This article comes from the WeChat public account: letter list (ID: wujicaijing) , author: Tan cold night, the subject map from: IC photo
The era is like a speeding tram. Gome has been catching up and never catching up.
On the evening of April 19th, when news of Pinduoduo ’s subscription of Gome ’s $ 200 million convertible bonds came out, people only cared about whether Pinduoduo would continue to attack, whether JD.com would be hit, and whether Ali should be vigilant. As for whether Gome can rise for the second time, I’m sorry, the masses don’t care. This once again clearly announced: Huang Guangyu’s era is over, long ago.
It is difficult for middle-aged Gome to return to its peak, but if it can catch an e-commerce upstart express train, it can at least catch the tail of the times.
The middle-aged Huang Zheng took Huang Guangyu in his twilight years. Huang Guangyu, junior high school graduate, Huang Zheng, master of computer science in the United States; the enterprise they founded, the former pursues heavy, shop in the city, the latter pursues light, no direct management and no self-built logistics; the former is old and old, and is considered Ali The e-commerce represented by JD.com was shot on the beach of the times, and the latter is a new e-commerce giant and a challenger of Alibaba.com.
I do n’t know if Huang Zheng and Huang Guangyu have offline contact. If the two yellow meet, the two pioneers of the new retail industry should be sympathetic.
Gome is famous for its low prices, and it is drained by tens of billions of subsidies; Gome first tried to break away from middlemen and directly contact manufacturersThe same is true of the supply and marketing model of Pingduo, and the direct-connected manufacturer model; in 1991, Huang Guangyu first used the slogan of “Beijing Evening News” to call “Buy electrical appliances, go to Gome”, and publish the price of electrical appliances every week. The phrase “spell a lot, spell a lot, spell a lot, and save a lot” has so far the magic word around the ears; Huang Guangyu was once mistaken by his peers when he just thought that he could not sell it before he was advertising, and Huang Zheng was also misunderstood. He had to helplessly explain, “I am advertising to tell consumers that I am not a liar.”
The times have changed, and the essence of business is consistent.
I.
“Say bad.” When asked about his personality, Huang Guangyu first gave a non-informative answer, but he immediately added that he was a fast-moving person, and if he had an idea, he would do it immediately and find that it was wrong. Change, as long as you have three points of confidence, dare to do it.
Speed, this is what Huang Guangyu is most concerned about.
The earliest position of the Gome family was the “Gome Electrical Appliance Store” of 100 square meters in Zhushikou in 1986. In 1995, Huang Guangyu, who had separated from his brother, owned 10 stores and expanded to the whole country after 4 years, almost every Two direct-operated stores and one franchised store appeared in a certain city every month. At the end of 2004, Gome, which already had 190 stores and 30 branches in Gome, was considered a model of rapid expansion at the time.
Huang Guangyu
Huang Guangyu accepted this personality interview in 2006, when he had just become the richest man in Forbes China. Only Ding Lei was the owner of an Internet company in the top 20 of the list. In the following years, the number of seats on this list was rotated. That is, traditional bigwigs are constantly being squeezed out of the forefront and out of the list by the new Internet upstarts.
When you mention Ding Lei, no one will forget Duan Yongping. In those years, Duan Yongping was listed in the top 100 of the Forbes rich list, precisely because he bought NetEase stock at the end of 2001 for $ 1.Soaring to 70 dollars, Duan Yongping profited. Later, through the introduction of university dean Ding Lei, Huang Zheng and Duan Yongping met, and even regarded as the apprentice of Duan Yongping, Duan Yongping and Ding Lei became early investors of Pinduoduo, that is another story.
In 2006, the wild hero Huang Guangyu became the richest man in Forbes. After graduating with a master’s degree, IT elite Huang Zheng, who worked at Google for two years, returned to China. Also in this year, Duan Yongping photographed the opportunity to have lunch with Buffett online for $ 620,100. He brought Huang Zheng, who was 26 years old.
In the following years, Huang Zheng briefly participated in the establishment of the Google China office, and then left again. In 2007, he first founded a 3C e-commerce and sold it in 2010, and then founded 2010 as a mother and baby, food Hangzhou’s e-commerce company operated on behalf of Hangzhou Leqi. This company was later merged into Pinduoduo’s predecessor.
In 2010, Huang Zheng began to prepare for the Internet Center. He gradually built up an early founding team. For example, Pinduoduo co-founder Dada was the CEO of Good Goods, and he was gradually approaching the later success. mode.
Huang Guangyu was also a watershed in 2010. In August of that year, Huang Guangyu was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the crime of illegal business operations, insider trading and bribery.
In the years that followed, one gradually moved closer to the Internet center and the other gradually moved away.
Second,
Huang Guangyu and Huang Zheng have never been enemies. Even in the outside world, there is no intersection. It is difficult for outsiders to connect these two retail winners of different eras. Meet on the rich list.
