This article is from the public number:China Economic Weekly (ID: ChinaEconomicWeekly) author: Song Jie, from the title figure: Orient IC.

Shanghai E-commerce platform “Amoy Collection” was once regarded as a social e-commerce dark horse. It was developed rapidly after its establishment in the second half of 2018.Users broke through 130 million people. In the second half of the Internet, when the traffic dividend disappeared, the e-commerce platform that dominated the sinking market still chose to subsidize users with extensive money-burning.

The collection of CEO Zhang Zhengping may have looked forward to the lucky listing, the company turned into a billion-dollar e-commerce platform. However, good luck does not seem to ignore the entrepreneur.

In September this year, due to the “speaking good” new round of capital, “putting pigeons”, the collection of suspected capital chains was broken. According to Zhang Zhengping publicly, the current collection of losses is as high as 1.6 billion yuan. Around September 25, the merchants of the Shanghai General Assembly had successively appeared in the front of the Shanghai General Department, and the police had to generate momentum to maintain the order.

After the National Day, Amoy collected through the official microblogging intensive announcement that the company will reorganize with large domestic institutions and look forward to creating new glory. Its main business model will be adjusted by the merchants’ occupancy model to the partner’s self-operated model, which means that the existing major suppliers will be converted into a pooled shareholder partner.

Zhang Zhengping appealed to online merchants not to sue the company, to avoid direct liquidation of the company, and to have no return on the hard-earned money.

Why does the “Dark Horse” Amoy collection fall quickly? Can the “model change” proposed by the company take the risk? Is the chance of the collection being a case?

Shanghai Headquarters Site: Employees are preparing for the double eleven

October 17, Amoy collection Shanghai headquarters. Reporter Song Jie | Photograph

In August 2019, some merchants found that the payment could not be paid or delayed. In September, the collective rights protection incident began to appear before the general department of Shanghai. On October 1st, Amoy collected a bulletin through the official Weibo, saying that the rights defending incident was caused by some unidentified personnel inciting business sentiment through online channels to teach businesses to gather troubles.

10On the 17th, the reporter went to the Wu Niu Holdings Building on Jiangchang Road in Shanghai. The Shanghai headquarters of the Amoy Collection was located on the 26th and 27th floors of the building. Downstairs in the building, the reporter found that there are still police cars parked, and the staff in the lobby have received the visiting merchants and media.

To the 27th floor, Ms. Zheng, a staff member of the Amoy collection, received the reporter. At this time, the reporter encountered Zhang Zhengping wearing a red coat. After knowing the reporter’s intention, Zhang Zhengping said that he was about to receive merchants from other places and authorized Ms. Zheng to accept an exclusive interview with the reporter.

According to Ms. Zheng’s review, the increments of the data collected in the previous collections were all “pretty”, and in June this year, the B round of financing was prepared for 200 million US dollars. In an open letter to suppliers and agents released on October 15th, Zhang Zhengping mentioned that “from June this year, life has gone through a roller coaster ride” and got a verbal offer from a number of investment institutions. It is necessary to make the collection of tens of millions of dollars or more.

However, entering July, the platform sales performance suddenly fell. However, in order to make the data at the financing gate not too ugly, Amoy has continued to maintain large-scale subsidies.

“I made a big mistake here.” Zhang Zhengping said in the aforementioned open letter that entering July, due to internal and external factors, performance growth has been greatly affected, sales have stagnated. I spent too much time on financing, I want to solve the current growth problem through financing, delay the most golden self-help period, and choose to continue to lose money to acquire users.

Ms. Zheng told reporters that the platform has indeed had an extension of the account period, but since the performance data has been very good, the business is on the platform The billing period) is still acceptable.

“We admit that we have problems, but we did not expect someone to take the opportunity to ‘make your life’, causing the negative public sentiment to continue to ferment and accelerate the run.” Ms. Zheng said, “Write us a deficit of 2 billion yuan, and some even write 3 billion. Yuan, in fact, is 1.6 billion yuan. The Amoy collection is not as unsatisfactory as some media have said, even in the current situation, it has gained a few intentions.”

So why is there a huge loss? The Amoy collection announcement stated that “the Amoy collection currently has more than 130 million registered users. It is not cheap to obtain a registered user in the market. The Amoy collection does not charge commissions, and the losses are actually on the customer.”

“Even if you do a newcomer activity of 9.9 yuan, the platform has subsidized 50 yuan, but the whole process of the new process is spread to all effective users, the cost may be hundreds of yuan.” Ms. Zheng told reporters, according to Funnel model,The cost of advertising, subsidies, etc. is evenly distributed to the effective customers who actually place orders. The cost of obtaining customers is actually very high.

What are the reporters’ repeated inquiries about new investment intentions? Ms. Zheng did not want to disclose, “I am afraid that the restructuring process will be affected, and the crisis will be passed on to the employers.” She said that after a few days of communication, many large businesses choose debt-to-equity swaps, then the pressure on the platform will be reduced, and it may be hoped to talk to the employers. More reasonable price.

The reporter found that the staff of the Amoy Collection Design Department is designing a “Double Eleven” poster. “We all feel that the company can survive this crisis, and the salaries of more than 500 employees in Shanghai are normal, and there is no large-scale employee turnover.” Ms. Zheng said.

Differentiated merchants: Do you want to “liquidate” the collection?

At 11 o’clock on the evening of October 16, the management of the Amoy collection gathered in the WeChat circle of friends a photo of the merchant wearing the red armband “I believe in the collection” and matched the text. “Many merchants have homemade armbands today. Signing up, I am really mixed. Sorry, I really want to say thank you!!”

