#头条讲真的#
Farfetch, which was once highly sought after by Chinese capital tycoons, is about to be delisted.
Recently, Coupang Inc, known as the Amazon of South Korea, announced that it will acquire Fafaqi for 500 million US dollars, and after the completion of this acquisition, Fafaqi will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
Fafaqi was once the world's largest luxury e-commerce platform, with a market value of $25 billion at its peak.
In the past three years, it has been continuously abandoned by the capital market, and the stock price has plummeted by 99% in three years, and now only $253 million remains.
What is going on behind this? Why was Fa Faqi lifted to the clouds by capital and smashed to the ground again?
Fa Fa Qi, who was once sought after by Chinese bigwigs
2020 is the peak of Fafaqi, the stock price has soared, from $10 to $60, and the market value has reached $25 billion, ascending to the throne of the "boss" of global luxury e-commerce.
Fafaqi's outbreak in the capital market has a lot to do with the pursuit of Chinese capital tycoons.
As early as 2016, Seven Wolves invested $30 million in Faqi, in 2017, JD.com invested nearly $400 million in Faqi, in 2020, Tencent invested another $125 million in Faqi, and at the end of the year, Ali and Richemont each invested $300 million in Faqi.
Not only that, Ali and Richemont also invested $250 million each to form a new company to associate Faqi's business.
What is the charm of Fa Fa Qi, who is so loved by domestic bigwigs?
The reason lies in the luxury resources behind Fafaqi.
According to the financial report, Fafaqi has 550 boutiques in more than 400 countries, more than 200 international brands and more than 2,000 designer brands.
At its peak, Prada opened more than 70 of its warehouses to Fa Fa Qi.
You must know that luxury goods have always been very strict about channel control, and it is even more difficult to obtain brand authorization.
So how did Fafaqi get a big luxury brand?
Fa "Technology Card"
The founder, Jose Neves, has been interested in programming since he was a child, and he founded it in 2007.
On the surface, the company's main business is fashion products, but Neves has always claimed that Fafaqi is a technology company.
His reason is that Fafaqi's model has never been the model of ordinary e-commerce platforms.
Fafaqi does not participate in the supply chain, does not hold inventory and does not determine the selling price, but provides a "solution" for major brands.
This solution covers the platform, digital marketing all the way to logistics, customer service, it can be said that online sales can be done by Fafaqi.
This is undoubtedly very tempting for luxury brands.
At that time, e-commerce was rising rapidly around the world, and traditional luxury goods also wanted to take the initiative to change in the face of changes in the market environment.
If luxury wants to embrace e-commerce, there are only two ways. Either set up an online team by yourself or settle in an e-commerce platform.
The cost of building an online team is not low, and to rebuild a new system, the platform, inventory management, logistics, customer service and payment are all problems.
However, entering the e-commerce platform, it is facing a series of problems, and ordinary e-commerce platforms rely on low prices to win traffic, which is far from the tonality of luxury goods.
And the e-commerce book and the offline store are in a competitive relationship, if you settle in the ordinary e-commerce platform, you will undoubtedly add another competitor to yourself.
Now Fafaqi has appeared, which focuses on technology, which can not only provide a low-cost, fast and effective e-commerce solution, but also will not form a competition with offline stores.
Therefore, it is only natural that Fafaqi can win the trust of luxury brands.
Luxury goods and e-commerce, are they inherently impulsive?
After the acquisition of Off-White, New Guard and Stadium Goods, the business of Falqi has changed from technical services to three modules: digital platform, brand and physical store.
This means that Fafaqi's previous route has been completely reversed, and it still returns to the traditional e-commerce model.
However, e-commerce and luxury seem to be in conflict by nature, and there has hardly been a particularly successful case at home and abroad.
Not to mention foreign countries, as far as China is concerned, a large number of luxury e-commerce companies have sprung up in the domestic e-commerce market in 2008.
However, 4 years later, the head luxury e-commerce companies such as similar products such as Juwang, Zunku.com, and Sina Luxury can no longer play.
Next, Secoo, as the "first share of domestic luxury e-commerce", was once short-lived, but in recent years, it has been filed for bankruptcy twice, received two delisting warnings from Nasdaq, and in addition, there are more than 20,000 consumer complaints.
Today, the world's No. 1 Fa Fa Qi, after being abandoned by the Chinese bigwigs, is also "copying" the old way of Secoo.
Why is it difficult for luxury goods to get through the road of e-commerce?
First of all, one of the questions that everyone needs to figure out is, why do rich people buy luxury goods? Because luxury is good-looking, beautiful, and durable?
Of course not, the reason why rich people buy luxury goods is just one word: expensive.
But expensive is only a superficial attribute of luxury, and its core lies in its ability to create "social distancing".
What is social distancing? Simply put, it is to let others know that they "can't climb high".
However, the main focus of e-commerce is cost performance, which is completely incompatible with luxury goods, and can even be said to be "incompatible".
Second, the availability of luxury goods is often problematic.
The top brands of luxury goods are often family businesses, which belong to the top part of the entire industry chain, and it is really difficult to get them to license externally.
E-commerce platforms that can't get authorization can only buy from second-tier or even third-tier dealers, which not only makes the middlemen make the difference, but also can't guarantee that the goods they get are genuine.
Once it is found to be selling counterfeit goods, it basically declares the "death" of luxury e-commerce.
Although selling fake goods is not the original intention of e-commerce, consumers will definitely scold e-commerce when they buy fake goods.
This also makes many luxury e-commerce companies go to great lengths to get genuine products, the most exaggerated is the former first-line luxury e-commerce catwalk network, which did not hesitate to smuggle 300 million yuan in order to get luxury goods at low cost, which led to the CEO being imprisoned and shocked the whole industry.
Therefore, luxury goods and e-commerce are indeed a bit impulsive by nature, which also determines that if luxury e-commerce does not have a unique model, it is destined to end in a tragic way.