In 2018, relying on Pinduoduo ’s stock price soaring, Huang Zheng first rushed into the Forbes China list that Huang Guangyu had topped 12 years ago, and ranked 12th. The family is already open at 200.
This year, Pinduoduo and Gome began to make contact. In October of that year, Gome Retail opened an official flagship store in Pinduoduo. The products sold were mainly home appliances. Gome provided delivery, after-sales, logistics and other services.
Obviously, Huang Zheng took the initiative in this move. At that time, Netease Yanxuan, Dangdang, Xiaomi and other manufacturers with their own platforms have successively settled in Pinduoduo, but Gome has few choices. The old rival Suning has already formed an alliance with Ali.Jingdong.
If Huang Guangyu did n’t go to jail, could Gome, who shows signs of fatigue, catch up with the times? Not necessarily.
The 21st Century Business Herald reported a year ago that the direction of Gome ’s retail transformation was personally determined by Huang Guangyu, and he regularly communicated with senior executives by letter. The letter list understands that Huang Guangyu will also grade the reports of his subordinates in the same way as primary school teachers approve homework. It’s also ironic that this man who once paid most attention to speed had to let the company he founded move forward at a slow speed after he went to prison.
Shrinking has become the main theme of Gome for more than ten years. The goal of direct commander Du Juan is to guarantee profit from beginning to end, waiting for Huang Guangyu to return. However, judging from the declining performance in successive years, they not only missed the times and lost opportunities, but were far exceeded by the old rival Suning, and now their profits have not been retained.
In 2019, Gome ’s full-year revenue was 59.438 billion yuan, which was another 7.57% decline from 64.356 billion yuan in 2018, and a net loss of 2.59 billion yuan. In terms of volume alone, Gome is already a marginal character with no ambitions and no significance.
In sharp contrast to Gome ’s slow fall, Huang Zheng, who seems to have no intersection with Huang Guangyu, is moving at the speed of light during this period, and has been officially launched for less than three years. Pinduoduo is listed in the United States.
Huang Zheng later said in an interview with Caijing Magazine that Duan Yongping inspired him to mention that fast is slow, slow is fast, and it is better to do things with ordinary heart.
Huang Guangyu and Huang Zheng, one admires speed and the other takes speed.
The cooperation between Gome and Pinduoduo entered the capital level is not fast. According to Tech Planet, the investment negotiations lasted for several months. The Gome finally decided that the person was still Huang Guangyu, a Gome executive told Tech Planet, “That must be submitted for approval.”
Three,
Within 9 months, Huang Guangyu will officially return, catching the olive branch handed over by Huang Zheng may be the most correct decision in the history of remote control in Huang Guangyu prison.
At least in the short term, the “Shuanghuanglian” combination can cure the stock price. The day after the news of cooperation with Pinduoduo was announced, Gome Retail’s stock price rose more than 13%. The only stimulant of Gome’s stock price was “Huang Guangyu will be released from prison”. Before Huang Guangyu was imprisoned, Gome’s market value was close to 100 billion. After that, the stock price fell all the way. When the news of Huang Guangyu’s early release came, Gome shares Then boost it. When Huang Guangyu is truly released from prison, the drug “Huang Guangyu is released from prison” will not be released, and every move in cooperation with Gome may become a new prescription for Gome to boost the stock price.
If the past Gome ca n’t see the future, then Gome, after the marriage with Pinduoduo, has at least a new life. In 2013, a Gome management revealed to Southern Weekend that Huang Guangyu was not very satisfied with Gome ’s operating conditions, “I have never done a loss-making business.” Gome has always been reluctant to take the loss-for-flow route, but Pinduoduo is willing.
The capital cooperation between Pinduoduo and Gome is a convertible bond-with a term of three years and a coupon rate of 5% per annum. If all the conversion rights are finally exercised, Pinduoduo will be allocated up to 1.28 billion new shares of Gome. The latter accounted for 5.62% of the enlarged share capital of the latter’s conversion shares.
Next, all Gome retail products will be available on Pinduoduo. Branded home appliances will be connected to Pinduoduo’s “10 billion subsidies.” The two service platforms of Anxun Logistics and Gome Butler will become Pinduoduo logistics and home appliances. Service provider, the former can provide merchants with large and medium-sized logistics, warehousing and delivery services, and the latter provides home appliance repair, cleaning and maintenance, and trade-in services.
The initiative is still in the hands of Pinduoduo. Obviously, the impact of this intergenerational combination on the e-commerce landscape will also be generated by more and more endeavours, such as increasing customer unit prices, making up for disadvantages in categories, owning more home appliance brands, acquiring large-scale logistics capabilities and after-sales capabilities.
The copycat label has long been memorized, and one of the accusers’ evidence is the copycat goods of the second and third-tier home appliance brands that exist on Pinduoduo. With the addition of Gome retail products and access to tens of billions of subsidies, the space for cottage products will continue to be squeezed.
