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Netease koala spent the last “816” in Netease “.

On September 6, NetEase and Alibaba jointly announced a strategic cooperation. Alibaba Group acquired Netease’s cross-border e-commerce platform koala for US$2 billion. At the same time, Alibaba participated in Netease Cloud Music’s $700 million financing as a lead investor. Previous rumors confirmed that Liu Peng, general manager of Tmall’s import and export business group, will also serve as CEO of Koala, and NetEase has not announced the future trend of former Netease CEO Zhang Lei.

On the 816th of this year, Tencent “Deep Network” visited Netease Hangzhou headquarters. During the period of work on Friday, many employees who wore koala clothing left the company in twos and threes, but more koala employees chose to work overtime to spend the weekend of unknown fate. The koala employees on the spot were all on the deep network. “It only heard the rumors but did not receive the relevant notice.

At an Internet workplace forum, a Netease koala employee posted a post saying: Koala 816, colleagues wearing a uniform black koala culture shirt, inexplicably feel like to participate in the koala’s “burial.” Some Netease koala employees and former employees have expressed regret that they have left Netease Koala on some anonymous social platforms. Some people even said that Netease has no hope.

This is indeed a big flip and flip. In early August, there was news that Alibaba will buy Netease koala for $2 billion in cash. After the acquisition, it will integrate with Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce platform Tmall International. On the afternoon of August 20th, Netease koala confirmed to Deepnet that a meeting involving all directors of NetEase was held at the NetEase headquarters in Hangzhou. “All the directors were taken away.The mobile phone. “There was a relevant person to the “Deep Net” said that the meeting was very short, Ding Lei personally denied the acquisition proposal, and said that NetEase koala will continue to independently finance, and will not lay off staff; there are other sources showing that Alibaba The goal is not only Netease koala, but also other related businesses such as Netease Cloud Music, Netease Research Institute; at the end of August, there is news that Netease koala is seeking other channels to finance but ultimately failed, and Ali’s negotiations restarted. /p>

Until the early morning of September 4, there was news that the Netease koala was still trying to seek financing, but the quotations could not reach psychological expectations. A person close to Alibaba said to Shenbo that the financing of Netease Cloud Music was considered by Alibaba as part of the koala acquisition, so Ding Lei denied the transaction, and the transaction after the split has actually reached an agreement quickly. Just an alternate means.

This acquisition broke the two previous curses: Ma Yun and Ding Lei, after eBay, VIE, China Yahoo and other events, Alibaba and Netease rarely reached strategic level cooperation; some large e-commerce platforms will be changed Stocks, cross-investment and other actions, but never had a direct acquisition.

In the cross-border e-commerce sector, Netease Koala and Tmall International have never fallen out of the top two in recent years and their market share is not much different: domestic market research institute Ai Media Consulting “2018-2019 China cross-border e-commerce market According to the research report, Netease’s market share reached 27.1% in the past year, ranking first. The seventh time in the 2018 cross-border e-commerce market share, Tmall International ranked second with 24% market share. Rear. After the merger, in addition to the short-term visible reduction in marketing expenses, the brand effect of Tmall International and the factory layout of Netease Koala overseas are important supplements to each other.

The two parties did not announce whether the acquisition and financing were conducted in cash or in cash + equity. However, in any case, there will be a large amount of liquidity entering NetEase: In the second quarter of this year, Netease’s overall net profit was only 447 million US dollars. . Where will this fund be used by Ding Lei?

At present, among the listed technology companies in China, Ding Lei’s Netease ranks seventh, with Alibaba, Tencent, Meituan’s comments, Jingdong, and many more, Baidu. But whether it is compared with the old BAT or the newcomers, Jingdong, and many more, NetEase is behind the times in terms of technology. Previously, Chinese technology companies have gone through several important technology inflection points. From the Internet and network transmission in the first technology inflection point, Netease’s core technology is centered around games and mailboxes; the second technology inflection point is the arrival of mobile Internet. In the small backwardness, with the game, cloud music and other projects once again turned around, around the mobile game in the mobile Internet has occupied a place.

