Tech Planet exclusively learned that Liu Xiaogang, the former CEO/general manager of NetEase Yanxuan, recently joined Meituan and was responsible for its good goods business, reporting to Wang Puzhong, senior vice president of Meituan and president of the home business group.
On September 9, Tech Planet asked Meituan for confirmation on the specific work matters after Liu Xiaogang joined meituan, and had not received a reply as of press time.
In July 2018, Meituan launched a flash sale business, focusing on "30-minute delivery to the door, 24-hour uninterrupted delivery", which is Meituan's first attempt at physical e-commerce, and it is also another battlefield in addition to Meituan and Alibaba.
At the end of 2020, the Flash Sale Division was split into three independent business units of Flash Sale, Pharmaceutical and Tuanhao, all of which reported directly to Wang Puzhong, senior vice president of Meituan and president of the Home Business Group. Among them, Tuanhao goods is directly led by Wang Puzhong, and the business status is self-evident.
However, compared with traditional e-commerce, the progress of the same-city retail business has been slow, and the same is true for tuanhao goods. The advantage of Meituan is that it has built an instant delivery logistics system, for which Meituan bears huge expenditures every year. At the same time, in terms of categories, it is necessary to consider whether the consumer demand of "30 minutes up" really exists, except for individual categories such as fresh food and medicine. This is understandable why the Meituan Flash Sale Division was split.
In December 2020, "Tuanhao Goods" was upgraded to the first-level entrance of the Meituan App. Two months later, Meituan launched an independent Tuanhao goods App, which means that Meituan will comprehensively improve the entry capacity of e-commerce business.
At that time, Meituan's main competitors had changed. It and Pinduoduo are in a fierce battle in the field of community group buying. The good goods business of the group directly benchmarks Pinduoduoduo, and uses the low-cost group model to seize the market.
Baidu glutinous rice also has an e-commerce entrance, a former Baidu glutinous rice person said that group buyers do have some demand.
The key is to see the way the US group plays. A local life executive told Tech Planet that there are two main types of users in meituan, one is to see the reputation of the review, there are high-priced users, but these people will leave after reading, and such users can only push advertisements. The other group of people is a non-high-end group that can sell some second-class e-commerce categories. The positioning of meituan itself is a non-high-end crowd.
Liu Xiaogang left NetEase Group on October 28, 2019. The human resources department of NetEase Group announced by email on the same day that "Liu Xiaogang, vice president of the company and general manager of the Yanxuan Business Department, recently submitted a resignation application due to personal reasons." After Liu Xiaogang left office, NetEase Group appointed Liang Jun as the general manager of the Yanxuan Business Unit and reported to the company's CEO Ding Lei.
At that time, it had only been one month since NetEase sold the cross-border e-commerce platform Koala to Ali for $2 billion.
NetEase Yanxuan was once a representative of small and American e-commerce. Through the concepts of big-name manufacturers and ODM, Yanxuan is different from platforms such as Taobao and JD.com, and has established its own tonality close to MUJI. However, with the emergence and rise of similar e-commerce companies such as Xiaomi Youpin and Taobao Xinxuan, the market of NetEase's strict selection is also being squeezed.
The current situation is that on the battlefield of community group buying, Meituan and Pinduoduo have determined a huge leading edge. Next, the confrontation between the two emerging giants is likely to occur in the field of physical e-commerce, and Liu Xiaogang's joining is undoubtedly a major benefit for meituan.