At the start of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, like a black swan, dealt a heavy blow to China's entire FMCG market. On one hand, the outbreak caused a large number of offline stores to close, leaving distributors unable to clear their inventory. On the other hand, consumers isolated at home had increasingly strong demand for daily necessities. Local life platforms such as Meicai, Dingdong, Xingsheng Youxuan, and JD Daojia saw significant sales growth, making home delivery services the preferred shopping method for consumers during the epidemic.
In this context, beer brands including Tsingtao, Budweiser, and Snow have launched community group-buying leader recruitment plans.
-01- Recruitment Calls: Beer Brands Eye Community Group Buying Currently, some beer distributors have shared H5 promotional posters on social media for Snow Beer's recruitment of community group leaders in the Laling region. Meanwhile, Budweiser has also posted recruitment for its "Budweiser Supports You" community group leader program. Tsingtao Beer has already recruited community group leaders in Weifang, Yantai, and other cities.
It's clear that while the epidemic's turning point remains uncertain, beer brands are beginning to lay out their social e-commerce strategies.
In the recruitment conditions, the requirements from various beer brands are almost identical. Besides mothers and trendy moms, community store owners, convenience store owners, homeowners' committee members, and property management staff are also primary candidates for group leader roles. Tsingtao Beer specifically requires community convenience store owners to have WeChat groups with over 100 members.
From the recruitment conditions, it's evident that beer brands place more emphasis on practicality and feasibility when selecting community group leaders. For example, community convenience stores can serve as ideal forward warehouses for beer products, leveraging the owner's WeChat groups to reach surrounding communities.
Furthermore, homeowners' committee members and property staff have stronger ties and higher trust within the community, giving them greater influence in customer relationship maintenance and promotion, making them more convincing to consumers. At the same time, the promise of zero inventory, zero investment, and zero risk seems more likely to attract people who have been isolated at home for a long time.
-02- Are Beer Brands Ready to Enter Community Group Buying? The epidemic has made home delivery services, which were not particularly popular before, extremely hot. When offline retail outlets closed on a large scale, online home delivery orders skyrocketed, and community group buying, primarily focused on fresh produce and daily necessities, experienced a rebirth. It can be said that the epidemic saved community group buying.
It is precisely the boom in home delivery services that has attracted beer brands to enter community group buying.
Speaking of social e-commerce, it's a familiar concept. As the hottest new retail model in 2019, it attracted various players to try their hand, with some failing and some succeeding after intense competition. However, brand manufacturers rarely took the initiative to participate. So, has the time come for beer brands to enter community group buying?
February is not the peak season for beer sales, but due to the epidemic, besides remote work, staying at home, gaming, cooking, live streaming, and scrolling through Douyin have become ways for people to pass the time. Apart from normal daily necessities, there has been some growth in demand for snacks and beer, but not as much as before. Under these circumstances, why are beer companies launching community group leader recruitment?
First, from a short-term perspective, this is a self-rescue move by beer companies. With a large number of offline stores closed, many distributors are facing severe inventory backlogs. By recruiting community group leaders, beer brands aim to help distributors distribute inventory and recover funds through community group buying.
Second, it's a measure to boost cohesion and stabilize distributor sentiment. As we know, after the Spring Festival, the beer peak season is approaching, which is the time for distributors to place orders. However, due to the epidemic, distributors are burdened with inventory and lack cash, which will inevitably affect their order quantities. These measures by beer companies send a signal to distributors that the companies have not abandoned them. They also help align the goals of beer company employees.
However, if beer companies only view community group buying as a solution to the current slow sales, then as the epidemic ends, although home delivery services have become a new choice for most consumers, the beer category alone may not achieve higher consumer stickiness.
Currently, the beer industry is relatively blank in the social e-commerce space, and the focus of beer brand sales remains offline. Is entering community group buying a good business? After all, achieving profit and sales growth in community group buying is not as simple as recruiting a few group leaders and running a few promotions.
Therefore, before entering community group buying, beer companies should first assess whether they possess the following:
1. Do they have a professional team? In fact, major beer brands already have mature and professional e-commerce teams online. For example, Tsingtao Beer's e-commerce team has achieved remarkable results during Double 11 in recent years, with relatively rich experience in online operations.