But in the latest era, almost all new technologies are built around the retail industry. Alibaba, the US group comments, Jingdong, and the fight are more than necessary. Tencent is also doing a lot of technical research and development around smart retail, Baidu’s Human technology cloud computing technology, etc. are also in the retail industryThere are a wide range of technical applications.

After selling koala, Ding Lei said, “Netease will continue to promote the focus strategy, focus resources on the advantages of the field, and create continuous value for users through continuous innovation.”

When cross-border winds

Netease koala and the selection of these two emerging e-commerce platforms have always been regarded as the “hope” of NetEase into the next era. Before NetEase Koala and NetEase selected the fire, NetEase had conducted many explorations in the e-commerce field: lottery, precious metals, insurance, wine… and even sold an adult health product. The logic is not complicated. For NetEase, the large amount of high-quality traffic brought by the game and mailbox business was realized by e-commerce means.

In 2014, cross-border e-commerce began, Netease sharply seized the opportunity. In July of that year, the General Administration of Customs issued the “Announcement on the Supervision and Control of Import and Export Goods and Goods for Cross-border Trade E-Commerce” and the “Notice on Adding Customs Supervision Mode Codes”, which is known as “56” in the industry. “No. 57” text recognizes cross-border e-commerce from a policy perspective, and also recognizes the industry-wide bonded model, which is considered by the outside world to be a clear regulatory framework for cross-border e-commerce.

Before the publication of the two documents, the opening of “6+1” cross-border e-commerce pilot cities gave preferential policies on cross-border e-commerce taxation, that is, only overseas goods purchased through cross-border e-commerce channels need to pay The postal tax has eliminated the “tariff + VAT + consumption tax” for general import trade.

Zhang Lei, who has entered Netease for 11 years, became the head of Netease Koala. At the beginning of 2015, NetEase Koala was officially launched, and was subsequently upgraded to a strategic product within NetEase.

This is an era of cross-border e-commerce, with all-in-one cross-border e-commerce’s Jumei Premium and Honeycomb, a transitional cross-border e-commerce voucher, and Amazon backed by overseas resources. China, domestic e-commerce Bipolar Alibaba and Jingdong have not let go of this huge market. In front of these raging opponents, NetEase koala, whose outside workers do not have e-commerce genes, was not optimistic at the beginning.

The price war is very fast, and the e-commerce platforms that are already familiar with the domestic operation mode have set off a storm every year. At the end of 2015, several cross-border e-commerce platforms represented by NetEase Koala and Xiaohongshu went overseas to purchase goods in large quantities, and they were dubbed the cross-border e-commerce “buy-buy” season. A cross-border e-commerce executive told Deepnet: “As everyone is familiar with the policy, each cross-border e-commerce platform is doing its best in stocking. It is said that several large cross-border e-commerce platforms in the industry The stocks are all over one billion yuan.” But the executive also said: “In the cross-border e-commerce field, promotion is a paradox, because domestic e-commerce is relatively less brand, and sales can effectively help domestic companies clear inventory. However, in the cross-border e-commerce field, the first is too many brands, too many choices, the platform can not attack other platforms in a certain brand; second,Relatively speaking, the demand for clearing stocks of foreign companies is relatively low, and production planning is stronger.

Several e-commerce promotion days soon became the stage for cross-border e-commerce. In 2015, 618, Jingdong, Ali, Suning, Gome, Jumeiyou, Yangyang and other e-commerce platforms launched price wars and involved Multiple categories; 2016 Double Eleven, Amazon China introduced Prime membership services to China, and declared that “in this double eleven promotion, there is financial support at Amazon’s US headquarters.”

Survivors

At the beginning of 2016, cross-border e-commerce began to feel “cold spring”: On March 24, the relevant three ministries and commissions issued a new tax system for cross-border e-commerce retail imports, which began on April 8; That is to say, the cross-border e-commerce new tax system is implemented on the eve of the night. The Ministry of Finance and other 11 departments officially announced the “List of cross-border e-commerce retail imports.”

