Sino-Singapore Jingwei Client, November 10 (Chang Tao) "The community group buying market is now in a white-hot stage, and many companies are constantly pouring into this sector. We are also paying close attention to the changes and development of the market. We believe that community group buying is still in place. In the ultra-early stage of development, many companies are seeking customers in this field. If they can bring better experience and value to customers, consumers will easily change."

  On November 5, during the analyst conference call after the release of Ali’s new quarterly earnings report, Ali Group CEO Zhang Yong made the above statement when talking about the current hot community group buying.

Currently in the community group buying battlefield, Ali takes into account both investment and operation, investing in the Shihui Group, and dispatching its own Hema and rookie to fight.

  But in fact, the current focus of the outside world is not on Ali, but on the three players, Meituan, Didi, and Pinduoduo, who are "hand-to-hand".

The scene of heavy subsidies, large-scale recruitment, and the end of the Internet upstarts in person is like the eve of the arrival of every wind.

But community group buying is not just a traffic business, but a more cruel and strict war of attrition. It is not yet known who will die.

  Photo by Chang Tao, New Jingwei in the data map

Community group buying "spring breeze blows again"

  Community group buying, the self-pickup model in the fresh food e-commerce track, became popular in the second half of 2018.

A microcosm is that in the second half of 2018, more than 200 community group buying companies emerged in Changsha.

In November 2018 alone, at least 5 community group buying projects across the country announced the completion of new financing, all in the tens of millions of dollars.

  At that time, community group buying had already emerged as a giant.

In December 2018, Suning Purchase announced that it would launch the community group WeChat group and mini program, and revealed that starting from 2019, Suning will recruit 100,000 heads, centered on the group leader, using tools such as groups and mini programs to dig deeper. Community consumption scenarios.

Prior to this, Pinduoduo had invested in the Shanghai community group buying platform Chongma Neighborhood Group.

  With the rapid development, a series of disadvantages such as fragile community group buying supply chain system, disorderly competition, and difficulty in maintaining passenger flow have also begun to appear.

Beginning in the first half of 2019, the cold winter experienced by fresh food e-commerce companies has also appeared in the community group buying field. Squirrel Pinpin is deeply mired in bankruptcy, and Shihui Group merges you, me and you... Community group buying has stepped on the "sudden brake".

  However, no one thought that the sudden epidemic brought vitality to community group buying.

Not only are the giants making a strong layout, but also leading players in the industry have emerged from startups, such as Shihui Group, Prosperity Optimal and Tongcheng Life.

  According to public reports, in 2020, the Shihui Group successively completed USD 88.3 million, USD 81.4 million and USD 80 million in Series B, Series C and Series C2 financing in January, May, and July. Ali participated in the Series B round.

In July 2020, Xingsheng preferred to complete a C+ round of financing of approximately US$800 million, with Tencent participating.

In August 2020, Yipin Fresh announced that it has received 2.5 billion yuan in Series C financing, led by Tencent and Capital Today.

  However, what makes the community group buying track really lively is the entry of the Internet upstarts-Ali and Tencent entered the game through investment, while the Internet upstarts Meituan, Didi, and Pinduoduo ended up in person.

Upstart melee

  At the end of August 2020, Pinduoduo's community group buying project "Duo Duo Mai Cai" went online, and was the first batch of pilot projects in Wuhan and Nanchang.

  On July 7, 2020, Meituan issued an organizational adjustment announcement stating that it would establish a "Optimization Business Unit" and enter the community group buying track. Meituan Optimality was born.

Subsequently, Meituan Optimal proposed the "Thousand Cities Plan", which plans to cover 20 provinces across the country by the end of the year and gradually sink to the county-level market.

  Since Didi’s "Orange Heart Optimal" went online in Chengdu, Sichuan in June 2020, the daily order volume in Sichuan Province exceeded 550,000 in three months; by the end of September, the national daily order volume of Orange Heart Optimal exceeded 2.8 million. .

  Combining the statements of the "heads" of Meituan, Didi, and Pinduoduo, it is not difficult to find that at the strategic level, the above-mentioned giant players have placed community group buying in an important position.

  According to media reports, the "community group buying" business has been designated as a first-level strategic project within Meituan.

This is the new growth curve planned by Meituan after the two main businesses of food delivery, in-store and wine travel, and it will assume the next revenue growth point for Meituan.

The founder of Meituan Wang Xing also stated in the second quarter 2020 earnings call that “fresh retail business has always been a strategically important new business area for Meituan.”

