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This article is from WeChat official account: Chen Weilong’s telescope (ID: yiguojiren) , author: Chen Weilong, head Figure from: vision China

1. A brief comment on the gains and losses of various community group buying platforms in 2020

Meituan and Duoduo have achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 20 million pieces per day in 2020, and their business has entered about 2000 cities.(including counties) span>, the user scale has increased by tens of millions. It can be described as fruitful.

However, the exciting number hides the less exciting facts(The data in this article comes from the conference call of the founders of each platform , Platform insiders, industry consensus, senior experts, some data are reasonable guesses based on the above data).

1. Scale advantages of each platform

At the end of 2020, the (early 2021) community group buying platforms have reached their historical peak, with the largest scale reaching approximately 30 million pieces per day. Because of the fall of the Spring Festival, the current maximum scale is about 20 million pieces per day, which is approximately equal to the situation in December 2020.

From the current situation, the scale distribution of each platform is roughly the first echelon of Meituan, with more than 20 million pieces per day, and the second echelon of Prosperity, Orange Heart, and Shihui groups about 10 million pieces per day~ 15 million pieces/day, the third echelon Ali Hema/Maimaicai, Jingxi are about a few million small, which can be ignored.

Although there is a huge difference in scale between the echelons, about 10 million pieces per day, there is no substantial impact.

Because the scale of each echelon is broken down to the provinces and regions, we find that the difference between the first echelon and the second echelon is very small, and only a few areas have large differences:

The scale of most provinces in the first tier is about 500,000 pieces/day, and the scale of most provinces in the second tier is about 250,000 pieces/day. Although the former is twice that of the latter, the impact comes from business Look, there is no obvious difference between the two, and it will not have a significant impact on the supply chain and the warehouse distribution link.

250,000 pieces/day corresponds to about 500 million pieces/year, corresponding to about 250 SKUs, and each SKU is about 1,000 pieces/day. 500,000 pieces/day corresponds to a scale of about 1 billion/year, corresponds to about 450 SKUs, and each SKU is about 1,100 pieces/day.

Looking at this scale together, it is similar to opening one or two large vegetable markets in each province. If it is scattered to the provincial capitals, prefecture-level cities, counties, and towns in the province, from the perspective of each administrative district, it is like each administrative district has opened several stalls selling vegetables and department stores.

Compared to subverting offline stores and vegetable markets, it is really better than nothing. Compared with the competition, it is only the difference between half a catty and eighty-two.

2. Supply chain of each platform

Assuming that the daily order volume of a certain platform is 20 million, it means that 95% of the provinces have less than 2 million daily orders. The average daily net profit of suppliers in most provinces is about several hundred yuan.

A first-level wholesaler in a province, doing traditional wholesale business, has an annual turnover of tens to hundreds of millions and an annual net profit of more than one million.

I ran to supply the community for group purchases, got up early every day, and completed a series of things such as delivery, product selection, price setting, and operation. The difficulty of the operation has doubled. Finally, I earn a few hundred yuan a day, and I earn 100,000 yuan a year. . It’s really chicken ribs, it’s a pity that the food is tasteless and discarded.

In fact, except for a few suppliers in large provinces, (less than 10% of the total group) can make money , Most suppliers are not making money, and there is no quantity.

Except for prosperity, the infrastructure of the processing warehouse/shared warehouse link of the supply chain is basically zero.

Suppliers have neither quantity nor profit. The key link of the supply chain-processing is not there yet. Where do we talk about the platform’s supply chain advantages and stability?

3. Warehouse distribution of each platform

In the warehousing process, the central warehouses of some platforms are distributed in multiple cities, and the shared warehouses and central warehouses are not in the same park. The costs caused by these unfavorable factors are either added to the price by the supplier or the supplier himself Digestion, if you can’t bear it, affects the stability of the supply chain, or the platform itself subsidizes.

Because of group efficiency and order density problems, most of the grid warehouses are still in a state of loss, and most of the time has not reached 12:00, and the cost is generally more than 60 cents. Only this node, the order income accounts for The ratio reached 8.6%.

In general, the warehousing and distribution process can only cope with and make fewer mistakes, which is far from being timely, economical, and profitable.

4. Comprehensive evaluation of each platform

So, in 2020, Meituan, Duoduo, and Orange Heart will only gain a national scale, and they will be weak in every region. From the perspective of each business link, either it has just been established and needs to be optimized, or it is not at all.

Compared with Meituan and Duoduo, although Xingsheng does not have an advantage in terms of scale in the country, its business links are complete, and its business is concentrated in a few regions in Hunan and Hubei, which is the king in the region. With regional advantages, Xingsheng has its own foundation.

If there is currently only Hunan(representing prosperity), Jiangxi (representing Duoduo), Sichuan (On behalf of Orange Heart), Guangdong(On behalf of Meituan) 4 provinces The market can be expanded. If we do not consider the prosperous amount of capital and the factors of mutual alliances, I believe that Hunan must not be the first target to be attacked, and may even be the last to be attacked. This proves that Meituan, Toto, Orange The results of Xinsheng are not stable, and the results of Xingsheng are stronger. This feature is very important from 2021 to 2023. The only obvious problem with Xingsheng is that there is only one base area and there is no room for improvement.

Not only I am affirmative and prosperous, but also suppliers and brands in the industry think so. The picture below is the survey feedback made by “New Distribution” to brand dealers:

Orange Heart and Shihui Tuan are between Meituan, Duoduo, and Xingsheng, neither of which is occupied or obvious. Alibaba and JD.com belong to hindsight, and they are totally untouched in terms of speed, scale, quality, and stability of results.

If you have to make a summary judgment on the results of 2020, I think Meituan, Duoduo≥Xingsheng> Orange Heart, Shihui Tuan> Ali, Jingxi.

If you summarize the strategy for 2020, I think Meituan, Duoduo, and Orange Heart are blitzkrieg strategies for speed and national scale, and prosperity is a regional strategy for quality and regional scale.

The advantage and disadvantage of the blitz is that it quickly paved a large national stall, but most of the area was not digested, the quality was not good, and there were unstable factors.

The advantages and disadvantages of the regional strategy are that it has established certain barriers in the regional market, kept the results, and established a set of high-quality business closed loops, but faced the dilemma of breaking the game in other regions.

II. The situation and characteristics of community group buying from 2021 to 2023

I think the community group buying battle is divided into three phases, namely market expansion phase in 2021, confrontation consumption phase in 2022~2023, and strategic offensive in 2024~after. stage.

The main feature of the market expansion stage is that there is a lot of room for growth in the market, and all parties do not have to fight fiercely against consumption to obtain multiple growth. At this stage, there is some confrontational consumption, but it is only partial, phased, and low-intensity. Jointly exploring the undeveloped market is the theme.

In the market expansion stage, because of the need to respond to competition, the strategy of regional segregation must be implemented, and in the form of “development key areas” + “acquisitions”, regional separatism will eventually be formed in some provinces market. If there is no regional separatism, it will be difficult to make progress in 2022.

The main feature of the anti-consumption phase is that the market space is shrinking rapidly, and each party is increasingly relying on competing for each other’s share to grow, and it has become the dominant growth logic. The joint development of untapped markets will become a partial and non-dominant growth logic.

