In 2022, the community group buying track presents three major characteristics: capital groups are shutting down, merging, or pivoting; local groups are recovering and restarting; and independent groups are growing wildly. In the southern market, independent group leaders are jokingly called "wild groups." Independent group leaders are becoming platform-like. From Nanjing to Beijing, top independent leaders achieve monthly turnovers of hundreds of thousands, even up to millions, rivaling local group platforms. A large number of new independent group leaders have emerged, presenting a "de-centralized from third-party platforms" group buying form.
01 "Independent" Group Leaders As is well known, the three cornerstones of community group buying are group leaders, suppliers, and warehousing and distribution. The role of group leader was born with the development of the community group buying industry. Industry consensus data shows that the number of group buying leaders is approximately over 2 million, making this group the largest workforce after ride-hailing drivers and food delivery riders. According to Mr. Chen Haichao, chief consultant of Kaiman 4000, group buying leaders can be divided into three camps based on scores: Leaders scoring 80-100 basically don't care about anyone; they platformize themselves, understanding products and group operations. Leaders scoring 60-80 understand some group operations but lack supply chains, so they basically cooperate with local groups. Leaders scoring below 60 don't understand group operations or products; they can only attach to capital groups, earning money through physical labor and commissions as porters. These leaders will eventually become "porters."
The severe involution of community e-commerce is the environment for group leader independence. Giants are trapped in a prisoner's dilemma, and group leaders are dragged into a mess. The giants' weakening of group leaders has turned them from core marketing hubs into purely fulfillment roles, making them insignificant, with commissions dropping from 13%-15% to 3%-5%. The competition and subsidy wars among leading community group buying platforms have deviated from user value and group leader value. Group leaders have been reduced to traffic interfaces, and users have not enjoyed high-quality, trustworthy product services. Especially, the role of group leaders as KOLs in consumer groups has been gradually weakened. Continuous technological upgrades have trained users to become active searchers retaining traditional e-commerce genes, further weakening the role of group leaders. If this continues, group leaders will become victims of the community e-commerce system's iterative updates.
02 "Unique" Group Leaders The evolution of community group buying leaders has gone through a cyclical process. In the earliest group relay era, group leaders were promoters and main drivers of group atmosphere, with strong sense of belonging and participation. At that time, communities were vibrant and energetic. Later, in the mini-program era, group leaders became information publishers and providers, and community atmosphere shifted from active exploration to passive reception. The overall vitality of communities declined, gradually becoming "dead groups" or purely "after-sales groups" and "ineffective groups." During the Shanghai epidemic at the beginning of the year, effective group leaders were catalyzed by various objective factors, springing up like mushrooms and revitalizing many original and new communities. Under special circumstances, when various conditions were restricted, the form of community group buying returned to the group relay era. Platforms and markets also saw an opportunity to restart, and group leaders were valued again. After the epidemic, some group leaders chose to work independently, becoming "unique" group leaders different from others.
Unique Aspect One: Open Thinking The community group buying leader group is characterized by middle-aged and elderly profiles, mostly community mom-and-pop stores, stay-at-home moms, and some logistics stations. Except for a small number of younger mom leaders, most of the remaining leaders are not proficient in using modern smart devices; most are in the middle ground between being able to use and being proficient. Besides the technical challenges to face and overcome, these leaders have a fixed mindset that as long as products and services are good, there will be repeat customers and sustainability. However, if repeat customers or regulars are maintained for a long time without continuous new customer acquisition, it will eventually evolve into a red ocean. At that time, publicity, marketing, product promotion, purchase guidance, and influence amplification are needed. This requires leaders to timely accept new product promotion methods, including images, videos, and other forms of UGC (user-generated content), which can create excellent communication effects. All the above skills require leaders to have a high-frequency open mindset, able to quickly imitate, copy, and learn current popular product marketing methods and community maintenance techniques. They must resolutely avoid sticking to their own "one acre and three parts of land," and instead cultivate new wasteland, seek new blue oceans, invigorate rigid thinking, and embrace new opportunities with an open mind.
Unique Aspect Two: Platform Thinking Mr. Xiaokun, senior researcher at Kaiman 4000, pointed out in his keynote speech "Market Opportunities for Independent Group Leaders" at the Ninth Kaiman Conference that an important unique highlight of independent group leaders is to possess platform thinking. First, we need to clarify the concept of "independence," which is often misinterpreted. Independence is only a relatively free form, not complete detachment, nor being a lone flower. There is no absolute independence or absolute freedom. When a group leader reaches a certain level of understanding of orders, product operations, and community operations, they will unconsciously iterate and evolve forward. Of course, these growths are based on the leader starting from scratch and testing through trial and error. When the need for collective procurement actions arises, the leader initially possesses the prototype of "independence." But at this time, the so-called "independent group leader" still cannot completely detach from the platform they rely on. Except for self-made individual leaders, any leader's "independence" process will go through a painful period, or a stalemate period. On one hand, they want to cut ties with the platform completely; on the other hand, they cannot do without the resources provided by the platform. However, the various constraints of the platform itself limit the leader's personal development, especially when leaders show actions of independent operation and collective procurement and distribution. The platform's resistance will continuously stimulate the leader's "independence" mindset.
