The shadow of channel hegemonism is overhanging

Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Prisma (ID: lengjing_qqfinance), author Sun Hongchao, editor Zhang Qingning.

In this era of Internet transformation, the traditional liquor industry has seized the aggression of e-commerce platforms, and the strengths such as Ali and Jingdong are just as helpless.

Liquor is the crown jewel in the field of consumer goods. The industry’s revenue is hundreds of billions, and the profits are extremely rich. The e-commerce platform has racked its brains, contacted the wine companies, integrated dealers, and hoped to get a piece of it.

The story between wine companies, dealers, and e-commerce platforms is worth visiting. This is the series of “Pixels” “White Wine Shock”.

Click here for the last article: Behind the Lengqing Tobacco Hotel, a 100 billion market for the Internet “reconstructed”

There is a section in the liquor industry: an e-commerce platform can sell 10 bottles of flying Maotai a day, so how much can the e-commerce platform reach in the week?

The answer is still 10 bottles.

7 days a week, one day in stock, the other 6 days out of stock.

This is the current situation of the e-commerce platform and the brand liquor. On the surface, there is a sense of affection and in fact, there is actually no sense of existence.

The senior liquor industry distributor Dong Wei told Prism that after years of development, liquor companies have relied heavily on the original production and marketing system. “They certainly want to catch the Internet, but the characteristics of the liquor itself make it difficult. Get rid of traditional channel vendors, and they are wary of e-commerce channel hegemony.”

The e-commerce platform is reluctant to give up this 500 billion-scale market. The reason is not complicated. Alibaba and Jingdong were famous for clothing, food and 3C respectively. After years of development, most consumer goods industries have reached a deep integration with e-commerce. Liquor is one of the few fish that leaks.

More importantly, the user group of liquor (middle-aged males who are mainly after 60s and 70s) and the existing user groups of e-commerce platforms (women who are responsible for buying after 80s and 90s) The low level of overlap makes the e-commerce platform that is approaching the flow ceilings rushing.

In the multi-year game, the liquor industry has reached a partial compromise with the e-commerce industry. At present, the online sales model of liquor is often based on the brand self-operated mall plus the traditional channel third-party shop, and the vertical liquor e-commerce platform:

Among them, the brand self-operated mall except a fewIn addition to investing in a large number of resources, other basics are still based on brand image and price display. According to “Prisma”, some brands of liquor in the self-operated mall even have only programmers, sales staff, financial personnel, the number of people is less than 10, this level of operation is still in the B2B 1.0 years 15 years ago.

It is often the traditional traditional channel provider of wine companies to open a store on the e-commerce platform. This has certain risks. Brands such as Maotai and Wuliangye have complained to these partners on the e-commerce platform.

Why is this?

Liquor e-commerce, get up early and get up late

In the burgeoning period of Chinese e-commerce, the liquor industry can be said to be flexible.

For example, Yanghe entered the e-commerce field even a year before the establishment of Alibaba. For another example, in 2006, the main import of wine, spirits and so on, and the C2C model established by China Wine Information Network The e-shop has been on the line. At this time, Ali Double 11 has not yet been born. In the early years of the Double Eleven, Jiuxian.com was established, and then the liquor e-commerce platform has sprung up.

The channel cost and operating cost of e-commerce are lower than the offline channel, but the price system of liquor is greatly impacted. At the same time, the e-commerce channel is not restricted by geography, and the geographical division of traditional liquor channels is strict.

These realities make ambitious liquor e-commerce players meet the “Rookie Wall”: brand liquor is more willing to provide goods to large channels that can buy large quantities of goods at one time, and is not willing to accept regional supply. Channel dealers want to try new ways to play e-commerce, but they certainly can’t get rid of the restrictions of brand liquor.

It is still a “Rookie Wall” that the real-time demand of the logistics system and liquor users can’t be matched at all: the earliest e-commerce main categories are books, costumes, etc., which are relatively easy to distribute; later home appliances, 3C products, etc., although heavier or Afraid of bumps, but the relative unit price is higher, the distribution cost is also acceptable; liquor is often filled with glass bottles, heavy and fragile, and the distribution cost is high.