In the stage of fighting against consumption, regional separatism will become the most important or only competitive means and achievement. Players who do not have a regionally segregated market may be substantially marginalized, although it may seem that the data is not bad.

In the strategic offensive stage, all parties conduct refined operations based on the regional segregated market, relying on the strategic layout implemented from 2021 to 2023, and the group-level layout outside of the community group buying, to compete with rivals and gradually Cannibalize each other’s regional separatist market.

In the above three stages, there will be a combination of community group buying inside and outside the battlefield.

Before the specific analysis, we need to understand a question: Why community group buying is a regional scale economy rather than a national scale economy like e-commerce. The core reason is the characteristics of next-day delivery and zero inventory of community group buying.

Commodities purchased by community groups go from the supplier’s warehouse to the platform’s central warehouse, then to the grid warehouse, and finally to the group leaderIn the hands, the time is only 16~24 hours, and the platform cannot set up large-scale inventory. Therefore, the supplier must be local and deliver the goods accurately at the specified time. Non-local suppliers can’t do it. From the perspective of the supply chain, community group buying must be localized and regional.

From the perspective of the warehousing and distribution link, this is also the case. The central warehouse in one province cannot supply goods to other provinces. Because the distance is too far, the inter-provincial time will take several hours, and it is impossible to deliver the goods to the township hundreds of kilometers away in the neighboring province before 12 o’clock the next day.

So each province is isolated from each other, and users, commodities, suppliers, and warehouses are all based on provinces. Therefore, community group buying only has regional economies of scale, not national economies of scale. The following articles will mention this basic feature many times. (JD.com is also a next-day delivery, and it is also a localized warehouse distribution, but JD.com has local inventory, so JD’s regional economies of scale are not strong, and the difference is I will share with you in the future).

1. Situation analysis in 2021

1.1 Market expansion

• Broad market space & most markets have no barriers

From the perspective of geographical space, Meituan, Duoduo, and Orange Heart currently occupy about 2000 cities(including counties), which will cover 34 cities Provincial-level administrative regions, more than 300 prefecture-level cities, more than 2,000 counties, and tens of thousands of towns and villages still have a lot of space.

For the cities entered, more than 95% of the provinces have no more than 2 million items per day, and most of them are concentrated in 500,000. It can be seen that it is only entering, and development and occupation have not started.

Simulation of the scale distribution of a certain platform in each province in 2020

From the perspective of the predicted industry ceiling, the current total industry scale is about 70 million pieces per day, which is 10 times the gap from the industry ceiling of 600 million to 1 billion pieces per day.

Therefore, the tasks scheduled for some platforms in 2021 are 5-10 times. It is very likely that the total industry scale will reach 300 million pieces per day in 2021.

Among them, Meituan and Duoduo have become the first echelon with 80 million pieces per day. Xingsheng, Orange Heart, and Shihui Group became the second echelon, with the daily number of items reaching 40 million pieces per day. Ali/Maimaicai and Jingxi became the third echelon, with the daily number of items reaching 20 million pieces per day. The total size of the industry has reached 320 million pieces per day.

Ali/Maimai and Jingxi started from 0 and reached 20 million pieces in a year. With more intense competition and obvious disadvantages, it is no longer easy to complete Meituan and Duoduo’s 2020 results.

It is worth looking forward to the 4 times growth of other platforms in 2021. After all, their internal goal is 5~10 times.

In the national market and most regional markets (except for a few areas such as Hunan), no decent barriers have been constructed by all parties. I mentioned this issue in the first section of this article.

The market space is large and there are no decent barriers. All parties are preparing to start with 10 billion in 2021. Therefore, market expansion must be the main theme of 2021.

1.2 Regional separatism is imperative

1.2.1 Latecomers who do not choose regional separatism will be fully suppressed

• Scale advantage

According to the forecast of 80 million pieces in the first echelon, 40 million in the second echelon, and 20 million in the third echelon, combined with the actual situation, I simulated the scale distribution of each echelon in each province in 2021, as follows:

Convert the above table to get the following table:

From the tableIt can be seen that at the end of 2021, the scale of the provinces with the most backward tiers in the first echelon reached 2 million pieces per day, basically forming a nationwide suppression of the second and third tiers.

If the national expansion strategy is adopted, by the end of 2021, the first echelon can achieve a universal regional scale advantage, and the scale of each province can reach more than 2 million pieces per day.

• Supply Chain Advantage

Let’s look at what it means for a province to reach a scale of more than 2 million pieces per day.

I continue to break down the scale into three indicators: SKU number, daily flow/supplier, daily net profit/supplier, as shown below:

Analysis of the above table can be done in two aspects:

1) From the comparison of the scale in 2020, the number of SKUs in provinces with a scale of 2 million pieces has increased by 122%, and supplier turnover and net profits have increased by 80% compared to provinces with 500,000 pieces.

2) From the comparison between 2021 and 2020, the number of SKUs in the provinces and regions has generally reached 2 million or more, compared with the platforms below 2 million, the number of SKUs has increased by 67%~300%, 20%~140% increase in supplier turnover and net profit.

In other words, the first echelon reaches 80 million pieces per day, and the nationwide market has greatly improved in terms of SKU, supplier flow, and net profit.

The increase in SKU means higher user stickiness, higher unit price per customer, and higher monetization efficiency. The increase in supplier turnover and net profit means stronger supply chain advantages, more suppliers, better service, better quality, and lower prices.

Currently, many suppliers are willing to do it in some provinces and regions, but are unwilling to do it in other provinces and regions. The core reason is that the regional scale is too small.

• Warehouse distribution advantage

In the warehousing and distribution link, the cost reduction brought by the increase in the scale of the central warehouse is not obvious, and the cost of the central warehouse is also relatively low.

The cost of the grid warehouse is the focus of the “central warehouse-grid warehouse-group leader” link, But the scale effect of the grid warehouse is based on group efficiency and community order density. The effect of scale at the provincial level is ineffective, and more is the need for local promotion and optimization of operations.

A testable fact is that large-scale grid warehouses in Guangdong, Jiangxi and other regions also generally lose money or are not profitable, and there is no obvious difference with smaller grid warehouses in other regions. However, the efficiency of the group is good, and the smaller areas of the province can also make general profits.

But in the future, provinces with huge volumes, such as provinces with 7 to 4 million pieces/day, will have some advantages in warehousing, which are mainly reflected in the huge advantages of scale and cost reduce.

Summary

To sum up, in 2021, the first echelon will completely suppress the second and third echelon, mainly in the supply chain link to form a national universal regional advantage, and the warehouse distribution link in a few regions can suppress the third and second echelon.

In this case, if the second and third echelons still insist on giving priority to the expansion of the national market, rather than giving priority to divisions and key areas, and forming a regional separation, then the failure is obvious.

Unless the second echelon (Xingsheng, Orange Heart, Shihui Mission) gets better than the first echelon (Meituan, Duoduo) Faster speed and greater growth, such as 6 times growth rate. The results of the 2020 contest show that this is unrealistic.

Data description(non-professionals can ignore reading)

The prediction method of the size distribution of each echelon and province is as follows:

• Infer the daily total number of items for the first, second, and third echelon.

• The estimated data of the largest province, such as 2.5 million pieces per day.

