---
title: "The Critical Juncture of Community Group Buying"
description: "In the past two weeks, various self-media have been aggressively promoting the impact of community group buying on national welfare and people's livelihoods. On December 11, People's Daily published a commentary criticizing industry practitioners for 'only caring about the traffic of a few bundles of cabbage and a few pounds of fruit.' Meanwhile, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee emphasized 'strengthening anti-monopoly efforts and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital.' At this moment, the community group buying industry seems to be at the critical juncture described by Mr. Zhuge Liang: 'This is indeed a time of crisis and survival.'"
author: "陈维龙"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-12-12"
language: "en"
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---

# The Critical Juncture of Community Group Buying

> In the past two weeks, various self-media have been aggressively promoting the impact of community group buying on national welfare and people's livelihoods. On December 11, People's Daily published a commentary criticizing industry practitioners for 'only caring about the traffic of a few bundles of cabbage and a few pounds of fruit.' Meanwhile, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee emphasized 'strengthening anti-monopoly efforts and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital.' At this moment, the community group buying industry seems to be at the critical juncture described by Mr. Zhuge Liang: 'This is indeed a time of crisis and survival.'

In the past two weeks, various self-media have been aggressively promoting the impact of community group buying on national welfare and people's livelihoods. On December 11, People's Daily published a commentary criticizing industry practitioners for 'only caring about the traffic of a few bundles of cabbage and a few pounds of fruit.' Meanwhile, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee emphasized 'strengthening anti-monopoly efforts and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital.'
At this moment, the industry is in a state of panic, with some feeling lost, some trembling with fear, some sneering, some taking advantage to kick others when they are down, and some adding fuel to the fire by riding on the hot topic.
**At this critical moment, community group buying seems to be at the critical juncture described by Mr. Zhuge Liang: 'This is indeed a time of crisis and survival.'**
Here, I want to speak up and share the facts that I know but most people do not, in order to clarify public opinion and contribute to the government's formulation of reasonable policies.
**-01-**
**Who are the people who say community group buying will take away the livelihoods of small vendors, and can they be trusted?**
Many media outlets, influencers, and passersby say that community group buying will take away the livelihoods of millions of small vendors. The article 'Internet giants who do not follow the rules of martial arts are using capital to take away the livelihoods of countless vegetable vendors. This is immoral and must be subject to anti-monopoly measures' was the first to spread this viewpoint and quickly went viral.
Under the exemplary effect of this viral article, on Douyin, anyone who can speak is riding on this hot topic, loudly claiming that community group buying will take away the livelihoods of small vendors. So who are the people promoting this viewpoint?
The author who spread this viewpoint most widely on WeChat and first proposed it is a training teacher who teaches middle school students how to write essays. On Douyin, the most widely spread is a consultant who tells others how to make money.
I have browsed more than ten accounts with similar viewpoints on Douyin and WeChat, and they are basically all laypeople. Their style is to boldly assume, never verify, and recklessly propagate.
They are all people who stay at home and can command the world from their thatched cottage, making grand plans as if they were Zhuge Liang or Zhou Yu, which is truly admirable!
But can these people be trusted? Have they really demonstrated whether community group buying can take away the livelihoods of small vendors? How much can it take away?
I have provided consulting services to the managing director of Jinshajiang, partners of numerous domestic and foreign fund companies, and chief analysts of well-known domestic securities firms, and have discussed this issue with them. These people who manage hundreds of billions of assets, with extremely high IQs and the most authoritative information in the industry, cannot answer this question. They can only vaguely say, 'It may reach a penetration rate of 20% like e-commerce,' without convincing evidence.
Those ignorant media and influencers casually claim that all small vendors' livelihoods will be taken away. I wonder if they have really conducted rigorous argumentation. If so, please contact me, as someone is willing to pay hundreds of thousands of yuan for your argumentation process.
If not, these people are no different from those who spread rumors and shake people's confidence during the epidemic this year at the slightest sign of trouble. A minority of these people lack cognition and speak nonsense based on feelings. The majority are malicious, seeking traffic and inciting emotions without any bottom line.
Take the Douyin account mentioned above as an example. That video has been viewed by at least tens of millions of people, and the resulting increase in followers and other explicit and implicit commercial benefits are estimated to reach hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Therefore, all viewpoints and people online claiming that community group buying will take away the livelihoods of small vendors are not trustworthy. Because they do not provide any credible evidence, and they do not even know what community group buying is.