The e-commerce industry at this time is in the honeymoon period of capital: burning money, changing scale, and burning money again. In the past, the squid jumped to the Dragon Gate, Alibaba, Jingdong, and Vipshop. If you couldn’t go on, you would drift in the night sky like a comet, where you would, McCawlin.

Liquor e-commerce finally found that there is no qualification for his own company: Vanke can get Li Ning’s low-cost clothing of 29 yuan and continue to do so, but Jiuxian.com can’t get the discounted Maotai and Wuliangye. Because Li Ning, which has a large number of compressed goods, needs to quickly sell back the money, the annual output of Maotai and Wuliangye is almost fixed, and there is no need to reduce the price.

These objective problems have made the profitability of the emerging liquor e-commerce companies severely challenged and have to find a way out of the Internet. For example, many liquor websites offer offline brand-name stores outside the e-commerce channel, and at the same time, they use the model of advertising in the media to sell telemarkets. TV sales are also one of the most important modes.

Get up earlyThe liquor e-commerce platform failed to get on the cusp.

A data show that from 2009 to 2017, the scale of online shopping has expanded by nearly 27 times, and the proportion of total retail sales has increased nearly 10 times, while the proportion of online shopping in the liquor industry is less than 5%.

Liquor companies are concerned about e-commerce channel hegemony

After 2013, liquor e-commerce should have ushered in a best period of development.

At that time, the high-level restrictions on the three public consumption policies, resulting in a serious overcapacity in the liquor industry, this is the best opportunity for e-commerce intervention, they are good at improving efficiency and reducing operating costs.

Most of the previously stagnation of alcoholic e-commerce companies received important financing at this time: as of May 2015, the total financing of Jiuxian.com reached 1.43 billion yuan, of which only in the two years of 2014 and 2015, Jiuxian.com received financing. It will exceed 1 billion yuan; 1919 will land in the New Third Board in 2014. From listing to 2016, the total financing will be about 313 million yuan…

However, the alcoholic e-commerce under the capital blessing is still unable to make brand-name liquor, especially the frequent price wars that cause Maotai to worry.

In 2015, the double eleven, the liquor e-commerce platform suddenly hit the shot. At 9 o’clock that night, Jiuxian.com announced that 100,000 bottles of flying Maotai 699 yuan is not limited to sales, followed by 1919 and the wine network announced the provision of 100,000 bottles of 469 yuan of 425ml Wuliangye.

Based on the ex-factory price of 819 yuan at the time of the flight of Maotai, Jiuxian.com lost more than 10 million yuan, but its sales volume has dropped from the first e-commerce industry in the past few years to the second. The winner was the sales volume of 157 million yuan. 1919, of course, 1919 lost more.

The situation of the double eleven in the previous year was roughly the same. Jiuxian.com lost about 20 million yuan, and the other three major platforms lost a total of about 50 million yuan.

Losing the book, but not even earning it, it also caused the liquor brand to rebound. Maotai, Langjiu and other wine companies have screamed “blocking” alcoholic e-commerce and even issued a ticket.

The idea of ​​the e-commerce platform is that the price war brings high traffic and high traffic leads to high sales. “If there are enough goods, we can sell more.” The consideration of brand liquor is that high-end liquor is always There can be no “sufficient goods”, tight supply and stable prices are crucial to the profitability of the company.

“Liquor companies will not allow this price war, because high-end liquor itself is a ‘buy and earn’ product, how can it allow channels to destroy the price system?” Li He, a traditional channel supplier of liquor, “Prisma” Said.

Li He, who is familiar with the operation mode of liquor brands, further said that the liquor brand’s concerns about e-commerce also include two price war accessories: custom models and two alternatives.

In 2012, the most tragic price war in the history of e-commerce began. The founder of Jingdong Group Liu Qiangdong announced that he would declare war on the country’s Suning in the field of electricity, and Gome’s Suning immediately confronted the price.It will only be lower than JD. The three parties even send price supervisors to supervise each other, and promise to cut prices as soon as they are higher than the other party.

Some home appliance manufacturers have made compromises for this.

According to an industry insider, “At that time, home appliance manufacturers made different customized products for various e-commerce platforms, such as electronic screens on refrigerators, LEDs for Jingdong, LCDs for Suning, and Gome for Gome. It may be in a different shape, and the coding of each product is only the last one, and naturally it is impossible to compare prices.”