• The distribution of scale grades should be as smooth as possible, for example, the maximum value is 2.5 million, followed by 200, 150, 100, 50, 25. The grades in 2021 are inferred based on the grades in 2020 and the overall growth rate, for example, from the maximum value from 250 The growth rate of million is less than the growth rate of the overall gift (4 times), which is about 3, reaching 7 million. The smallest and penultimate smallest values ​​must exceed 4 times to ensure that the overall growth rate is 4 times.

• Fill in the number of provinces that have reached the scale distribution so that the total number is equal to the total number of pieces per day. There are multiple solutions, any solution can be used without affecting the result.

• Finally obtained data on the size distribution of each echelon and province.

After many calculations, only the daily total number of items will seriously affect the final result. No matter how the other 3 items change, they will not affect the final result. Therefore, it does not matter that the data of some platforms does not strictly conform to my speculation. For example, Xingsheng Hunan obviously exceeds 2.5 million pieces per day. Interested friends can guess by themselves.

Therefore, as long as the prediction of the total daily number of each echelon is correct, the result can be guaranteed to be basically correct.

First, it is necessary to demonstrate the total scale of the industry in 2021. The industry generally believes that community group buying can reach 1.5 trillion to 2.5 trillion in 2025, and the daily number of items is about 600 to 1 billion. Therefore, it is very optimistic that it will reach about 40% of 2025 in 2021, that is, 200 million to 400 million pieces per day. It is reasonable to take 300 million pieces per day in this article.

Then, combined with the total scale of the industry, infer the total scale of each echelon. The third tier can basically be counted as starting from 2021, it is reasonable to reach Meituan’s score of about 20 million pieces per day in one year. Even if it reaches 30 million pieces/day, it will not affect the results.

If the first and second tiers increase fourfold, reaching 40 million pieces/day and 80 million pieces/day respectively, the total scale of all platforms will reach 320 million pieces/day, which is in line with the industry scale in 2021. The result is the result described in the text.

If the growth rate of the first echelon is higher than 4 times, the final result is that the first echelon will completely suppress the second and third echelons.

Can the second echelon achieve a growth rate of more than 4 times, such as 5 times or 6 times? I don’t think so. The reason is as follows:

• If the second echelon can reach it, judging from the situation in 2020, the first echelon can also achieve a higher growth rate, which has little effect on the final result.

• The second tier has a growth rate of 5 times or higher. In 2021, the industry scale will be close to 400 million pieces per day, reaching 50% of the industry ceiling. I think this is unlikely.

To sum up, the total daily number of items for each echelon in 2021 is reasonable, so the scale distribution of each echelon and province is reasonable. Therefore, the final conclusion that “the first echelon will completely suppress the second and third echelons” is also reasonable.

A province can reach 5 million to 7 million pieces per day, while other platforms can basically only reach 1 million to 3 million pieces per day. The scale of a certain platform is basically the same as the sum of the scales of other platforms in the province. . The reason is as follows:

1) In 2021, the average size of each province is about 11 million pieces/day(300 million pieces/27), if a certain platform is in A The province reaches 6 million to 7 million pieces/day, and each remaining platform only has a scale of 1 million to 2 million pieces/day.

2) If other platforms generally have 2 million to 4 million pieces per day, the scale of Province A will be close to 20 million pieces per day. Not only is it much larger than the scale of other provinces in the same period, it is also far from the industry ceiling of each province by 30 million pieces/day/province.(800 million pieces/27) It’s near.

3) The large scale of multiple platforms in the same province means that competition is very fierce, and their respective input and output are relatively small compared to other provinces. It is unlikely that all platforms will develop a large scale in the region.

In other words, With the expansion of the national market, a substantial regional separatism will naturally form.

Let’s take a look at the gap between the separatist party and other parties in the separatist market:

The number of platforms occupying a separate position has increased by 100%~260% in the number of SKUs compared with other competitors, and has increased by 20%~95% in supplier turnover and net profit.

In the warehousing and distribution link, because the regional scale has increased by three times, the order density and group efficiency have been greatly improved. With reference to Xingsheng Optimal Group, which has more than 4 million pieces per day in Hunan, it can achieve breakeven and the lowest performance cost in the industry.

The supply chain, commodities, warehousing and distribution end are improved, the platform improves the economic model, there is more price space for users, and the user experience is significantly ahead of the competition.

Data description(non-professionals can ignore reading)

In fact, when implementing the national market expansion priority strategy, the regional separatism pattern described above will not necessarily appear. It may also form the pattern described in the following table:

As described in the table on the left, the provinces and autonomous regions with a huge scale of 6 million to 7 million pieces per day are gone, forming a more spindle-shaped form of scale distribution. This shows that although the first echelon has completely suppressed the second and third echelons across the country, it has not achieved an absolute advantage in each regional market.

It is very likely that the provinces and regions with the largest scale in the first echelon are also competing with the largest provinces and regions. This result is uncomfortable for all parties.

The reasons for this situation are as follows:

• It is difficult for the acceptance and penetration rate of a single province to rise rapidly in a short period of time, causing some provinces to be unable to accommodate much larger scales than others.

• The platform does not pay enough attention to advantageous regions, resulting in insufficient regional development and unable to become a segregated market.

• Other platforms pay enough attention to certain areas and divide their shares, making it impossible for a single platform to develop into a segregated market.

• The quality of the platform’s business development is limited and cannot afford such a large-scale business.

1.2.3 How to choose a strategy if the speed is not enough and the competitive advantage is obvious

As analyzed above, the problems faced by the second and third tiers are insufficient speed and obvious competitive advantages, so what strategy should be adopted? After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1945, the KMT and the Communist Party faced this situation.

Our party has adopted many strategies, such as occupying rural areas and occupying certain areas, such as the Northeast, Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia. Regardless of whether it is a rural area or certain areas, it is a regional separatism in general, which developed from the base area. The strategy adopted by the Kuomintang is nationwide + key cities.

This is not to say that the Kuomintang’s strategy in 1945 was not good, but that our party adopted the best strategy under the circumstances. If we compare the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in 1945 and the community group buying competition in 2021, there are still many similarities in fundamentals.

I will continue to analyze the problems and strategies of regional separatism in the future.

2. Situation analysis from 2022 to 2023

2.1 Confrontation against consumption

In 2021, whether it is the prosperity of the primary market, Orange Heart, or the secondary market of Meituan, Toto, Ali, JD. Although everyone will consume 10 billion to 20 billion of funds, they have also received a huge increase in business.

There are great hopes for both the capital market and the group. Therefore, funds and resources will be more abundant from 2022 to 2023. (If the platform does not go well in 2021, it is likely to be marginalized.)

Sufficient funds and resources, but the market space is not as big as 2021, and in the short term, multiple competitions, a large amount of funds, and resources enter the market. Any one party’s growth of one business means that the other party has to give up 0.5 business. 0.5 business comes from the new market.

In 2021, the growth of one business by either party means that the other party only needs to give up 0.1 or 0.3 business, and the other 0.9 or 0.7 business will come from the new market.

Therefore, the main theme of 2022 is to fight against consumption, which is different from the main theme of market expansion in 2021.

When will this confrontational consumption end?

Two necessary conditions must be met: ① All parties have been exhausted and unable to launch large-scale attacks; ② Form an absolute dominant market in the region, both in terms of scale and business links.

If the vitality is exhausted, then the nationwide confrontation will end.