Even if we assume that community group buying can really take away all small vendors' livelihoods, what will it bring? Is it a mess or a new world?
**-02-**
**What can community group buying create?**
Before analyzing what community group buying can create, we must understand what community group buying is.
**1. What is community group buying?**
Community group buying can be divided into front-end and back-end parts. The front-end includes users and group leaders, while the back-end includes grid warehouses, central warehouses, suppliers, and shared warehouses. After users place orders, the flow of goods is roughly: from the supplier's warehouse to the shared warehouse (or the supplier's warehouse is the shared warehouse), then from the shared warehouse to the central warehouse for processing, then to the grid warehouses in various regions for processing, and finally to the group leader, where customers pick up their orders.
From the above, it is clear that community group buying is a business model with a light front-end and heavy back-end. This means that a large amount of investment and new jobs will appear in the back-end, which the public is not familiar with, namely the warehousing and distribution side. So how much new investment and how many new jobs will there be?
To explain this issue, we must first answer how large the future market for community group buying will be. According to common industry understanding, community group buying will have an annual transaction scale of trillions of yuan, accounting for about 10%-20% of the retail industry. We can assume a scale of about 4 trillion yuan.
**2. Scale of group leaders**
With an annual transaction scale of 4 trillion yuan, if group leaders take a 10% commission, that would be 400 billion yuan in annual income. Assuming a group leader's monthly income is 4,000 yuan, it can support about 8 million group leaders.
Calculating from the volume dimension also yields similar results.
With an annual transaction scale of 4 trillion yuan, assuming an average order value of about 10 yuan, there are 400 billion items per year. If each item is charged at the standard rate of express delivery stations, about 0.5 yuan per item, then group leaders can also share 200 billion yuan. Assuming a monthly income of 4,000 yuan, it can support about 4 million group leaders.
Note:
I have surveyed and observed multiple group leaders. In 2019, before the giants entered, some group leaders doing Xingyou Preferred in rural areas of Hunan could earn more than 200 yuan per day, and even the least could earn dozens of yuan per day. Therefore, a monthly income of 4,000 yuan for group leaders is a reasonable figure. In addition, from the perspective of group leaders' income, if they do not reach this level, they will lack motivation, the number of group leaders will decrease, the number of orders per group leader will increase, and the monthly income will increase, which will in turn increase the number of group leaders. Eventually, it will converge to this figure.
The core reason for calculating based on the number of items is that after community group buying matures, group leaders lose their ability to attract and retain customers, mainly performing the functions of pickup points and after-sales, similar to express delivery stations. So this dimension best illustrates the final issue.
**3. Grid warehouses**
According to a report by CITIC Securities, the daily processing capacity of a grid warehouse is about 5,000-20,000 items. As mentioned above, community group buying has 400 billion items per year, so the country needs 55,000-220,000 grid warehouses.
Each grid warehouse requires 180,000 yuan in site rent, 150,000 yuan in material costs, 10 transport vehicles, 13 staff members, and 10 drivers. Therefore, grid warehouses can drive 9.9-39.6 billion yuan in warehousing investment, 8.2-33 billion yuan in material consumption, 550,000-2.2 million transport vehicles production, 710,000-2.86 million warehouse jobs, and 550,000-2.2 million drivers.
**4. Suppliers and shared warehouses**
Community group buying platforms generally adopt the practice of suppliers being responsible for the sorting of fresh products. We assume that fresh products account for 1/4 or 1/2 of community group buying products, so there are 100-200 billion fresh products per year.
According to the current industry standard of manual sorting, a skilled worker can sort about 80 items per hour. Assuming a worker works 10 hours a day, suppliers need to recruit 340,000-680,000 sorting workers. According to the ratio of drivers, warehouse keepers, purchasers, etc. to sorting workers of 1:2, fresh suppliers need to recruit 170,000-340,000 other employees.
In addition, suppliers will increase warehouse investment to meet the time requirements of community group buying platforms, and increase warehouse facilities and material construction, such as cold storage, automated equipment, etc. These will generate huge investments.
Note:
All assumptions and data in this article have a certain industry basis, some are data published by the industry. Due to space and professionalism, this article will not explain the rationality of assumptions and data. Capable readers can recalculate based on their own data, and the final results will be roughly the same.
