Group buying website wants to transform the mall model

From 2010, the group purchase website landed in China, and quickly developed into a “thousand-strong regiment war”. After experiencing the fight in the harsh winter, the blood of the Internet was thoroughly expressed in the group buying industry. Having experienced a momentary glory, the problems in the group buying industry have also gradually exposed, and the degree of enthusiasm of merchants for group purchases has also become increasingly cold.

“When orders were made during group purchases, the number of orders did increase substantially, and sales also increased significantly. However, due to promotions with large discounts, there was no significant increase in gross profit, and once the activities went offline, passenger traffic quickly returned to its previous level. In addition, group purchase activities The people who have accumulated during the instant may also affect the actual experience of other consumers,” a business owner who declined to be named told reporters. “As far as I know, many businesses do not make money by doing group purchase activities, and The effect is not good, and there are still many websites that call us and find us to make group purchases, but we all rejected it.” This actually represents most of the merchants’ views on group purchases. After the passion, they calm down. What can "group purchase" bring to merchants in the end?

I believe that this issue is also considered by the "CXOs" of major group buying websites. In fact, group purchasing sites have been quietly exploring the future.

Involuntary transformation

Since 2011, the Wowo Group, LaTethNet and Qianpin.com have all tried to transform the mall model. The so-called “shopping mall model” is a combination of the “short-term promotion” of traditional group purchases and the “long-term distribution” of online stores like Tmall. Together, thus forming closer interaction with traditional businesses, expanding the scale and scope of sales.

Another group of websites, such as the US Mission Network, have long adhered to the traditional group buying model, and have also achieved good sales performance, and the market share is also considerable. However, sticking to the group purchasing model depends on its own growth, watching a beautiful stream, when will the profits be realized?

The US group seems to have realized this quickly too soon. Shortly after the 100 billion goal was put forward, the home page of the website was revised significantly. According to the US group's home page image that was exposed by the media recently, on the left side of the page, you can see the classified navigation similar to the traditional shopping malls like JD.com. It is divided into food, hotel, movie, entertainment, KTV, life service, and shopping. , tourism and other columns, but also designed the home page into a similar shopping mall and Wowo Mall floor. Although the U.S. delegation is unwilling to admit that it has also transformed itself into a mall, it insists that it is only a "group buying mode based on aggregating different orders," and "has not invited merchants to settle in," but it is undeniable that the U.S. A step closer. The outside world generally believes that this may be a low-key exploration by the US group to follow the trend of the mall model on the issue of profitability.

At this point, the group purchase website has already demonstrated the posture of a collective shopping mall model.

Mall mode puzzles

“Only reform and innovation can achieve development.” After everyone has explored the road to change, they have finally pinned their hopes on the “merchandise model” of this life-saving straw, and each creates their own “meeting mall.”

Changes always have to pay the price. In the process of trying to transform, there are successes and failures. At the beginning, try to use the "Mall model" of LaTethNet and Qianpin.com, and did not get too good results, and eventually fell down. Is the "Mall model" can not save the group purchase site?

When everyone is in confusion, it quickly sparks a glimmer of hope. The Wowo Group, the earliest transition mall model, announced in December 2012 that the Wooo group had officially announced that it had achieved profitability with a profit of several million yuan. This is also the first realization of the group buying website. Scale-profit business. The success of the WoWo store has seen peers see hope.

Then, why is the same "transactional mode" of transformation, the Wowo Group has succeeded, and the handles and thousands of products have failed? In fact, according to the author, finding the right model is important, but the actual operation and management capabilities and the direction of development The ability to control will also affect the success or failure of the company.

According to the statistical data of the League 800, the turnover of domestic group buying websites in April this year rose slightly by 1.9% from the previous month to 2.39 billion yuan, of which the share of physical group purchases accounted for only 5.4%, and this proportion was in 2011. The figure is 26%. It can be seen that the proportion of physical purchases has begun to drop sharply, while the proportion of lifestyle services such as “food, clothing, housing and transportation” has increased significantly. Maybe life service is the main source of future group buying websites. battlefield.

Some group-buying websites have always paid more attention to physical group buying and have a short-term profit. However, in the face of the impact of a series of e-commerce websites such as Tmall and JD.com, their markets are bound to be squeezed. Online live services are The huge market gap left by these traditional e-commerce websites also contains huge business opportunities. The Wowo Group has seized this direction, applied the online store's mall model to the life service industry, helped restaurants, cinemas, beauty shops, hotels and other businesses open their stores online, and even helped merchants to carry out branding and products. Repackaging and promotion. Once this model was launched, it attracted a large number of merchants to settle in and merchants finally tasted the real sweetness from the Internet marketing model.

The future of mall model

A senior industry scholar who has long studied e-commerce told the author that the traditional connection between group buying and business is too loose, and the service model of group products alone is too single, and its effect will inevitably be compromised. The mall model just solves the above problems. The model is flexible. It interacts closely with the merchants. It can even help the merchants to formulate suggestions for the products. In the form of operation on behalf of the merchants, the traditional merchants have the problem of “low Internet level and lack of design order ability” to maximize the problem. make up.

Is binding the life service industry and the mall model the only way to buy a website in the future? This author does not dare to assert that after all, people who have experienced exploration will always find a way out for themselves, and it may not necessarily be the only one. However, from the current point of view, this pattern found by the Woo Group has indeed achieved certain results.

According to our understanding to some merchants, the enthusiasm of merchants entering the company during the Wowo Group's shift to the mall model has increased for more than a year. Later, there have even been the collective settlement of malls such as Kaide, Wanda, etc., and the density of merchants has increased dramatically. Therefore, it seems that its in-depth efforts in the mall model is still increasing. I do not know if this mode of development in depth will achieve better results in the future, it still needs verification.

Who will be able to laugh in the future to buy the industry, whether the mall model will achieve the final success, whether there is a new form, we look forward to the time to give us the final answer!