The significance of Gome’s full-scale online shopping is not limited to this. Combing the brief history of the “two choose one” of e-commerce, Galanz is an indispensable role. In May 2019, Galanz Group Chairman Liang Zhaoxian led a team to visit Pinduoduo Headquarters. On the eve of 618 that year, Galanz said that since this visit to Pinduoduo, Galanz has appeared abnormally on the search end of Tmall platform, and normal sales have been seriously affected. . Tmall has since responded “Everything is normal”.
Many brands that were originally constrained by the “choice of two” will also use this to find a second route to enter Pinduoduo in addition to specialty stores, although they have to go around a bend.
Fourth,
Huang Guangyu and Huang Zheng encountered a common enemy, Liu Qiangdong, in different periods and competitive dimensions.
Do n’t look at the battle of public opinion with Ali, and the rise of Pinduoduo, which is more affected, is actually Jingdong. At the end of 2019, Pinduoduo’s annual active buyers have surpassed JD.com. Although JD.com has regained its own growth curve, its opponent’s pace is obviously faster. In 2019, Pinduoduo’s annual active buyers were 585.2 million, a year-on-year increase of 40%. Although the market capitalization of JD.com is still ahead of Pinduoduo’s US $ 59.2 billion with US $ 63.5 billion, the current share price of Pinduoduo is currently leading by US $ 50 to US $ 43.
However, JD.com also benefits from the competition with Pinduoduo. The war allowed JD.com to discover new markets. In 2019, JD.com ’s annual number of active users increased by 18.6% to 362 million, and the number of new active users in the fourth quarter was 27.6 million, a new high since the past 12 quarters. This is also the year-on-year growth rate of its annual number of active users after falling to single digits , The first double-digit growth. Contributed by Jingxi, the new users in the fourth quarter were mainly from low-tier cities, of which more than 70% came from third- and sixth-tier cities, and Jingxi obviously learned from Pinduoduo’s social gameplay.
The battle of sinking, Pinduoduo is the pioneer and leader, but the sinking market has 600 million users. The e-commerce giant plunged into it in 2019, and the number of new users disclosed in each quarter ’s financial report is staggering. So far, there is not much potential to be tapped. If you want to continue to grow, you can only vigorously go up and develop the first and second-tier markets. It is definitely not enough to rely on tens of billions of subsidies alone, and it is necessary to make up for the large-scale logistics system and after-sales service system, and the latter is the traditional sphere of influence of JD.com.
It is conceivable that Pinduoduo and JD.com will no longer fight through the mountain of Ali as usual, but will compete with the drum facing the gong face to face.
Huang Guangyu must be familiar with such scenes.
In 2010, Jingdong, which started with 3C, exceeded 10 billion in sales. Under the strong offensive of its opponents, at the end of the year, Gome acquired Kuba Shopping Network for 48 million yuan. Before buying Kuba, Gome also set up a company called Xinruimei to develop e-commerce business under the name of Gome Online Store. However, three years after the acquisition, Kuba.com and the Kuba brand disappeared, and Gome’s e-commerce strategy has fully contracted.
All history is contemporary history. Today, JD.com has become an attacker, and his two opponents, Huang Guangyu and Huang Zheng, form an alliance.
Huang Zheng
By cooperating with Gome, Pinduoduo bought the Jingdong-style 3C home appliance system, which complemented the capacity to a certain extent. But now, the operating efficiency and service capabilities of this system to access the Internet are not small compared to Jingdong. Gap, and the difference in the degree of integration brought about by the cooperation model and the self-employment model also needs to be considered.
Since 2018, Gome and Pinduoduo have started strategic cooperation, but it is obviously more effective to use capital voting. In addition to the share price benefit brought to Gome and Pinduoduo, this is the alliance is another brand of Pinduoduo users and potential users.Education, in a short period of time, Jingdong and Ali will not panic, but when the shortcomings once again make a more violent upward attack, it is hard to say who will die.
In the last retail battle, Huang Guangyu gave Zhang Jindong the opportunity to face off with Liu Qiangdong. This time, Huang Guangyu, who was about to return, was pulled into Huang Zheng ’s chariot and was able to face Liu Qiangdong again. . For Xiao Huang, the battle is to surpass his opponent. For Lao Huang, the battle itself is a victory.
Reference:
1. “How the Price Butcher” Huang Guangyu Creates Gome “Legal System Morning Post January 2006
2. “Conversational Pinduoduo Huang Zheng: They build an empire and compete for land, I want to compete in a different position” Financial Magazine April 2018
3. “Put a lot of friends and enemies” Blue Hole Business July 2018
4. “Gome eats Kuba.com e-commerce: offline expansion, turn losses into profit” Southern Weekend December 2013
This article comes from the WeChat public account: letter list (ID: wujicaijing) author: Tan Xiao Han