Because community group buying is still in the early stages of development, all data is temporary and may change significantly in the future. Therefore, the content described in this article is for illustration only, not a prediction or final actual result.
**5. Summary**
In summary, community group buying will bring about 10 million jobs and hundreds of billions of yuan in infrastructure investment.
From another perspective, the warehousing, distribution, and supply side of community group buying is similar to JD Logistics. JD Logistics started construction in 2007 and has invested tens of billions of yuan so far, building a warehousing and distribution network covering first-tier cities and provincial capitals in about 30 medium and large cities.
Community group buying needs to build a network relying on shared warehouses, central warehouses, grid warehouses, and pickup points, connecting first-tier cities, provincial capitals, prefecture-level cities, and villages and towns. The warehousing and distribution system to be built will far exceed JD Logistics' current achievements, so the funds to be invested will also far exceed tens of billions.
**-03-**
**Mobilizing private capital to participate in supply chain, warehousing, and distribution infrastructure construction**
The above has analyzed from a numerical perspective that community group buying greatly drives the construction of supply chain, warehousing, and distribution infrastructure. You may not feel it, so I will analyze the impact of community group buying on the fresh food industry from three aspects (similar impact on same-city FMCG industry).
**1. The pull of traditional models on industry investment and infrastructure construction**
The fresh food industry is roughly divided into five links: farmers, bases, first-level wholesale markets, second-level wholesale markets, and farmers' markets/stores.
In the terminal farmers' market/store link, the main practitioners are vendors with middle school education, who are purely traders, only earning the price difference, with almost no investment demand or infrastructure construction needs. An electronic scale has been used for nearly 10 years, and some people have a vehicle for purchasing goods.
Only an electronic scale used for nearly 10 years and a payment QR code.
In the intermediate circulation link, I have repeatedly surveyed leading regional second-level wholesalers/distributors and first-level wholesalers, and also communicated with executives of Haijixing, the largest vegetable wholesale market in Asia. These intermediaries in the circulation link almost never invest capital in infrastructure construction, contribute almost nothing to the improvement of the industry, and are all repetitive at the same level, unchanged for ten years. The same is true at the source base and farmer link (learned from interviews with practitioners in the circulation link).
Haijixing, the largest vegetable wholesale market in Asia.
Not only is there a lack of investment motivation within the industry, but there is also little external capital, talent, and technology entering. The fresh food circulation market is a 4 trillion yuan circulation market, but only a few internet companies, including my company, have entered.
In short, due to the special nature of the fresh food industry, the traditional model has little impact on industry investment and infrastructure construction, and the development of the fresh food industry is far lower than the development level of other industries.
**2. The impact of government on industry investment**
The government will invest in the entire chain from farmers, bases, first-level wholesale markets, second-level wholesale markets, to farmers' markets/stores, but the investment amount is small, the spillover effect is low, and it mainly serves to maintain the operation of the chain and ensure people's livelihoods, with weak influence on driving investment and strengthening infrastructure construction.
For example, the government provides subsidies to a batch of suppliers to ensure that fresh products remain low-priced from the base to the market. This part of the subsidy will not drive large-scale investment and infrastructure construction.
Another example is that due to the epidemic, municipal governments in Beijing, Wuhan, and other places have allocated hundreds of millions of yuan to rebuild farmers' markets. This part of the investment is reconstruction, not new infrastructure, and more importantly, it is about standardizing markets. These investments are dominated by government finance, basically unable to drive private investment, and the final effect is also mediocre.
Wuhan vegetable market renovation.
I have investigated Alibaba's renovation plan for Ningbo vegetable market and related participants, and also received customers from Wuhan municipal government for vegetable market renovation projects. The core changes in the government and Alibaba's renovation plan for Ningbo vegetable market are the addition of cashier-integrated machines, traceability systems, connection to online food delivery, and the addition of footfall statistics and data screens at the entrance for leaders to see.
Ningbo vegetable market renovation.
Compared with the investment in community group buying, this kind of investment renovation has basically no effect on the industry, consumers, and practitioners, and is ineffective investment, adding to fiscal pressure and the burden on practitioners.
