The leader of the community group buying first became the “cannon fodder” in this round of reshuffle. This article from the micro-channel public number: reveal (ID: lingshouke) , OF: ten, original title “” “The Disappeared Head”, the title picture comes from; Visual China
“Before I was the group leader of 4 community group purchases, but now I don’t do it one after another.”
Cheng Tao(pseudonym) opened an optical shop in a second-tier city, and took the Internet giant to attack the sinking market and harvest traffic. He I also became a member of the community group buying wave, but got out of the car within a few months, “I wanted to follow the Internet giants to cut leeks, but in the end I became their pawn.”
“Spirit Beast” communicated with a number of community group-buying leaders. They all mentioned a phenomenon. The community group-buying platform is “rectifying” the group leader, and the elimination rate is increasing. Some platforms require the leader to order monthly orders. , And some platforms forcibly set the singular number to be completed, the number of sharing to the WeChat group or circle of friends, and so on. This allows many heads to “leave” passively or actively. At the same time, after opening up the market, these Internet giants laid off a large number of BDs.
The anxious “washing” of the head of the regiment and the madness of the market are polarized.
On March 31, Shihui Group announced that it had completed a $750 million Series D financing. Earlier, there was also news that Xingsheng Optimal raised US$3 billion in preparation for listing. According to a report by Caijing, the three community group buying platforms of Duoduomai, Orange Heart and Meituan Optimal have all exceeded 10 million in unit volume in December last year.
In addition, SF Express has established “Fenghuotai” community group buying platform, Evergrande, BiGuiyuan and others have also crossed the border. The entire community group buying market does not seem to have cooled down due to the “Nine Musts” released in December last year, but has intensified instead.
From the perspective and posture of the shot, even if the war does not mean to stop, after a year of “enclosure movement”, the stock market has been divided up, and the community group buying market is quietly shifting to the direction of “refined operation”.
Behind the change is that community group buying is facing many problems such as “order growth has reached a ceiling, competition in the same region has intensified, and private domain traffic has been weakened or even replaced”.
The leader of the community group buying first became the “cannon fodder” in this round of reshuffle.
1. The leader escapes from the platform
“Before the BDs of various platforms came here every day, the leaders of each group, and said that there was no order quantity requirement, even if they bought the above items, it was cheap.” Cheng Tao recalled that the Internet giants entered the community group buying field, let The community group buying market in the originally peaceful second-tier cities quickly became popular. At the most exaggerated time, Cheng Tao listened to 5 BDs a day.
In the second half of 2020, several leading community group buying platforms are intensively fighting in various cities, and before entering each city, they take the lead in launching the product mini-programs, and then hire a large number of BDs to explore the local market and carry out local promotion. , The group leader completes the registration on the platform through a specific QR code, and applies to become the group leader, which is also called “run group” in the industry.
Cheng Tao was drawn into it at that time.
In order to make the race faster, the BD personnel of the Internet group buying platform did not have too many requirements for the group leader at first. “At that time, most of the platform’s requirements for the number of ground pushers, and even the development of dozens of heads in the same community, every shop on the street would not let it go.” Cheng Tao told “Ling Beast”.
But starting this year, both the team leader and the BD have been “disappointed” a lot.
A team leader who joined the giant platform revealed that not only was deducted the “monthly order quantity” indicator, but also used the termination of cooperation to “blackmail”. If the order quantity does not meet the requirements, the identity of the group leader Will be removed, and the BD of the platform will only focus on maintaining and supporting those leaders who have done a good job.
In just over half a year, the leaders of the community group buying platform have gone through the process of being “robbed, screened, and eliminated”, and the group buying platform has shifted from the early extensive expansion to the refined operation, and the performance is not good. ofThe group leader will be “eliminated” first.
At the same time, many group leaders realized that consumers’ curiosity and expectations for group joining are decreasing. There are fewer and fewer consumers who actively buy goods. If the head of the group does not actively recommend it, consumers will not buy it.
Cheng Tao also stated to “Ling Beast” that customers who buy goods have a very obvious psychology. Most of them think that the group goods are bought from the head of the group. “Even if the store I run is related to fresh food, Goods such as FMCG do not conflict at all, but after customers buy, they still think that the goods are sold to them by the group leader.”
This mentality has brought a lot of trouble to the group leader. When consumers find that the product is not good after buying, they think it is the group leader’s work. The same is true for the factors that made Cheng Tao determined to withdraw from the group. Local businesses rely on word-of-mouth communication, because they made “wedding clothes” for the platform, which caused their own shops to be affected, and the gains outweighed the losses.
Looking at the role of the team leader, first of all, they are the platform workers. They not only have to pay for rent, storefront, water and electricity, but also bear the labor cost of sorting, subsidize plastic bag delivery, and fierce competition, resulting in order quantity Less and less, also caused some products to accumulate in the store, which has a great impact on the store image.
An industry insider told “Spirit Beast” that a large number of community group buying leaders will be eliminated. First of all, it can’t control the upstream goods and users, it is just an advertisement; secondly, the platform is constantly recruiting group leaders, washing people through the group leaders, and harvesting the localized traffic of the group leaders.
Of course, community group buying has lost more than the leader in the rough style of the past.