If there are 1 or 2 companies in the area forming an absolute advantage, then the confrontation in the area will end, and other areas will continue until 1 or 2 companies form an absolute advantage.

In some cases, because in certain areas, all parties have not paid enough attention and made arrangements in advance, or all parties have participated in the mutual consumption and cannot be arranged, so all parties cannot form an absolute advantage.

In this case, as the fighting in various regions has ended, the active power of all parties will be consumed greatly, and the input and output will be seriously mismatched. This region will also die out, forming a separatist zone with no advantage, similar to the Middle East. Certain areas of the country.

What kind of pattern will be formed at this stage? Will form the following pattern:

• NoPlatforms that have gained a solid regional separatist market will be eliminated, or are very passive, and can only rely on capital transfusions or acquisitions.

• Different platforms occupy different regional segregated markets, in which one or two companies occupy an absolute dominant position.

• There are certain regions where all parties are unable to form an absolute dominant position, are stubborn and unable to become a regional segregated market.

2.2 Acquisitions and mergers

Intense competition will cause all parties to feel uncomfortable, and no one is willing to waste meaninglessly, especially the capital side. Remember Kuaidi, Dianping, Hungry, Mobike in “Daming Lakeside”?

In addition to avoiding the waste of competition, there is also the need for business competition.

If in 2021, the first echelon of Meituan and Duoduo achieve their goals, and the second and third echelons are also deployed as expected above, Ali and JD will definitely not be able to accept this result. The acquisition of Xingsheng, Shihuituan and even Orange Heart has become the only way to continue to stand up and “push”.

Even if all parties adopt the strategy of regional separatist priority and form a relatively balanced situation, some people will still form a competitive advantage through mergers and acquisitions.

So, acquisitions and mergers are inevitable, and they are likely to happen at the end of 2021, and no later than the end of 2022 at the latest.

2.3 The decisive factor appears

I have an intuitive feeling that what is the core influencing factor of community group buying and in what form is still unclear. I think this factor may appear in 2021 and will be confirmed in 2022~2023. The reasons are as follows:

1) Only when the business develops to a certain stage and there are critical problems can the key factors be found, and then confirmed within 1 to 2 years.

Takeaway as an example, Meituan’s entry began in late 2013, and all parties began to realize the importance of delivery in early 2015. At the end of 2015, before the merger of Meituan Dianping, the two sides did not defeat each other. The business development throughout 2016 did not show that the rider played a key role in the competition.

So, it takes a long time for the key factors to be effective and confirmed.

2) After finding the key factors, it takes timeExplore the combination of key factors and business, drive by business and key factors together, and verify it.

Let’s take takeaway as an example. From 2013 to 2017, we will first hit the campus market, then the mid-high-end white-collar market, and finally the low-end market. Behind each market segment is a set of standard distribution system and merchant support, which ultimately constitutes a closed loop driven by “user-distribution-merchant”.

Of course, this is an afterthought.

From the perspective of business development, the traffic at that time was also one of the key factors. Traffic is reflected on the user side of the “user-delivery-merchant” triangle relationship. If there is no traffic advantage of Meituan Dianping, in the competition, this triangle may not be built, or if you are hungry, you may not necessarily lose.

So, the key factors do not exist independently, nor can they play a key role in the beginning.

3) If community group buying falls into regional divisions, it will increase the difficulty of breaking the game. The ultimate criticality may exceed the current community group buying business and develop new factors.

From a comprehensive point of view of 1 and 2, the distribution that is considered a key factor afterwards is caused by the business encountering a key problem. In the early expansion competition, this key factor only played a role in ensuring that business expansion was not hindered. The final key role is to combine a single key factor with other factors in the middle and late stages of the competition to complete the closed loop at the lower level of logic.

We are now talking about the rider is the key factor or one of the core assets of Meituan’s victory. It is meaningless to discuss key factors separately and statically.

Therefore, it takes time to discover the key factors. The key factors must be combined with the business, and then other key factors must be combined to work together to become the final key factor. It is still a bit early to talk about key factors in 2021, and it may be confirmed from 2022 to 2023.

The key issues of current community group buying may include: grid warehouse, processing warehouse, supply chain, capital, and flow. But at what stage, what role do these factors play, in what form, how long will it take to verify, what is the more complete underlying logic closed loop, and whether there are factors beyond the current community group buying business? I still have no complete picture. Ideas.

I will put forward my preliminary conjectures in the last part of this article “Community Group Purchase Countermeasures 2021-2023”.

3. Strategic offensive after 2024~

The strategic counter-offensive here is not the kind of high sentiment on the battlefield, where the army is overwhelmed and rushing forward to win. The strategic counterattack here is the silent cannibalization of Chunyu, which is simply refined operations and full chain operations.

Whether it can win depends largely on the layout and strategy of 2021-2023, such as regional segregation strategy, mid-to-backend layout, etc. These layouts may surpass the community group buying business and require group ecological coordination.

Because it is too far away from us and there are many variables, we will not expand here. This article focuses on the situation in 2021-2023.

4. Long-term regional separatism

Long-term regional separatism will emerge in 2021. It is the core feature of 2022~2023, and it is likely to continue into 2025. Long-term regional segregation will not only have a profound impact on the community group buying business, but will also have a greater impact on various competing entities, such as Pinduoduo.

4.1 The internal motivation of long-term regional separatism

4.1.1 Need to implement regional separatist priority strategy to break the strategic advantage of the first echelon

If all parties follow the strategy of giving priority to national expansion, the result will be the following table, which will be completely suppressed, and the situation will be even more difficult than 2020.

What if the second and third tiers are changed to regional separatist priority?

Although Ali/Shihuituan, Xingsheng, Chengxin, and Jingxi cannot compete with Meituan and Duoduo in the national market, they have concentrated on developing 3 key provinces and the scale of 3 key provinces has reached 6 million. /Day, other regions only doMillions of pieces/day.

The four companies have adopted this strategy, and 12-15 provinces will be divided, 10 provinces will be left to Meituan, Duoduo separatist, 2-5 provinces will be harassed and divided by all parties text-remarks” label=”note”>(Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai 7 provinces are ignored).

Then the situation has become that the second and third echelon occupy 3 to 4 key provinces and regions respectively, and the first echelon separates 5 key provinces and regions, and all parties in the remaining provinces and regions have no obvious advantages and disadvantages and become a war quagmire.

In an instant, the advantages accumulated by the first echelon in 2020 and the dangerous situation that is very likely to be formed in 2021 are resolved.

Not only that, but the first-tier Meituan and Duoduo’s national scale advantage will be severely restricted, and the goal of 80 million pieces per day is almost impossible to accomplish.

So is this result easy to achieve?

This result is easy to achieve, four times larger than the national scale, and easier to achieve than competing with the first echelon nationwide. The reason is as follows:

• Except for the Xingsheng and Shihui Groups, the main players of all parties are basically opponents of the same size or that cannot be beaten. Even if the national competition cannot be won, it is not a problem to concentrate on fighting a few provinces.

• When multiple platforms adopt this strategy, everyone will deliberately avoid their respective strengths/key areas, and even tacitly target the first echelon. Meituan and Duo Duo can’t help multiple players of the same size. The opponent launched an attack in different areas.

Therefore, a pattern of regional separatism will be formed in 2021. Maybe the actual situation is not as uniform as the above mentioned. Some platforms are more segregated, and some are less segregated. In the end, they are the embryonic forms of regional separatism.