Unique Aspect Three: Organizational Thinking Li Hui, a post-90s mom leader with a monthly GMV exceeding 300,000 yuan, shared her business insights at the Ninth Kaiman Conference, mentioning that the result of independence is not fighting alone, but more like integrating the surrounding area and connecting like-minded group leaders to work together. Now their product selection logic is: 70% from full-category supply chains, 30% from direct sourcing at origins, and other miscellaneous items from wholesale stalls. But if an individual is independent, their volume is insufficient to digest the entire truckload of goods. At this time, they need to unite with surrounding group leaders to work together. In fact, this is equivalent to creating a free-form platform, which is the form of group wholesale, developing their own organization. Only through organized operation and standardized management can the path after independence be smooth and go further. According to Mr. Liu Chunxiong, community group buying enlightened the integration of B and C, opening the key link in channel digitalization. As long as the supply chain masters the B-C integration logic, deep distribution will combine with B-C integration and extend to the C-end.
If the result of group leader enlightenment is the emergence of independent group leaders, then after independent group leaders appear, B-C integration will emerge. The spark of group buying will start a prairie fire of B-C integration. With the popularization of independent group leaders, the focus of community group buying will shift to supply chains beyond standard products, inevitably triggering a new round of supply chain revolution.
03 "Lone Traveler" Group Leaders There are two relatively fixed outbreak periods for the emergence of "independent group leaders." One is the beginning of the epidemic, which directly gives rise to a considerable number of so-called independent group leaders. When unexpected situations catch people off guard, seizing the opportunity and winning people's hearts can make one an independent group leader. The second is among veteran group leaders under platforms. A small portion of them are younger and more receptive to new things. Under the dual pressure of "shrinking voice and reduced income," they focus on developing their own private domain traffic, even exploiting capital groups and cutting local groups' leeks to strengthen themselves. The lone travel of some independent group leaders will be a beautiful landscape on the community group buying track. This will not only stimulate platforms to treat group leaders well and manage existing group leader resources, especially high-quality leaders, but also help platforms grow and improve from the side. In addition, the existence of independent group leaders can prove the vitality of the community group buying track. They are also an important backbone force in activating the track. It is their efforts that forge and prove that independence can find breakthroughs, and it will also stimulate practitioners from other industries to join and start businesses, injecting new energy. Mr. Chen Haichao, chief consultant of Kaiman 4000, judges that in community group buying, 400 million users frequently purchase or habitually purchase, 2 million group leaders, 20,000 grid warehouses and over 1,000 collaborative warehouses, and hundreds of thousands of supply chain service providers constitute the infrastructure of community group buying in 2022. Since the end of 2019, after three years of the epidemic, "live streaming and group buying" has been a unique sight. In 2022, as value chain creators, 80% of brand owners actively embrace it, and 20% passively cooperate. The change in brand owners' attitudes also directly affects and changes the industry landscape of the community group buying track. At the earliest stage of the epidemic at the end of 2019, brand owners cooperated directly with major group leaders through branches or local agents. Because conditions were immature at that time, many brand owners paid a high tuition fee. After three years, with the iteration of the community group buying model and major changes in the business environment, the role of group leaders has been repositioned, and the number of group leaders has caused qualitative changes. Among the 2 million group leaders, no less than 500,000 operate private domain traffic and belong to independent major group leaders. It should be noted here that not all brand owners are suitable for direct cooperation with independent group leaders. Only manufacturers with "rigid demand, high frequency, and sufficiently wide product lines" can play this game. Manufacturers such as Henan Yisai Beef and Hubei Jishi Rice are conducting initial explorations, and overall data is relatively optimistic. Besides traditional deep distribution channels, they are using the key marketing element of independent major group leaders to establish a second growth curve.
Summary: From the group leader side, the community group buying leader camp continues to differentiate. The three subcategories are becoming increasingly distinct: "porterized" leaders on capital group platforms, "collaborative" leaders in local groups, and "independent" leaders in self-organized groups. From the brand side, there are three paths to enter community group buying: first, reaching capital group platforms through service providers; second, directly operating local platforms; third, directly developing independent major group leaders through branches or local agents. From this perspective, the community group buying business model is new retail from the group leader side and new marketing from the brand side. In the end, all roads lead to the same destination.
Source: Kaiman 4000 (ID: kaiman4000) Author: Meng Xiangfei