  At Didi's internal all-hands meeting on the morning of November 3, Didi CEO Cheng Wei publicly talked about Orange Heart Optimization for the first time, saying: "Didi has no upper limit on the investment in Orange Heart Optimization, and is fully committed to winning the first place in the market. "

  On October 8th, Pinduoduo's chairman Huang Zheng directly talked about Duoduo Shopping at the company's fifth anniversary.

He said: "Everyone has more or less felt the adjustment of the company's organizational structure.... Among the thousands of people here, we rushed to the front line of new business such as shopping for food."

  Both are highly valued strategically, but in terms of play, the three have their own differences.

According to an industry insider who once studied community group buying in Wuhan, “Pinduoduo is coming fiercely, with a relatively large investment, and the price of vegetables is cheap; Meituan is generally more stable, step by step, not so radical; Orange Heart prefers to do it earlier. , But the current positions are mainly concentrated in provincial capitals, relying on heavy subsidies."

  According to the data provided by Orange Hearts, as of November 9th, Orange Hearts has been selected in Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Shandong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Henan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. The provinces (cities) are open.

Meituan Optimal has entered 12 provinces and captured more than 60 cities.

  Regarding subsidies, Orange Heart’s preferred aspect told the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client that subsidizing users is a way to increase user stickiness, but the core thing is the quality of goods. Although users are price-sensitive, they are also sensitive to product quality. With good quality and good service, users will naturally survive.

  The Big Three are fighting, and I have to mention two cities, one of which is Wuhan.

When Duoduo Mai Cai went online, Wuhan and Nanchang were selected as the first pilot cities, and the second stop of Meituan Optimal Kaicheng was selected in Wuhan.

At the end of October, Orange Heart Optimal came to Wuhan from Chengdu, and the first stop of Hema Optimal Kaicheng also chose Wuhan.

Wuhan has become the city with the most intense competition for community group buying.

  The above-mentioned industry insiders analyzed to the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client, “The reason why Wuhan is fierce is that after the education during the epidemic, everyone has formed an understanding of community group buying, and the giants no longer need to educate the market.”

  Another city I have to mention is Changsha.

At present, Meituan, Didi, and Pinduoduo are frantically "preparing for war" here, and will be launched in the next few days.

According to the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client, in Changsha, Meituan Optimum, Orange Heart Optimum, and Duoduo Shopping each aim to recruit about 200 BDs (business development), and there is a situation where a big battle is on the horizon.

  Another very important reason why the giants "siege" Changsha is that this is the base camp for prosperity.

This community group buying platform that survived the cold winter of fresh food e-commerce now covers 13 provinces, 161 prefecture-level cities, 938 counties and cities, 4777 townships and 31405 villages, with an average daily order of 800 nationwide. Ten thousand orders are 16 times that of Duoduo's Nanchang orders.

Who will kill you?

  Li Chengdong, an e-commerce analyst, told the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client that community group buying is essentially the logic of fresh food e-commerce. Fresh food e-commerce has a lot of room for development in the future, and giants must not give up.

"Currently, the startups in this field are already relatively strong. For example, the Xingsheng Optimal Financial Model is relatively safe and healthy, which puts a lot of pressure on the giants and forces the giants. But in turn, the expansion of Xingsheng Optimal also brings great Resistance." Li Chengdong said.

  In fact, whether it is Meituan, Didi or Pinduoduo, community group buying is a more sinking business with a higher ceiling.

"Didi's social group buying is still related to the company's valuation. Didi needs to add new business imagination." Li Chengdong said.

For Meituan and Pinduoduo, community group buying is not only a defensive warfare, an advance layout; it is also an offensive warfare, looking for new business growth points.

  The head of Pinduoduo Huang Zheng pointed out earlier that grocery shopping is a good business, a hard business, and a long-term business.

"This business is good because it is highly consistent with our own long-term agricultural commitments. We should conform to the changes in consumers' living habits and truly solve the daily life problems of the people, so that they can benefit from and improve their quality of life."

  Orange Heart Optimal said that Didi has accumulated rich experience in C-end user operation and B-end channel development experience in the travel field, and Didi’s technical advantages in the travel field have laid a certain foundation for the development of Orange Heart’s optimal business. It is also the advantage that Orange Heart Optimal is different from other platforms.

  However, community group buying is by no means just a traffic business. It has the highest requirements for logistics network and supply chain efficiency.

"Community group buying is a long-term business, and long-term business relies on the supply chain. To establish supply chain advantages, the core is high-efficiency and low-cost logistics and lower-priced products." The above-mentioned industry insiders analyzed.

(Zhongxin Jingwei APP)

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