4.1.2 Community group buying has a strong regional scale economy effect and is a powerful means to break competition

In the fierce multi-party competition, once a party obtains a regional scale advantage, if there is no strong prevention, business benefits will be better, and the price for users will have more room to further stimulate scale growth.

Because, The larger the scale, the greater the purchase volume for suppliers, the greater the supplier’s profit, and the greater the room for suppliers to cooperate with the platform to reduce prices and improve quality. The larger the scale, the more SKUs provided on the platform, the higher the customer selectivity, the higher the stickiness, the higher the monetization efficiency, and the more profitable products that can be provided. In the same way, the warehousing and distribution links also dilute costs and achieve profitability.

So the larger the scale, the better the experience, and the better the economic benefits, which will be fed back to the business and continue to increase the scale.

On the other hand, in order to get rid of competition, the platform has invested heavily in this area. Other platforms have reduced their input because the input and output of this area are not cost-effective, which further strengthens the existing advantages.

Therefore, once a threshold of scale is crossed, a qualitative change will occur, and eventually a market will be formed to dominate the market.

4.1.3 Long-term segregation because of segregation

Once a separate regime is formed, the characteristics of protracted warfare will be greatly enhanced. Because you can seize several areas to form a segregated market, other competitions are also possible. Many parties have bases, and an early end of the battle will be far away.

This is like war. If the dominant party does not seize the strategic opportunity and let the other party establish a strategic base, the war will turn into a long-term confrontation and consumption, such as the War of Resistance Against Japan.

If the inferior party did not seize the strategic opportunity and was destroyed in the strategic base, no matter how deep the family was, it would only have to surrender, such as the German-French War in World War II.

To sum up, the long-term regional separatism will emerge in 2021, which is the core feature of 2022-2023, and it is likely to continue into 2025.

4.2 Unexpected impact of regional segregation

Regional separatism will not only affect the community group buying business of all parties, but also the main business of all parties. The most serious of these may be Pinduoduo.

In 2020, Hunan’s prosperity and optimization will seriously affect Pinduoduo’s performance in Hunan. If 2021-2023, 6 platforms develop 25-30 such samples, the scale of each sample is several times larger than Hunan in 2020, how much pressure will Pinduoduo have?

5. What kind of “victory” should we pursue

The so-called victory is nothing more than seeking scale, seeking speed or seeking qualitythe amount.

5.1 Scale victory

If you are looking for scale, you must also divide the total scale and the regional scale. If it is to seek the total scale, all the regional scales of each platform have not reached the level that quantitative changes cause qualitative changes. This can’t bear tossing during the stage of fighting against consumption.

Even if a certain platform has a comparative advantage in all regions in 2021/2022 (not an absolute advantage), this platform will not It’s better, because in this period, the vital power of each platform has not been fully released and consumed, and any “bird” that dares to rise in front of each company but cannot occupy an absolute advantage will be beaten down.

No matter how wise the leader of this platform, how strong the capital, how strong the organizational ability, it is in danger. Because other rivals are of the same order of magnitude as you, and they have sufficient vitality. Before this vital force is consumed, any relative advantage is weak.

So, from the perspective of business and competition, the regional volume has not reached an absolute advantage, and it is meaningless to just ask for the total volume.

If the total scale is slightly lower, but there are several regions with huge regional scales, for a long period of time, competing active forces will not be put in large quantities in these regions, but will be put in a large number of unseparated markets Area.

This also further promotes the emergence of a pattern of regional separatism.

The national scale will lead to the “group fights” of the right competitors, so is there any benefit to the national scale?

One of the biggest benefits is strategic opportunities. For example, it is mentioned in “Market Expansion” that if all parties still play on a national scale, the first echelon will gain a huge competitive advantage. Even if all parties adopt the strategy of giving priority to regional separatism, the first echelon will be able to take into account market expansion and take most of the sinking market when others are unable to take care of it.

Unfortunately, if the second and third echelons adopt the strategy of giving priority to regional separatism, the first echelon will not be able to obtain such a huge strategic advantage if it implements the strategy of giving priority to national market expansion.

Some people will also say that the national scale has a great impact on the supply chain and warehouse distribution end. I think this is what people outside the industry said. As far as the current situation is concerned, it will not have a big impact from 2021 to 2022.

From the perspective of the supply side, the supply chain of community group buying places great emphasis on timeliness,Stable delivery capacity, whether it is standard products or fresh food suppliers, there is a lack of suppliers nationwide. There is a shortage of suppliers of this size, as well as experience, ability, and infrastructure for shared warehouses/processing warehouses.

So, 99% of them are now local suppliers, and at most they are businesses that span 2-3 provinces, and try their best to be localized. This type of supplier is still in its infancy, and I guess it is impossible to become mainstream.

From the perspective of warehouse distribution, whether it is a central warehouse, a grid warehouse, or a group leader, the national scale has no major influence on this. This has been analyzed in “Regional Separation Imperative”.

To sum up, the greatest significance of national scale is strategic opportunity, but this kind of strategic opportunity faces great challenges. Of course, if the second and third echelon do not respond well, the impact of this strategic opportunity is huge.

5.2 Speed ​​victory

Some platforms have a fanatical pursuit of speed. One of their basic logic is that the cost of first entrants is low, and the cost of late entrants is high. This logic does not apply to the current community group buying competition, because there are too many participants and too rich.

If there are only 1 to 2 competing pairs, if we compare the competing pairs first and then we are ahead of the competing pairs in terms of cost structure, this is meaningful.

But if you compete against as many as 5, and these people come in one by one, you will always undermine your “cost lead.”

An even worse result is that if you are fast, but do not reach the point where you can build a sufficient advantage, then you are involved in enough areas. If you encounter different competitions in different regions, you will be caught by multiple people. The predicament of the siege.

This will not be obvious in 2020 and 2021, but in 2022~2023, the entire competitive environment will enter the stage of confrontation, and this embarrassing situation will be very obvious.

The only way to break the game here is to be fast enough, so fast that most areas not only have priority access, but also build an absolute advantage. This is impossible to achieve.

In “Regional Separation Imperative”, it is mentioned that there are only two cases of regional separatism. Either each party adopts a limited strategy of regional separatism, and each obtains a regional separatist market to form a nationwide regional separatism pattern; or implements a nationwide regional separatism. Expansion priority strategy, because scale development naturally forms regional separatism in a few regions.

In other words, no one can achieve the absolute advantage of most regions, at most the relative advantage.

So,From 2021 to 2023, it makes sense to emphasize speed. If you one-sidedly emphasize speed, you will definitely enter a dead end, because speed is not decisive.

5.3 Quality victory

I refer to the development and improvement of various business links of community group buying as quality, such as supply chain/commodity, central warehouse, shared warehouse/processing warehouse, grid warehouse, group leader/user, operation, etc.

The starting point and result of regional separation is actually focusing on quality. Because the regional scale is the scale of the supply chain, it is the capacity building of the central warehouse, the shared warehouse/processing warehouse, and the grid warehouse. If it cannot be built, it will not be possible to form a regional scale.

For example, the current scale of some popular fresh products is tens of thousands of pieces per day. If regional separation is required, this scale may increase to about 100,000 pieces per day. As far as the current ecological level is concerned, no one can do it. It is not only the giants that cannot do it, but also other partners. Only Xingsheng still has this ability.