This whitelist has conflated cross-border e-commerce platforms. A month after the cross-border e-commerce New Deal was issued, “Deep Net” was found in the warehouse of Zhengzhou Free Trade Zone. The warehouse of Jumei Youpin was one-sixth empty. The original four lines of full load were only one, and Vipshop The warehouses of several other cross-border e-commerce companies, such as Xiaohongshu, are also cold and clear.

The entire industry has suffered irreparable damage. A channel provider from Japan told Deepnet before the tax reform that the domestic e-commerce platform has begun to reduce the purchase of goods in the channel and reduce the number of procurement personnel. In fact, there are a number of cross-border e-commerce platforms that have significantly reduced the number of purchases before the tax reform, and have been complained by Japanese channels. Even though the cross-border e-commerce platform has resumed its step-by-step procurement, the Japanese channel said it is difficult to generate trust in China’s cross-border e-commerce.

Strong competition and policy sway, in such a harsh situation, some of the once-in-a-lifetime cross-border e-commerce platforms disappeared quickly, and even a wave did not stay.

Some cross-border e-commerce platforms choose to wash away the “cross-border” label: Jumeiyou products set up Jumei Film and Television, and turned to the “fashion entertainment + e-commerce” model of the new US; the honey buds said it has changed Into a maternal and child company, in addition to online and offline, there are also multiple layouts; the founder of the Ocean Terminal, Zeng Bibo, said that some companies have a cross-border concept because they are catching up with the trend: “Cross-border is just one of the industrial chains, the future Development must be a comprehensive service based on cosmetic scenes or maternal and child scenes.”

Netease koala chose to stick to it, although last year’s “Netease koala sea purchase” announced its name changed to “Netease koala.” Although the word “sea purchase” has been removed from the name, the official statement of NetEase koala is that its commodity source will be expanded from imported goods to global high-quality manufacturing including China, from a typical vertical cross-border e-commerce. Entering the integrated e-commerce platform.

Although it has been renamed, Netease koala is still based on imported goods and bonded import model. Last year, the F2C platform Netease koala global factory store was considered to be this time.An important factor in the acquisition of Alibaba. Unlike other F2C platforms, NetEase Koala’s global factory stores are not only customized models, but also from the very beginning to focus on the brand incubation of quality manufacturing plants, through a customized approach, the collection of good materials, good design and good craftsmanship .

At the beginning of this year, the news about the acquisition of Amazon China by NetEase Koala is even more obvious. Ding Lei has high hopes for Netease’s overseas business. In February, Caijing reported that Netease Koala would merge Amazon China’s overseas purchase business. The negotiation lasted for several months and was initiated and promoted by Netease Koala. The two parties may adopt a share swap method. Then it is very likely that the koala will be split as the main body, and Amazon will hold its shares and be listed separately. The rumor ended with the fact that Amazon China stopped providing seller services for third-party sellers. The news told Deepnet that Ding Lei did have a great interest in Amazon China’s overseas resources, but ended up because Amazon China’s asking price was too high. The merger request.

Before, Ding Lei has personally been the Netease Koala platform for many times: At the end of 2015, Ding Lei said at the World Internet Conference that he hopes that in the next three to five years, NetEase Koala Haibao can reach 50 billion-1000 in the market. The scale of 100 million yuan; when Netease koala expanded overseas, Ding Lei participated in visiting LG health in South Korea, Australia visited Australia Jiabao, and visited European baby food giants such as Wyeth and Mead Johnson in Europe; Ding Lei even said that “in the test There is no upper limit on the capital investment in Lahai.”

From the side, Netease koala finally occupied the C position of cross-border e-commerce: According to the data released by Ai Media Consulting, NetEase koala has occupied the first place in the cross-border e-commerce market for three consecutive years since 2016. In the first quarter of 2019, NetEase Koala ranked first in cross-border e-commerce with a market share of 27.5%.