In addition, Budweiser and Snow also have extensive online operational experience. However, social e-commerce requires not only professional online operations but also strong connections with group leaders, platforms, and community grocery store owners. This necessitates beer companies to arrange professional business representatives to regularly maintain contact with group leaders, platforms, and store owners to sustain online customer relationships.
A professional operations team includes online operations, customer relationship maintenance, and efficient delivery services.
2. Do they have differentiated products? Social e-commerce has unique regional characteristics, so brand manufacturers will cooperate with local distributors or large customers with delivery capabilities. However, if the products are not differentiated from those sold online, it can easily lead to price conflicts with offline pricing systems.
Therefore, whether they have differentiated products is key to the success of beer brands' social e-commerce. If they simply put offline store products online and sell them through promotions, it will be difficult to attract consumers and may also impact the offline market.
Thus, beer companies need to develop differentiated products, using combination packaging for online promotion, regularly launching personalized custom beers, or short-shelf-life craft beers, and even cross-industry collaborations with snack foods to offer "beer +" meal sets. They can also introduce high-end niche products and convert them through private domain traffic in WeChat groups.
3. Do they have distributor support? Here, it's important to consider whether distributors have the willingness and capability to support social e-commerce. Although social e-commerce can bring new channels, it may not necessarily bring huge sales. Will distributors who primarily focus on offline be willing to invest some energy into online?
Secondly, whether cooperating with social e-commerce platforms or building their own community group buying, distributors need to have a certain level of online operational thinking and delivery capabilities. Therefore, beer companies should consider multiple factors when selecting distributors, choosing only 1-2 distributors per region to handle social e-commerce work in that area.
4. Can they motivate group leaders? The motivation of group leaders depends on whether they can earn higher commissions. Currently, beer has low gross margins, and for group leaders like mothers and property staff, beer is clearly not attractive. However, if community store owners or grocery store owners serve as group leaders, they primarily connect consumers through fresh produce and daily chemical products. They can drive sales of other products through beer sales, so as long as there are good policies, these individuals will have relatively high motivation.
5. Is there sufficient profit to support it? For beer companies, does your product have enough profit to support social e-commerce? Clearly, mid-to-low-end regular products have thin margins, and offline prices are very transparent. If the goal is to cultivate consumers, low-price promotions are a good method, but they can easily affect offline sales.
On the positive side, the epidemic has cultivated a large number of loyal consumers for home delivery services. They may later adopt home delivery as a new daily shopping method. On this basis, beer companies can try launching mid-to-high-end products and short-shelf-life products in social e-commerce, or use communities as a new channel for new product promotion.
6. Do they have a stable pricing system? Price is the main reason consumers choose community group buying, but it is also often the trigger that kills community group buying. Therefore, beer companies must ensure they can provide a stable pricing system to avoid situations where online impacts offline, group leaders cut prices to attract traffic, and ultimately ruin the product.
This requires companies to have a control system for social e-commerce distribution prices to ensure price stability.
7. Do they have attractive promotional plans? As we all know, social e-commerce is based on trust and transactions generated on a social basis, which are inherently impulsive purchases. Besides low-price promotions and appealing copy, consumers are unlikely to make social e-commerce their first choice. Therefore, companies need to provide personalized and attractive promotional plans, using a micro-business model for dissemination, combined with solar terms and hot events for product promotions.
To summarize: If beer companies are entering community group buying with the short-term goal of self-rescue, they should withdraw as soon as possible.
If it's a long-term strategy, they need to possess the following:
1. A professional operations team including online operations, copywriting, community maintenance, and dedicated distributors; 2. Reasonable profit distribution and a secure pricing system; 3. Differentiated product combinations and cross-industry thinking; 4. Personalized promotional plans.
Finally, social e-commerce services are the best way for brands to directly face consumers and a great opportunity to increase brand penetration. However, social e-commerce cannot bring huge incremental growth; on the contrary, companies need to invest a lot of energy and manpower. Therefore, if you haven't made long-term plans, please do not blindly engage in social e-commerce business.