In addition to the development quality of the supply chain links, the development quality of central warehouses, grid warehouses, and logistics links will also affect business expansion. This is actually very easy to understand, just like the e-commerce from 2010 to 2013, there will be a burst of orders every Double Eleven.

No matter how fast the business develops, it also needs to match the development of each link, and what kind of quality can bear the corresponding scale. The larger the scale, the higher the quality needs.

So, regional separatism is not only focusing on regional scale, but also focusing on the quality of the development of various business links in the region.

5.4 Summary

The situation in 2021-2023 requires that the regional separatist strategy be prioritized. The regional separatist strategy pursues regional scale, regional speed, and development quality, rather than national scale and national speed.

6. Business development level of community group buying

I have occasionally mentioned the development level of the community group buying business in “A Brief Comment on the Gains and Losses of Various Platforms in 2020”, “Regional Separation Imperative”, “What “Victories” Should We Pursue”” and other content.

In order to make it easier for everyone to understand the community group buying business more deeply, understand the current situation and the countermeasures proposed later, here is a summary, but I will not discuss it.

From the business link to testThe development level of community group buying business can be roughly divided into supply chain, warehouse distribution, group leader/user, platform, and operation. The supply chain can be subdivided into suppliers, commodities, processing warehouses/shared warehouses, and distribution. Warehouse distribution can be subdivided into central warehouse, grid warehouse, group leader, and distribution.

6.1 The level of development of the supply chain

From the perspective of suppliers, they are now all local one or two batches of suppliers. Suppliers that can make money or scale up may only account for 10% of the entire community group buying supplier group.

From the perspective of commodities, on the brand side, there is no big difference between branded commodities purchased by community groups and commodities from other circulation channels. In the future, a four-fold increase in the circulation scale will have a greater impact on branded products. Can brand owners keep up with the progress and provide different products? In other words, can other less-sophisticated brand merchants keep up with the speed of development and enter this market?

On the quality side, in order to strengthen low prices, preferential prices, and cost-effectiveness, community group-buy products should be subordinated to other channels. Fresh products are inferior products, and the ingredients may be changed in the standard products. Of course, these are not particularly big problems for the target population and the sinking market. After all, this is better than buying “Kang Shuaifu” in the township.

From the processing warehouse/shared warehouse, it is basically zero. The processing warehouses are all built by the suppliers themselves, and the ability to resist fluctuations is weak, and the ability to scale shipments is weak. Because the vast majority of fresh produce suppliers have no processing capabilities, and the more high-quality batches, the less processing capabilities, which prevents a large number of high-quality suppliers from entering the market. Shared warehouses are all provided by third parties, but they can also meet business needs.

From the point of view of the distribution side, most of the fresh produce suppliers do not have the ability to distribute, nor do they have long-term cooperative distribution companies. A batch of standard suppliers generally have their own distribution teams or long-term cooperative distribution companies.

Therefore, the distribution capacity also hinders fresh food suppliers from entering the ecosystem.

6.2 Development level of warehouse distribution

From the perspective of the central warehouse, the scale of 7 million pieces/day is estimated to have a central warehouse warehouse group of 100,000 square meters. Is the platform ready? Or is there a reserve in the market?

Is it better to build central warehouses in different cities than in the same city? I believe the answer will be given in 2021.

Grid warehouses generally lose money due to low group efficiency, and the overall increase of 4 times should generally improve. But what follows is the problem of distribution logistics. After all, after the scale is increased by 4 times, it will absorb 50% of the same city logistics in the same period.force. Can the intra-city logistics market support it? Will the cost increase due to the tight capacity, and the grid warehouse will lose money again?

The delivery timelines of grid warehouses and central warehouses are generally completed at 14 or 16 points, which is still far from the industry benchmark. Can it be maintained after the scale has increased by 4 times?

The development level of the supply chain and warehouse distribution determines the development level of the regional scale

7. The government and public opinion draw the bottom line for competition and development

From the perspective of the history of the Internet development from 2008 to 2020, when the platform was on the top, it carried the banner of eliminating harm for the people, and after the success on the top, it rode on the people’s head to dominate the blessing.

If the government and the public could not see the faces of these people in the past, the experience of these years has been enough for the public to see these people clearly. In fact, public opinion and the attitude of the government have changed.

The current regulatory risks and public opinion pressure are unprecedented in the history of the Internet, and we must pay great attention to them.

The current community group buying competition involves multiple giants, a large number of funds and interest groups, and the impact is not negligible. If all platforms continue to engage in tricks of the past, only as channels, regardless of the industry, use capital to harvest the market, challenge public opinion and supervision, the consequences will be very serious.

3. Countermeasures for community group buying from 2021 to 2023

1. At the regional and market level-regional and regional segregation strategy

As mentioned above, the second and third echelon cannot prioritize national expansion or the only strategy. It must be the regional separatist strategy. The reason has already been mentioned in the previous article.

The first echelon also needs to focus on the regional separatist strategy and even make it a priority strategy for the following reasons:

• In the national expansion, we must make key breakthroughs and consolidate the phased results to cope with the difficulties in the later stage of confrontation with consumption, and to fight back the competing war of attrition with scale and efficiency.

• If the matchRegional separatism is generally implemented, and the first echelon will be forced to follow up and carry out strategic contraction.

In addition, the first echelon needs to make efforts to sink the market or add new markets, use strategic opportunities to seize the market, and win the strategic space for long-term wars.

In these markets, we must follow the strategy of rapid offensive. Don’t entangle and consume the competition. Otherwise, we will enter the stage of confrontation and consumption prematurely, and the strategic goal will not be achieved.

As the opposite of the regional separatist strategy, some areas should be delineated as blocking areas. The core goal is to block rivals and achieve regional separatism.

In short, no matter who it is, it is necessary to adopt a strategy of sub-regional and regional segregation. Based on the regional market, fight a national war, rather than based on the whole country, fight a national war.

2. At the cognitive level-recognize the facts and strictly implement the regional separatist strategy

Some people in the second and third tiers have inexplicable fear and subconscious fear of the advantages established by the first tier, and they always feel that the opponent is very powerful. In fact, these are all illusions, and they are nothing more than strong ones outside.

Specific to each area, their scale is very small, and the quality is also very low. This low quality is not only caused by rapid development, but also caused by the lack of integrity of the industry. This makes the situation facing the first echelon even more difficult.

So don’t think how powerful the competition is. You don’t think you can do it anymore. In fact, there is still a big chance.

As long as the strategy and tactics are properly formulated and executed thoroughly, it is not a problem to catch up or even defeat the competition.

In addition to the lack of regional scale and business quality in the first echelon, they have to face several rivals at the same level. Even if the first echelon builds a barrier, there is still a lot of vigorous power from these rivals that has not been released. One rival can’t be beaten, and multiple rivals can always defeat each other.

Just like the situation in the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1941, the Japanese side reached Shanxi in the north, threatened Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, blocked the south and southeast coasts, hit Changsha on the front line, and dropped bombs on the accompanying capital Chongqing.

However, the Japanese side, with respect to our vast territory and deep strength, persisted in the regional war of resistance, and was about to end the United States, the Japanese side, with its obvious strategic advantage, ultimately failed.

