Source: Teacher Liu's Digital New Marketing (ID: liuchunxiong1964) Author: Liu Chunxiong Alibaba's former CEO Wei Zhe said that e-commerce has entered an era of stock. Finding a new digital battlefield is everyone's expectation. Digitalization has many main roads and countless small paths. After wandering around, they eventually lead to the same main road—different paths, same destination. Digitalization starts from two starting points and two routes. One is B2B, the other is C2C and B2C. B2B is the digitalization path for traditional enterprises, while C2C and B2C are the platform paths for emerging enterprises. Of course, in the end, B2C shines brilliantly, while B2B is overshadowed. Note: In this article, F—Factory (manufacturer, brand), B—Business (distributor, dealer), b—retail store, terminal, C—Customer (customer, user), P—Platform. B2C Completely Defeats B2B Platform e-commerce started with C2C (Taobao). This is setting up a stall online, individual entrepreneurship. Besides boosting a batch of Taobao brands, it made Taobao popular, and B2C (Tmall) rose accordingly. Tmall is an upgrade of Taobao, and at the same time, large merchants (B) took over the territory of individual sellers (C2C). Back then, when Taobao upgraded to Tmall, how many Taobao merchants collectively protested. The world built by the "poor" (C2C) was taken over by the "rich" (B2C). I still remember that when handling the collective protest of Taobao merchants, Father Ma wrote many "忍" (endure) characters in his palm. B2C has been advancing triumphantly. From selling photos (graphics and text) to selling videos, and finally selling live streams. Platforms from Alibaba and JD.com to Meituan, Pinduoduo, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., finally accounted for 30% of social retail share and 24.9% of physical retail (2020 data), basically reaching the peak. Therefore, B2C has become the first main battlefield of digitalization. In the past 10 years, B2C has been in the spotlight, leading a decade of incremental market. So what has B2B been doing? B2B has quietly taken three paths: SFA, RTM, and B-code. SFA (Sales Force Automation) is a digital tool for traditional channel "Three E Management." "Three E Management" means managing everyone (Everyone) every day (Everyday) in everything (Everything). In marketing management, salespeople are "outside," making it difficult to achieve "Three E Management." SFA provides a digital "Three E Management" tool. Jinmailang is a leader in SFA. Jinmailang has been the enterprise with the highest industry growth rate for many consecutive years, and the B2B digitalization of the SFA model has contributed significantly. The fatal flaw of SFA is that it goes against human nature. SFA is equivalent to requiring employees to "self-incriminate." Salespeople use digitalization to collect "evidence" (data) and then "prove" whether they did well or not. Therefore, the application of SFA must provide another humanized tool: high-intensity incentives. RTM appeared relatively late, and like SFA, it is a derivative of deep distribution. SFA focuses on people—how to do it? RTM focuses on orders—what are the results of doing it? Because digital ordering at the terminal is still difficult so far, RTM is not widely known. B-code (in-box code) is a commercial application that has only emerged in recent years. Two-dimensional codes have been widely used in 2C, with too many scan-to-win prizes. B-code focuses on goods—terminal "opening boxes and putting goods on shelves." As long as the terminal opens the box and puts the goods on the shelf, the next step of sell-through should not be a big problem. The best user of B-code is Dongpeng Special Drink. Mobilizing the enthusiasm of terminals to open boxes is equivalent to doing how much terminal customer relationship! It is called B-code because it focuses on the demands of the terminal (b-end). The three paths of B2B focus on people's actions, orders, and the distribution of goods in the channel, which are typical management behaviors. Compared with the marketing behaviors of C2C and B2C, B2C's influence is clearly broader. In this stage of competition, B2C completely defeats B2B. B2B focuses on stock, B2C focuses on increment. Although B2C has won completely, problems still remain. As of 2020, Unification's online share was only 9%, Yili only 8%, Mengniu about 10%, and the highest among FMCG leaders was only Jinlongyu at about 20%. For leading FMCG enterprises, 80%-90% of sales are still offline. B2C may solve the problems of small and medium-sized FMCG enterprises, but who can solve the digitalization problems of leading enterprises? Different Paths, Same Destination Behavior forms trajectories, and from trajectories one can predict next behaviors. This is path dependence. Digitalization is still evolving along the 2C and 2B paths. From C2C to B2C, what is the next path for 2C? The trajectory of 2C inevitably moves toward F2C. This is the inevitable logic of decentralization. What is F2C? It is the manufacturer's private traffic, where the manufacturer directly does retail. This is the reason for the popularity of concepts like private traffic and new retail in recent years. B2C traffic is about to peak, so it is inevitable to find new paths for 2C. This is predictable. Private traffic has gone through 1.0 and 2.0, and now it has reached the era of private traffic 3.0. Private traffic 1.0 is F2C. B2C still has to pay traffic fees to platforms, while F2C directly becomes the manufacturer's traffic, going further than B2C. Unfortunately! Private traffic 1.0 was loud but with little rain, unable to become a major force. A million private traffic is normal, ten million is rare, and a hundred million is impossible. However, the household penetration rate of leading Chinese FMCG enterprises is at the hundred-million level. Private traffic 2.0 changed the path of private traffic, becoming [F+b2C]. This is a big step for private traffic. Currently, the best private traffic is actually done by direct-operated chain enterprises, such as McDonald's, Pagoda, Xibei, and Helens. Their common feature is using stores (terminals) as the gathering point for private traffic, a typical b2C private traffic model. Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution, said that private traffic is relationship, not contact. I further elaborate, private traffic is the technical connection where interpersonal relationships evolve into relationships. Private traffic 2.0 seems only suitable for direct-operated chains, not for distribution enterprises. The narrow application boundary makes promotion difficult. I appreciate that private traffic 2.0 breaks away from F2C thinking, changing the centralized thinking logic. Therefore, when private traffic 3.0 was proposed, private traffic completely lost the flavor of disintermediation. Private traffic 3.0 is based on the proposal of Enterprise WeChat. Enterprise WeChat turns the channel deep distribution system into an internal management system F2B2b, and then connects to the C-end through personal WeChat b2C. So, private traffic 3.0 is actually [F2B2b+b2C]. F2B2b+b2C=F2B2b2C A very strange thing happened. Private traffic was originally moving along the 2C track, but how did it step into the 2B track? After the transition of private traffic 2.0, private traffic 3.0 has completely lost the flavor of private traffic 1.0. Now let's look at the trajectory of B2B. B2B includes manufacturer B2B (actually F2B) and distributor B2B (actually B2b). Brands that do deep distribution well have already achieved F2B2b, only one step away from the C-end, but that step cannot be crossed because they lack the 2C gene. At this time, community group buying appeared. Logically, community group buying is B2b2C. Regardless of the future outcome of community group buying, its greatest value is achieving b2C through traditional channels. The "group leader" in community group buying is b2C. Community group buying activates b2C through channels, and private traffic 2.0 also activates b2C. They may not have a huge influence in the history of digitalization, but they are both turning points in digitalization. b2C has been activated, which means the digitalization problem of stores has been solved. Next, whoever can connect b2C will have unlimited imagination space. Whether B2C or B2B, they eventually meet at b2C. This is bC integration, different paths, same destination. Who would have thought this three years ago? Digitalization Needs Intermediaries B2C completely defeats B2B, and B2C has led a decade of new incremental market, with retail share reaching 30%. This is the first main battlefield of digitalization. The reason B2C is called the first main battlefield of digitalization is that B2C gathers hundreds of millions of users. E-commerce platforms Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Meituan, social platforms Tencent, DingTalk, content platform ByteDance—which of them doesn't have hundreds of millions of users? Without hundreds of millions of users, one cannot lead the digitalization direction after B2C. So, how to gather hundreds of millions of users? B2C provided the public with a wrong direction, thinking that B2C is disintermediation. Therefore, after B2C, whether private traffic or new retail, they all explored in the direction of disintermediation. However, B2C's real model is actually B2P2C, where the platform (P) is the biggest intermediary. Undoubtedly, "no intermediary to earn the difference" has communication power in business. After B2C, private traffic 1.0 is the disintermediation model. Fortunately, private traffic 2.0 returned to intermediation (terminal b-end). Starting from private traffic 3.0, private traffic completely returns to the intermediary model through the technical means of Enterprise WeChat. Once returning to the intermediary model, the traditional offline deep distribution channel is an intermediary comparable to the platform. Therefore, it is not surprising that the evolution of the B2C model and the evolution of B2B converge on the same path. In 2020, physical retail's online share was already 24.9%. Isn't there still 75.1% that hasn't been digitalized? This portion of sales is in offline channels. This is the second main battlefield, larger than the first. In the past, the direction of digitalization was misled by disintermediation, and a considerable number of people have been rejecting the direction of traditional channels. Traditional channels, precisely because of the amplification by intermediaries, can reach millions of terminals and hundreds of millions of consumers. The reason platform e-commerce became the main battlefield in the past decade is also because of the existence of platforms as intermediaries. Realizing that only with the existence of intermediaries can digitalization have huge scale, the path of digitalization will be completely different. Connecting hundreds of millions of users through traditional channels, with retail share exceeding B2C, this is naturally the new main battlefield. The two evolution trajectories of digitalization, one is the 2C path: from C2C to B2C, then to F2C (private traffic 1.0), then to [F+b2C] (private traffic 2.0), and finally to [F2B2b+b2C] (private traffic 3.0). The other is the 2B path: from F2B to F2B2b, then to F2B2b2C. The two digitalization paths converge on F2B2b2C. In May 2019, when I proposed bC integration, I didn't expect that Enterprise WeChat would change the path of private traffic. At that time, community group buying had just started, and I didn't realize the public value of b2C. The different paths of digitalization meet at bC integration. This is a digitalization main battlefield that surpasses e-commerce platforms. The Underlying Logic of bC Integration For an operating system to become mainstream, it must solve four problems. First, the support of the bC integration technical system. In the past two years, the technical system of bC integration has gradually become mainstream, with many technical system service companies focusing on bC integration. Of course, the involvement of Enterprise WeChat will play a significant role. In the future, the B2B operating system may be based on Enterprise WeChat. This problem has been solved. Second, iconic enterprises participating in bC integration practice. The earliest industry giant in bC integration was Coca-Cola. Now more are applying it, such as Yanghe, Huabin, etc. This is no longer a problem now. Third, the underlying logic of bC integration. The business system of bC integration is different from traditional channels, e-commerce, and private traffic, with unique underlying logic. For example, influenced by private traffic 1.0, some people always think of turning b2C traffic into F2C traffic. In 2021, I have been committed to building the underlying logic of bC integration, such as the "Six Double Operating System" (dual paths, dual private traffic, dual scenarios, dual shelves, dual delivery, dual middle platforms). The core is two points: First, FBb三方共享C端流量; second, using the source of traffic as the "basis for profit sharing." Otherwise, sharing cannot be implemented. This problem requires everyone's efforts. Fourth, the operating model of bC integration. Traditional channel deep distribution has a set of implementation methodologies and operating models, and e-commerce also has a set of continuously iterating operating models. The large-scale promotion of bC integration also requires operating methodologies and models. This problem will be improved during the promotion of bC integration. Are you "watching" me?