“The products on the community group buying platform are mainly cheap products, and there is not much advantage in product quality, and the platform’s review of supplier information is not too harsh, and the products will be photographed and uploaded and reviewed online. After passing, you can log in to the homepage.” A fast-moving consumer goods supplier told “Ling Beast”.
Due to low prices, more and more consumers are full of complaints about the platform, mainly in businessIn terms of product quality and temporary products, although the current return rate is not high, in the long run, it may be difficult for group grouping to gain a foothold in first- and second-tier cities.
2. Lower commissions
If the battle for group buying in the community starts with the battle for team leader, the first half of the stage is to compete for the number of platform leaders, and now the competition is for team leader’s order quantity and stickiness. In this process, the platform gradually lost the patience to train the leader, and chose a more radical way to eliminate it.
“The commission of the team leader has been reduced from 15% to 5%. This is not a platform, and commissions on common platforms are decreasing.” Cheng Tao told “Ling Beast”. After using the localized traffic of the group leader, the platform is reducing the weight and importance of the group leader.
Cheng Tao, for example, used to do a group business, and when the income was good, the income was a few thousand yuan, and now it is only a few hundred or tens of dollars. Now if you sell 1,000 yuan of goods, the commission is only 50 yuan.
According to reports, the commission for Orange Heart and Meituan Optimal has dropped to around 7%, while the commission for Duoduomai is around 5% on average.
The reason for the sudden drop in commissions: First, the price war between platforms has made the price of goods lower, and the profits and commissions allocated to the group leader are naturally less; secondly, after large-scale subsidies and development, Internet giants are shrinking the development cost of doing community group buying business, and focus on the layout of the grid warehouse.
“There are policies at the top, and countermeasures at the bottom. After the platform commissions have been reduced, there has been a wave of “swiping orders” in the industry. The heads of the delegation voluntarily organize mutual group brushing for the purpose of winning the first prize. This is a common phenomenon.” Cheng Tao said.
The team leader uses the behavior of ordering, on the one hand, to get rewards; on the other hand, to get products through ordering, and then sell them to fresh food stores, grocery stores, etc., and then obtain secondary benefits. “During the process of ordering, the team leader is like a second road dealer”, Cheng Tao described so, there are many BDs for the city.The performance will also “collaborate” with the head of the team to check orders.
On March 15 this year, an online platform revealed that the sales order of the community group buying group leader was abnormal, and it was suspected that there was a suspicion of scalping.
The self-media “Financial Wuji” also publicly questioned the order of Shihui Group in its published article. The article disclosed that it exclusively obtained the account of the East Guangdong District of Shihui Group in December. After the mobile phone was recharged, among the remaining 90 million GMV in Eastern Guangdong that month, 60 million of the data was suspected to come from the purchase order.
In 2019, a Weibo user “China Business Technology Circle” revealed that “the iPhone XS will be sold at the “Members Day” event, with subsidies ranging from five to six hundred yuan to more than one thousand yuan, and a total of more than 8,000 are sold. Taiwan, driving GMV 70 to 80 million yuan. Earlier, the Food Sharing Club announced that “monthly GMV exceeded 200 million yuan”. With such a high subsidy, the moisture of GMV can be imagined.”
Swiping orders is not uncommon in the industry, especially when there are more and more market competitors. In addition to comparing how many platforms each platform occupies, the other data for the competition is GMV, which only spells out market share. Achieving a leading position can win the favor of capital and give investors more confidence. After all, this is a market that requires capital investment.
3. Go to the group leader
The leader’s survival has become more and more difficult.
In addition to no longer relying on large platforms, Cheng Tao also found a new way out. “The top community group buying platform is difficult to make money, and began to shift to local community group buying. Although the top traffic is large, the product quality It’s uneven, and some customers have requirements for quality. I would recommend placing orders on the local platform.”
Cheng Tao’s consideration is that the giants are affected by the policy and their dependence on the group leader is reduced, and the local community group buying platform will not have a bad reputation in the local area, and it can complement and differentiate with the leader. So even if the giants don’t do it, they can still accompany thisThe ground platform grows.
This is the thinking of private domain traffic, and it is also the reason why more and more group leaders choose to set up small groups by themselves.
Nowadays, the competition between giants is becoming more and more fierce, and the formation of differentiated regional platforms is more moisturized. This will also harvest more group leaders, and the group leaders are no longer willing to carry the giant platforms. work.
After all, in many business models, the two-eighth law is followed. 80% of sales come from 20% of the team leader, and the remaining 80% of the team leader is the first platform in the process of de-leadership. A batch of leeks.
Next, I am afraid that the group buying platform also needs to think about the role of the group leader in community group buying? Is it gradually being marginalized? Or should we serve the head in depth to improve efficiency?
At present, many top platforms have begun to research and experiment with various business models, develop a number of different sales models, and open community stores or warehouse stores to achieve de-group leadership. It is reported that Orange Heart Optimal has recently opened its first warehousing retail store.
In addition, many group leaders have refused to connect to the community group buying platform due to a sharp drop in commissions. The real reason is that the centralized distribution of group purchases in the community brings many problems to sorting, distribution, and after-sales, and it also has great disadvantages.
Relying on burning money and checking orders is not a long-term strategy for community group buying. Only to find a healthy profit model, build refined operation management, create platform differences, and meet consumer needs, is the direction of competition in the next stage.
This article is from WeChat official account:Lingshouke (ID: lingshouke)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: ten