The current situation is far from what it was in 1941, and now there is more than one “American” player in existence.in. I start to feel fear or think that there is no hope now. This is a very wrong idea.

Because some people can’t recognize the facts, formulate appropriate strategies and tactics, and propose untimely goals, the actions of the following people are deformed. They only care about the form and ignore the reality, and only the KPI ignores the strategic goals. Instead, they waste strategic opportunities. The other party has achieved results. The failure in form has become a failure in practice.

As long as we seek truth from the facts, step by step, select 2 to 3 regions as bases, and form 2-3 regional separatist markets within a year, then the situation across the country will be completely different.

Because if someone thinks and does this, Ali, JD, Xingsheng or Orange Heart will follow up. And these four companies will inevitably stagger and choose different regions, and will not conflict with each other on a large scale.

Although Ali, JD, Xingsheng or Orange Heart cannot beat Meituan and Duoduo in the national market, there is no doubt that they will concentrate their efforts on a few provinces. Meituan and Duoduo faced attacks from multiple opponents of the same size across the country, and the gods were powerless.

At that time, the situation in the country will become “Ali, JD, Xingsheng or Orange Heart each occupy different regions, and gradually grasp the regional advantages. Meituan and Duoduo were forced to abandon the national market because they could not support the national situation. Regional market”. Everyone is back to the same level.

If some people don’t recognize the facts and put forward the goal of the national market, they will enter the home court of Meituan and Duoduo, be led by the other side, and will always be one step or even three steps behind the other side.

As analyzed above, 2021 is a crucial year for Meituan and Toto to achieve the national strategic goal of 80 million pieces, and to form a comprehensive suppression of all parties. It is also a crucial year for all parties to implement the priority strategy of regional separatism to fight against the first echelon.

If this year’s strategic opportunities are wasted, Meituan and Duoduo will likely establish barriers across the country in 2022. At that time, even if all parties join and implement regional strategies, the effect will be far worse than in 2021.

Under the strict implementation of regional separatist priority, we will not forget to sink the market, open up new markets, and block competition in other regions. Regional separatism is not unique.

3. At the level of business links-focus on scale, quality, different strategies in different regions

On the supply chain/commodity side, based on the business in the three types of regions, it forms a national leader in certain productsAdvantages, transforming financial capabilities into commodity/supply chain strategic capabilities, and exporting offensive capabilities to other regions. Strengthen the fresh produce business and form specialty products.

On the processing warehouse side, based on key provinces and regions, it will form a leading processing warehouse capacity and export it to other regions.

On the side of the central warehouse, it is necessary to deploy two years in advance, make strategic investment, and prepare for capacity expansion. At present, there are serious problems in the construction of central warehouses on certain platforms.

On the performance side, the sinking of the market requires business priority, but it needs to accumulate performance capabilities. Key regions need to pay equal attention to business and contract performance to be the first in the industry. Other regions need to guarantee compliance and follow up competition.

On the side of users and group leaders, in key regions and sinking markets, we must insist on low prices/preferential/cost-effectiveness, open the way for funds, open the way with strategic commodities, and multi-flow channels. In other regions, we must insist on cost-effectiveness, small amount of funds, refined operations, and use of strategic commodity capabilities.

At the resource level, when a large amount of funds enter the market, related resources will be severely short-term in short-term, and the supply will be insufficient in the medium and long-term. It is necessary to ensure the supply of resources.

On the one hand, we must achieve absolute first place in certain regions, dominate the resource demand of the region, and ensure the supply of resources; on the other hand, temporarily or long-term resource acquisition from the ecology as a guarantee. On the one hand, mobilize ecological stakeholders to enter, let them eat the lipstick benefits, and replenish resources for themselves.

4. At the ecological level-don’t ask for one’s own strength, but ask for my own use

No giant can exert sufficient resources and pressure on the overall situation. Coupled with the mutual confrontation of the six giants, the resources that are already insufficient in the overall scope will be confronted and consumed one after another.

Therefore, how to maximize our resource supply to the overall situation while reducing our direct confrontation and consumption with competitors is a problem that must be solved.

Therefore, a reasonable system is designed to involve people from all aspects and separate business and benefits, so as to maximize our pressure on the overall situation and reduce our consumption.

From 2021 to 2023, these people will provide us with valuable resources and energy.

5. At the level of rivalry relationship-vertical and horizontal connection

As analyzed above, community group buying will sooner or later enter the stage of competing against each other’s consumption, and the best way to reduce consumption is to join forces.

No matter how strong the competition is for refined operations and how strong the contract performance is, if two to three giants attack him, and different regions will attack him in turn, no one can stand it.

This cooperation can only be carried out at the provincial level. The two parties promised not to enter each other’s core areas on a large scale, or jointly target other people’s core areas.

There are two suitable joint plans: Ali, Orange Heart, and Xingsheng United, against Meituan, Duoduo, and Jingxi. Or Meituan, Orange Heart, Xingsheng, and Jingxi unite against Ali and Duoduo. The joint parties of the two schemes have no competitive relationship in the main business, and there is a leading party, and the opposing party has a competitive relationship in the main business, and it is impossible to unite.

In addition to the integration of the business, the use of the “integration and integration” brought about by acquisitions is also a situation. And this kind of situation is bound to happen. After all, the harder the situation, the more it is beyond the control of Xingsheng and Shihui Tuan. It is the will of most people to be acquired. This was analyzed in “Fighting Attrition”.

If a vertical and horizontal alliance is formed, the separatist situation will come sooner, it will disappear sooner, and the war will end sooner. If they are independent, the separatist situation will exist for a long time, and the consumption will be more intense.

6. Outside of community group buying-looking for the “Pearl Harbor Battle” of community group buying

If we can stimulate the contradiction between the competition in the main business of the competition, it will greatly reduce the degree of market competition, which is very conducive to our victory.

The e-commerce battlefield between Ali, Pinduoduo, and JD.com is a gunpowder keg. Meituan and Ali live in the same gunpowder keg. As long as the two gunpowder kegs are lit, the rest will be much easier.

Ali can launch an offensive against Meituan in local life, and at the same time agree that Orange Heart and Xingsheng will attack the core area of ​​Meituan in exchange, Let Meituan fall into a two-line operation.

This is a good thing for Ali’s local life business and community group buying business, and it is also good for Orange Heart and Prosperity. Maybe Duoduo and Jingxi will also take advantage of the fire. After all, Meituan and Jingxi both have their base camps in Guangdong, Jingxi Without defeating Meituan, there will be no future. Meituan Optimal is also the number one opponent of Duoduo.

Similarly, Meituan can also provoke Ali and Duoduo’s relationship. After all, Duoduo’s e-commerce business is booming, threatening Ali’s base camp. If this goal is really achieved, Meituan will basically have no major worries about group buying in the community. Other parties will also find it a lot easier.

Ali also promoted the regional division of community group buying, and it was Davis’s double-kill for Pinduoduo. Because the regional division of community group buying will seriously affect Pinduoduo’s community group buying business and e-commerce business. If we directly put pressure on Pinduoduo’s e-commerce and make Pinduoduo two-line operation, it would be a triple kill.

Maybe everyone thinks these things are whimsical. What I want to say is that if you believe that the community group buying business is fierce enough, anything can happen. Moreover, I always firmly believe that business competition focusing solely on community group buying is unwise, no matter how strong your ability or capital is, it is unwise.