This price war with a small thunder and heavy rain has made the brand liquor alert. In their view, behind the unfair competition between e-commerce platforms is channel hegemonism, and relatively strong high-end liquor is unwilling and impossible to participate in the competition of these platforms.

“In the field of liquor, the brand’s control is far stronger than the channel side, and it must always be stronger than the channel side.” Li He said.

The e-commerce giant is still chasing after it

The e-commerce platform is still chasing after it. This time, the comprehensive e-commerce giants participated in the high-profile battle.

Since 2016, large domestic e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, Jingdong, Vipshop, and Suning have laid out the liquor field and are not satisfied with the retail sector.

In the case of Suning, its FMCG Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Jiangsu Jinshiyuan Wine Co., Ltd. in 2019. The two parties agreed to start production and sales, marketing resource integration, fine-grained operation of members, and joint promotion of brands. All-round cooperation.

Tmall also said that it is working with the important partner 1919 to carry out the price tag reconstruction work.

In 2016, 1919 had adopted an electronic price tag, and Tmall wanted to upgrade it to a digital tool with content attributes and interactive features. After sweeping the electronic price tag, the consumer can enter the Tmall flagship store in 1919, see the stereoscopic introduction of the product or even a small micro video, and the electronic price tag becomes a content portal that increases brand communication and enhances customer stickiness. .

Some of the original liquor vertical e-commerce companies began to deploy the offline store empowerment mode.

The general manager of 1919 E-Commerce Company Li Menglong once introduced that the main business of 1919 is actually to collect management fees through the managed direct management store. Similar to the operation and management service output of the hotel industry, it has not only relied on selling wine to earn distribution price difference;

Jingdong Liquor World, invested and authorized by Jingdong Group, will focus on the offline, and will enhance Jingdong’s advantages in brand, technology, supply chain and finance to enhance the hotel from the winery to the sales terminal. Supply chain performance and consumer experience;

B2B business under the liquor vertical e-commerce Jiuxian network can directly supply food and beverage stores, convenience stores, KTV, etc., to eliminate the layer price increase, reduce the retail terminal wine purchase cost and improve efficiency.

Behind the above layout is the re-engineering of the traditional retail industry by e-commerce platforms.

A traditional brand seller told Prism that before the popularity of the mobile Internet, many brands did not know where their goods were: “Because in most cases, online (e-commerce) and offline The goods are not interoperable, the data is not integrated. The online is good to say that the goods under the line are often piled up in the warehouse of the channel dealers, until the end of the year, the goods are not sold.”

On October 13, 2016, Ma Yun said in a keynote speech at the Yunqi Conference: “The era of pure e-commerce will soon end. In the next decade or two, there is no e-commerce, only new retail. This said. Online and offline combined with modern logistics can truly create new retail.”

Jingdong then proposed the concept of “unbounded retail”, Suning proposed “smart retail”, and Gome played a new strategy of “shared retail”.

In recent years, as the demographic dividend has gradually disappeared, online and offline integration, new retail, social grouping and other modes have become the new darling of e-commerce, and the liquor industry has slowed down. However, when Moutai announced the investment e-commerce platform, JD.com, and Alibaba’s shareholding in 1919, the combination of the liquor industry and the e-commerce platform seemed to give people more imagination.

In particular, the liquor industry means a large number of new users, and it is still the focus of e-commerce giants.

The data shows that the current consumption of the main force after 80 to maintain a neutral attitude towards white wine, most like beer, followed by foreign wine; after 60, 70 after the preference for traditional rice wine, white wine, and health, consumption habits; after 90 favorite Wine and wine are more disgusting to traditional white wine and yellow wine.

In the domestic mainstream e-commerce platform, after 60, 70 is not the most important user group. It has been found that the 1919 overlaps with the Tmall users by no more than 5%. “This is an increase for each other.” Li Menglong said.

However, for brand liquor such as Maotai and Wuliangye, the shadow of e-commerce channel hegemony has always existed, and not one or two new retail concepts can be eliminated.

(At the request of the respondent, Dong Ru and Li He are all pseudonyms)