadcast e-commerce, but live broadcast did not improve its performance, and it was a layoff storm, and it was a high-level turmoil... The former e-commerce overlord reveals desolation all over his body!
Recently, Mushroom Street (NYSE: MOGU) announced that due to personal reasons, its founder Chen Qi has resigned as the company's CEO, effective March 17, 2023, and he will retain his position as chairman of the board. The Mushroom Street Board of Directors announced the appointment of Yiming Fan as the Company's new Chief Executive Officer, effective March 17, 2023.
Not long ago, Mushroom Street announced its results for the first half of fiscal 2023 (the six months ended September 30, 2022) showing that the company only earned 110 million yuan in half a year after significantly reducing operating costs. And since its listing in 2018, Mushroom Street has not achieved an annual profit, with a total known loss of more than 5 billion, and its market value has shrunk by 99%.
On the day of the earnings report, Mushroom Street's share price on the New York Stock Exchange fell 7.6%, and its market value shrank to $18.8932 million. As of March 29, 2023, Mushroom Street shares were $3.41 per share and had a market cap of $26.87 million!
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Speaking of Mushroom Street, in the first half of the e-commerce war, it is definitely an Internet celebrity. The unique form of consumption sharing community is also an important supplement to the e-commerce industry in the first half of e-commerce and platform-based e-commerce.
Mushroom Street, which started as a fashion information-sharing community, was once a gathering place for countless young women interested in fashion.
Around 2010, under the background of the explosion of e-commerce, a group of shopping guide platforms attached to Taobao e-commerce bigwigs, such as Meilishuo and Mushroom Street, are gradually rising.
Mushroom Street was founded in 2011 by Chen Qi, Wei Yibo, Yue Xuqiang and others who used to work on Taobao.com, and has gained a large number of users with its unique algorithm, relying on the commission to divert traffic to Taobao.
At the beginning, Mushroom Street accurately positioned the female market and took the route of content shopping community e-commerce sales. Build a content sharing platform, users share interests and wear pictures to form a community shopping guide atmosphere, directly jump Taobao for transactions, and form a business closed loop of "user-content-shopping guide-Taobao transaction-earning diversion share".
In 2011, which was also the year of the outbreak of mobile Internet dividends, Mushroom Street grew rapidly with e-commerce dividends and gained the favor of capital: Mushroom Street first carried out two rounds of financing totaling more than 20 million US dollars, and in October 2012, it completed the B+ round of financing led by IDG, with a valuation of 200 million US dollars.
With the blessing of capital, after one year of development of Mushroom Street, there are more than 6 million registered users, more than 1.6 million DAU (daily active users), and an average daily PV (page views) of 70 million. At the beginning of 2013, Mushroom Street averaged nearly 4 million UV and nearly 200 million PV per day.
According to incomplete statistics, from 2012 to 2013, 80%~90% of Mushroom Street's revenue came from Taobao commissions. The average daily commission from Taobao reached 500,000 yuan to 600,000 yuan. At the same time, the conversion rate of other shopping guide websites is generally around 1%, while Mushroom Street is as high as 10%.
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It is a pity that "success is also Xiaohe, defeat is also Xiaohe".
With the gradual formation of the Taobao ecosystem, all aspects of Taobao e-commerce formed a closed loop, and Taobao began to gradually cut off all external shopping guide links. At that time, Taobao was the main target of Mushroom Street's guidance link, so Taobao's ban forced Mushroom Street to embark on the road of transformation.
In the past decade, Mushroom Street has tried the Internet celebrity economy, grass growing platforms and live streaming e-commerce, but has not seized the opportunities of these segments.
In the growth process of Mushroom Street, it is not difficult to find that from the initial consumer sharing community, to e-commerce shopping guides, and then to the e-commerce closed-loop ecology vertical to women and fashion, it has always occupied a corner of e-commerce innovation.
Even until 2016, Mushroom Street merged with Meilishuo and laid out live shopping, Meishuo is an important attention branch of the e-commerce industry.
In this process, we can also see that whether it is the current mainstream live broadcast goods, or grass farming communities, and Internet celebrity e-commerce are all integrated into one platform ahead of Mushroom Street. Once stepping on brand sales, communities, social e-commerce and other outlets, Mushroom Street is regarded as the rising star of the fashion electronics business.
However, time has passed, in the era of live broadcasting, grass planting, and interest e-commerce, it should have been when Mushroom Street showed its strength, Mushroom Street was a shallow taste every time, watching Yang Wharf, Little Red Book and other "back waves" overtake.
From online communities, shopping guide platforms, vertical e-commerce to social e-commerce, Mushroom Street has stepped on the cusp again and again, but it has passed by again and again, and Mushroom Street has gradually declined.
In 2018, Mushroom Street finally went public in the United States after exhaustion, but shortly after listing, the issue price of $14 per share fell directly to $2.
Looking at the capital market, the performance of Mushroom Street is even more difficult to say. In May last year, the lowest stock price of Mushroom Street was $012 / share (after reinstatement), compared with $25.69 / share after landing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018, the market value shrank by more than 99%, this gap is shocking, Mushroom Street was on the verge of delisting.
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In early March, Mushroom Street just released its unaudited financial results for the first six months of fiscal 2023 (April 1, 2022 – September 30, 2022).
According to the financial report, Mushroom Street's total revenue in the first half of fiscal 2023 was 114.8 million yuan, and the adjusted net loss was 11.8 million yuan. During the financial reporting period, the total revenue of Mushroom Street was 114.8 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.2%; Total GMV was RMB2.828 billion, down 48.1% year-on-year; Fortunately, the net loss was only 57.4 million yuan, which has been significantly narrowed by 86% compared with 412 million yuan in the same period of fiscal 2022.
In fact, the decline of Mushroom Street has been going on for a long time, and this is the sixth year that Mushroom Street has lost money.
Since 2018, Mushroom Street has accumulated losses of more than 5 billion yuan. Corresponding to consecutive years of losses, Mushroom Street's depressed share price, whose market value has fallen by more than 99% in five years.
In the face of giants, it is not easy for enterprises to find a breakthrough, but if you dig deeper, you will find that Xiaohongshu still relies on community e-commerce to stand out when e-commerce platforms are clustered; Even the later Oriental Selection, when facing the "Taoji Express" to occupy the live broadcast, was still able to highlight the encirclement, achieving GMV of 4.8 billion yuan and revenue of 1.766 billion yuan in half a year;
In comparison, the GMV of Mushroom Street was only about 2.8 billion yuan, and the revenue was only 110 million yuan. If this is just a brand, or a live broadcast room data, it is already a good result. But as an independent e-commerce platform, Mushroom Street only earned 110 million in half a year, which is difficult to say.
So Mushroom Street's predicament today may lie not only in its missed opportunities, but also in its long-term wavering strategy. A company, if it is constantly changing, is bound to be turbulent.
In today's Internet e-commerce world, going "big and complete" seems to be the only way out.
Resources:
"Live streaming can't save Mushroom Street", e-commerce headlines
"Since listing, a huge loss of 5 billion, a market value of 99%, China's first shopping guide platform collapsed", Shenzhen Kr new consumption
"The results are not as good as the head individual anchors, and the mushroom street with an annual loss of more than 600 million yuan can still stand? "Shiba Gouwski