My honey ribs honey

In 2018, NetEase Koala was upgraded to a first-tier department and announced the start of independent financing. According to the data, the internal division of Netease is equivalent to an independent subsidiary and will be directly under the jurisdiction of Ding Lei and financially independent. However, with the gradual increase of the status of Netease koala and the gradual expansion of market share, this business, which has been highly anticipated by Ding Lei, gradually exposed the risks.

The first is user growth, although NetEase games, NetEase mailboxes and even portals can still bring a lot of traffic to NetEase koala. However, compared with the previous, the traffic cost is increasing day by day. According to the data, the customer acquisition cost of the Netease e-commerce is as high as 200 yuan, which is similar to the ordinary e-commerce platform. The Netease koala, which is mainly called “consumption upgrade”, is a female user with high spending power. According to the data of Haicang Technology, the female active users of koala account for more than 90%, and the proportion of first-tier and second-tier cities is as high as 86%. The natural growth dividend for this group has peaked. Since 2018, the growth rate of NetEase’s e-commerce business has continued to decline, from 175% in 2017 to 20.2 in the second quarter of this year.%, lower than the growth rate of Alibaba and the same period.

The bigger crisis is directed at NetEase’s e-commerce gene. In the past two years, brands such as Estee Lauder, Zhixiu Village, and Canada Goose have had “fake disputes” with Netease Koala. Some people familiar with the matter said that “Deep Net” said that compared with Tmall International, Netease Koala has international brands. The influence is relatively low, most of them are cooperating with the local authorized dealers. “Sometimes authorized marketing vendors will do some tricks. Netease koala is not easy to find.” The insider further stated that due to low competitiveness Therefore, Netease koala had to pay more prices and hoard more inventory. “Some dealers even use NetEase koala as a clearing channel.”

The data shows that from the fourth quarter of 2017, in the seven quarters, Netease e-commerce inventory amount was higher than cash in five quarters, and the average inventory was 5.1 billion yuan. It reached the third quarter of 2018. The peak of 6.3 billion yuan. Although this is a figure that includes both NetEase and Netease koalas, considering the difficulty of returning goods (due to the particularity of cross-border e-commerce, it is difficult to return domestic products), and a considerable portion of inventory can be considered. Both are produced in NetEase koala. In fact, according to sources, an important factor in Alibaba’s final collapse with Netease is also related to inventory: the two sides have different perceptions of the actual value of large amounts of inventory.

Before, this problem had a best solution, hand in hand with Amazon China, so as to solve the source problem from the root.

The increase in traffic price and the difficulty in controlling the industrial chain. NetEase’s e-commerce is becoming a tasteless and unfortunate taste of Ding Lei’s food. In the second quarter of this year, the net profit margin of NetEase’s e-commerce business increased slightly, reaching 10.9%. The quarter and the same period last year were 10.2% and 10.1%, respectively, while the gaming business gross margin was 63% and the advertising business was 55%. CFO Yang Zhaoyu said in the second quarter earnings call: “The e-commerce business needs to strike a balance between growth rate and e-commerce profit model. Netease’s business philosophy does not support the use of no loss to exchange for rapid growth.”

A more realistic dilemma is that Netease is falling behind the entire era. In the Internet era, Netease’s game technology and mailbox technology are leading the same era; in the era of mobile Internet, NetEase has been slightly behind, but with the advent of mobile games, cloud music and other projects, Netease has not fallen behind too much; In terms of basic technology, Netease has completely fallen behind the times, and NetEase has not been seen in the fields of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and enterprise communications.

Correspondingly, the retail industry is the experimental field of the basic technology of China’s Internet giants: In addition to the basic technologies mentioned above, a large number of new technologies represented by driverless are in retail scenes, logistics, payment, etc. Apply in multiple areas. Losing these support, how far can NetEase Koala and Netease rely on burning money?

Selling Netease Koala and getting back $2 billion in cash may be a good choice for Ding Lei.

Shenzhen·Tencent Xiaoman Studio produced