Just like the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese people are united as never before and regard death as home. The wisdom and judgment of the leadership ranks first in the world, but Chairman Mao still emphasized that the united front at home and abroad is the basis for victory.

If there is no Pearl Harbor battle between the United States and Japan, it is very likely that we will not be able to win, or the country will soon enter primitive society after winning. This kind of victory is no different from defeat.

Of course, we cannot pin our hopes for the “War of Resistance against Japan” on the “Battle of Pearl Harbor”, but all platforms should work hard to promote things in this direction.

If the “Battle of Pearl Harbor” really happened, the separatist situation would end sooner, and the war would end sooner. Otherwise, it will be segregated for a long time.

7. Government and public opinion level-respect the interests of all parties and cooperate for a win-win situation

I don’t think it can be like 2020, nor can it be like the Internet wars in previous years. It is a storm, capital opens the way, and ignores the demands of interest groups such as individuals and distributors.

We must have a sense of the overall situation, go to the place of production, and use capital to shape offensive weapons from an industrial perspective, such as certain strong categories or commodities. To achieve a win-win situation, we must adhere to the bottom line thinking.

8. At the leadership level-leaders at all levels determine the direction of the war

I put forward the protracted war and regional separatism in “The Impact and Endgame of the Giants’ Entry into Community Group Buying”. In this article, I break down the causes and consequences of the regional separatism in detail. The arguments come from business factors, business competition situation, the business’s impact on their respective parties, and various parties. The will to fight and the strength of the subject.

But there is another point that is also decisive, and that is the leader’s cognition and ability.

In the “Strategic Issues in the Guerrilla War Against Japan”, Chairman Mao mentioned that in addition to the situation, the characteristics and the law itself, there are leaders and command factors that affect the implementation of the strategy and the final result.

Obviously it is a protracted war. If we follow the surname Jiang, there will be no protracted war. Obviously guerrilla warfare and base areas have extensive living space and strategic influence. If we follow the ideas and practices of most people, there is no such thing as guerrilla warfare.

Therefore, the progress and results of regional separatism will depend heavily on leaders at all levels.

If the competition is well thought out, then this war will inevitably move toward regional separatism faster, and the result will be even more difficult. If the rivals have a false name and are rejoicing in success, then they will use a large-scale offensive to cover up regional wars.

The larger their offensive range, the more fierce the offense, and the further away from the region, the closer they are to defeat. Then the protracted war will not be so protracted, and the regional separatism will not be so separatist.

Of course, because Ali, Pinduoduo, Meituan, JD.com, Xingsheng, and Didi participated, there are too many participants and too rich, even if there are one or two big bosses, there are four or five players. Therefore, I always believe that there will be no end in five years, and the end is still a long-term regional separation.

Summary

1. It’s hard to tell the outcome before the effective forces of all parties are eliminated

From 2021 to 2023, each family has sufficient viable power to enter the battle. Only when the vigorous power of each family is ruthlessly consumed by confrontation, and thus loses long-term competitiveness, can we see the turning point of the war.

Therefore, the key to these three years is to put the active force into the business, not to confront each other and consume, and try to avoid large-scale confrontation and consumption.

Do not lose strategic opportunities, waste resources, or cause internal friction, such as scalping and formalism, because of untimely goals.

In order to ensure that the vitality is not consumed, it is necessary to do a good job in areas, business links, and competition relationships.

Part of the active force should be invested in the mid-to-long-term mid-to-backend links, such as central warehouses, certain products with absolute advantages, and processing warehouses, so as to avoid competing against air consumption at the front end of the business.

As consumption increases and time lengthens, the middle and back-end links will continue to exert strength. The endless consumption makes competition, capital and public opinion question the scale and competition, and internal and external factors are more conducive to our development.

2. The best strategy from 2021 to 2023 is the regional separatist strategy

If latecomers such as Ali, JD, Xingsheng, etc. can strictly implement regional strategies, then Meituan and Duoduo’s national advantages will be wiped out, and everyone will return to the same starting line, that is, each party will occupy a separate regional market in a different region. , Meituan and Duoduo withdrew from the national market.

If more than two solid bases cannot be established in 2021, the future will be very, very uncomfortable, and certain platforms will be marginalized.

3. Both scale and quality, different strategies in different regions

Divided into key regions, sinking markets, and other regions, and implement different strategies to achieve different strategic goals.

Key areas must achieve absolute leadership, form a separate market, and implement results. Use the regional scale to combat the national scale of rivals and resist the burning of money by rivals. Develop capabilities in supply chain/commodity, warehousing, processing, etc. in key regions, and export capabilities for sinking markets and other regions.

Sinking the market/new market should take advantage of the opportunities that the second and third echelons are unable to take into account, and quickly make a wave to expand the strategic space. To prepare for development into a key area, or to implement a strategy of segregation of key areas.

If the competition does not implement the regional segregation strategy, the sinking market/new market must be developed rapidly, with the highest priority and nationwide competition. If competing to implement the regional separatist priority strategy, all parties will be forced to follow up on the regional separatist priority strategy.

Other regions should undertake the task of blocking and obstructing competition to achieve regional separation.Can’t resist head-on.

4. Guarantee the supply of resources

A large amount of capital enters the market, and related resources will be severely short-term in short-term, and in the medium-term supply will be in a state of insufficient supply. It is necessary to ensure resource supply.

5. Develop ecology

Insist on developing the ecology, don’t resist hard, resist the ecology, “sacrifice” others to make yourself perfect.

6. There will be local or global joint vertical and horizontal wars and wars outside the battlefield.

Reasonably use the wars outside the battlefield and the vertical and horizontal lines to minimize the consumption of our side and consume the other side to the greatest extent.

7. Supervision, public opinion, and the attitudes and interests of stakeholders must be paid attention to

From 2021 to 2023, community group buying consumes too much money and the impact is too great. If you act roughly like 2020, it will definitely produce a black swan incident.

In business, from capital and dumping to capital and supply chain/commodities. In the industry, it goes up to the place of origin to support agricultural and rural areas, and goes down to the sinking market to replace fake and shoddy goods and lengthy channels. Make plans in public relations, public opinion, and branding.

Although this article covers everything and everything, there is still an obvious main line, that is, long-term regional separation. All the analysis and conclusions mentioned in this article are based on the long-term trend of community group buying and the trend of 2021. Therefore, as long as you follow these two points, formulating corresponding strategies is in line with objective laws.

Off-topic

This article analyzes the community group buying business and development from the perspective of situation, competition and environment. Based on this, it discusses the problems and nature of the community group buying business itself, such as the supplier’s ecology, processing warehouses, and grid warehouses. , The main purpose is also to demonstrate the conclusion of the situation, competition, and environment.

Although this perspective is very important, I found that only by combining the business perspective can we find the key factors and break the situation. I hope that there will be more time and resources to study this issue in 2021-2022. Only at this time can we reach a conclusion when we study this issue, and the reason is mentioned in “The Emergence of Critical Factors”.

The theory will always be verified by practice. I am curious how the big players will play the cards. Will they be the same as I predicted, or is it completely the opposite, or is it a different approach? Looking forward to…

This article is from WeChat official account: Chen Weilong’s telescope (ID: yiguojiren) , author: Chen Weilong