“The wearing of the armband signing is really not planned by us,” Ms. Zheng told reporters, “all of them are self-issued.”

At the moment, the Amoy collection provides two paths for merchants: First, the Amoy collection will use the acquisition funds to repay 20% of the total amount of merchants’ purchases, and the remaining payment will be valued at US$1.5 billion in the collection. When the valuation reaches 2 billion US dollars or when it goes public, it will repay 10% and 70% of the total amount of the merchant’s purchase.

Businesses who have doubts about the above options can choose the second option given by the Amoy collection, namely “debt-to-equity swap”: the valuation of the 550 million US dollars as the total share capital, and the distribution of equity according to the proportion of the arrears. The merchant will be transformed from a former partner to a partner.

After communication, many merchants are willing to fight with us because our ‘debt-to-equity’ program, the first batch of 200 places open (because of business The maximum number of registered shareholders is 200), giving priority to the large-scale merchants in July-September this year. On the other hand, encourage small businesses to sign a restructuring agreement.” Ms. Zheng told reporters.

On the evening of October 19th, the reporters of nearly 2,000 people in the “Amoy Collection Business Rights Debt Collection”, the voice of “signing and not signing” is still in constant stream, and many of them have expressed Willing to sign an agreement and want to continue to defend the rights.

“If you are sincere, the contract will not be written. Draw a cake for you to taste a sweet taste, and the dream will always wake up. Even if you believe that the collection can be resurrected, the resurrection will continue to lose money, and the pit will be dug. Then continue to draw the cake, warm boiled frog, do not know how to die.” A merchant in the group said.

“The main reason is that he has no money to sue, and when the fish is dead, the platform is yellow.” Another merchant appeased.

“What are you doing? Don’t be fooled by others, sign it, don’t hesitate to sell the resources, do it well, the platform is still hopeful, you can sell more, we will take it soon. To the money.” Another merchant said.

“I am in the city of Liuzhou and Seventy Lines. It is my sideline to collect tea by collecting and selling. On October 16, I went to Shanghai to see Zhang Zhengping. He personally received the representatives of the provinces. The details are not mentioned. I After signing the contract, I left, went home, put on the product, reported the activity, and shipped normally. Everything seemed to have never happened, everything was so long.” Mr. Zhang told reporters that his purchase price was about 1.05 million yuan. “Smart businesses, absolutely do not want their platform to fall, the platform is only one year, to give time to develop.”

The Amoy collection is obviously not willing to be liquidated.

Zhang Zhengping previously said through the announcement: “The lawyers with ulterior motives call on everyone not to sign the reorganization agreement, and they will organize a group to go to the court to help everyone get back the arrears. There will only be one situation in the court: the Amoy collection cannot continue to operate. Going on, the company’s current balance of three to six months after the average falls to everyone is not enough to deduct 1% of the money.”

The Amoy collection revealed to reporters that as of October 19, the signing rate of the merchant restructuring agreement was 35%, and the new round of investors required to complete the 51% signing rate.

The risk of venture capital: Who is the big guy who puts the pigeons?

It’s worth pondering that even if a large number of negative effects were caused by a certain employer’s “putting pigeons” in September, the name of the “big brother” of the employer was never said to the reporter.

An employee of the Amoy collection who asked not to be named said to the reporter: “At that time, in order to cooperate with the investors of the new round of financing, Amoy has already prepared, including server and mailbox replacement. The platform also cooperates a lot. Activities, all kinds of signs let us make a more optimistic estimate. In September, our employees also thought that it was a bad one. The employer had requirements for the data growth of the collection, and Zhang also admitted to making the wrong decision. Continue to burn money subsidies and accelerate the deficit.”

“It’s useless to discuss the matter of the employer. At most, when all the events subsided, think about it, and what risks the entrepreneurs should avoid in investment and financing.” Ms. Zheng told reporters.

“Investment intention does not mean investment agreement.” Some insiders told reporters: “Investment letter of intent is referred to as TS, but different investment institutions have different processes. Some institutions first give TS further due diligence, while others do first due diligence. Give TS again, no problem, it will be pushed forward to vote (investment decision). But TS is not an investment agreement.” But some entrepreneurship The request is that TS must be provided for research, so some organizations will choose TS first in order to see the data. However, if the company data is found to be fraudulent or brushed in the process, it will not be promoted.

There is another situation. Although some projects have received TS, they have also made the best adjustments. However, in the process of advancing the voting process, such as the separation of partners and divorce, they will tend to wait and see, let the project team first. Solve the problem, because the rush to advance will face huge risks. “Most of the funds are still very serious for TS, but there are some reasons why TS has not been promoted. There are many reasons. The investment institutions are not saying that they want to be fooled, or they should look at the specific situation for analysis.”

Beijing Yingke (Shanghai) Lawyer Senior Partner Shao Yingfang pointed out that the investment and financing of enterprises is a systematic project. Negotiate to the final signing of the investment agreement, the intermediate link involves all aspects, only the investor can finally invest the investment into the enterprise at the moment to be considered a successful financing. There are uncertain factors in every aspect of the process, which may lead to financing failure.

Therefore, companies, especially entrepreneurs, should pay attention to the risk control when financing, not blindly optimistic, and even eager to start the follow-up strategic deployment, because once the funds are not in place, the enterprise may face the disaster.

“Investment agreements are usually drafted by investors. Entrepreneurs are weak, but they can still be pursued on some terms, such as the liability for breach of contract, the liability of investors for overdue payment or losses caused by non-payment. Once this happens, entrepreneurs can also take legal weapons to defend their rights.”

This article is from the public number:China Economic Weekly (ID: ChinaEconomicWeekly) , author: Song Jie