**3. The pull of community group buying on industry investment and infrastructure construction**
In the grid warehouse link, community group buying platforms adopt a franchise model, mobilizing private capital to participate in construction. Participants include local warehousing and logistics companies, white-collar workers from first-tier cities, and merchants from second- and third-tier cities. The composition is very complex, and the enthusiasm for participation is very high.
Grid warehouse franchise.
In the warehouse operation link, for decades it has been purely manual work, with almost zero informatization and automation. The following is the operation method of this industry for decades: to sort 500g of cucumbers, it is necessary to repeatedly pick up and put down the product to make up exactly 500g. If it is more, there will be a loss; if it is less, customers will complain. A weighing scale has been used for several years without replacement, and the sorting aunties are 40-60 year old women from the surrounding suburbs.
Traditional sorting site for 500g cucumbers.
The light of technology has changed even the way beggars beg, but it has not changed the circulation link of the fresh food industry at all! After the giants entered community group buying, internationally leading intelligent equipment practitioners, internet practitioners, and local technology companies began to enter the warehouse operations and infrastructure transformation of the fresh food industry.
The giants not only brought market expectations, but also directly participated in these companies through investment, requiring them to serve this industry. Only a very few people know about this, and even the vast majority of employees of the giants do not know.
I have visited these companies and communicated with their chairmen/general managers. These people were originally leaders in various industries. Without the giants, these talents, technologies, and capital would almost certainly not have entered.
Automatic sorting site for 500g oranges.
Note: The animation content is existing equipment, but the applicable categories of such equipment are very limited, performance needs to be improved, and traditional people have weak demand for it, lacking large-scale application scenarios. It urgently needs fresh blood like community group buying to promote the development of the entire industry.
In the logistics link, the relevant persons in charge of SF Express and JD Logistics have contacted me to discuss related market opportunities.
In this chain, Meituan, Pinduoduo, JD.com, Alibaba, etc. can use their own funds or obtain funds from the international capital market for the construction and maintenance of the entire chain. Currently, we see the giants spending money on users, group leaders, and ground promotion, but they are also laying out warehousing, distribution, and supply chain, and will focus on developing warehousing, distribution, and supply chain in the future.
**4. Summary**
Practice has proven that the existing industry and the government do not have a strong will, ability, or funds for the circulation link of the fresh food industry, and for the infrastructure construction of intercity warehousing, distribution, and supply chain. The entry of giants into community group buying will play an important and irreplaceable role in this regard, helping the government and the industry complete changes that have not been completed for decades.
**-04-**
**Improving social efficiency, creating social value, and balancing efficiency with fairness**
According to a research report by CITIC Securities, under the existing circulation channels for fresh products, the markup rate exceeds 110%, and the loss of goods reaches 30%. Community group buying is more efficient and economical than the original channels, reducing the markup rate by 40% and the loss by 90%.
Under the original circulation channels, in order to ensure that the public's daily necessities are not affected, the government can only strictly control the origin prices of agricultural products and subsidize the circulation link. It is the vast majority of farmers and government tax revenue (all citizens) who pay for the circulation channels. Vendors are the beneficiaries, and farmers and everyone else are the victims.
Don't those who pity the vendors also pity the farmers? If the origin price increases by 50%, and the channels are reduced, efficiency is improved, and the goal of stabilizing market prices is achieved, isn't that a greater kindness? Are we considering the millions of vendors or the hundreds of millions of farmers?
We often hear news about unsalable agricultural products, and even some farmers commit suicide due to heavy losses from loans taken for agricultural product cultivation. However, the prices of agricultural products in the terminal market are still relatively high after government subsidies. This phenomenon is largely caused by the current circulation system being too scattered, backward, and inefficient.
Unsalable agricultural products.
The production and circulation of agricultural products in China are very backward compared with developed countries, and the reasons are diverse and complex. Decades of practice have proven that relying on fiscal funds and original practitioners cannot improve it. Now that industry leaders have finally entered, with hope to transform the agricultural product circulation market that has not changed for decades, some people start jumping out and making a fuss. What is the difference between these people and those who prevented the construction of trains during the Qing Dynasty?
Society is moving forward, and 'neighboring countries see each other, but never interact' is ultimately the past and utopia. This is both a natural law and the core essence of our socialism: developing productive forces. It is just that on this basis, we also need to pay attention to balancing efficiency and fairness, do a good job in wealth distribution, and not let the fruits of social development fall into the hands of a few.
Developing community group buying is both improving social efficiency and balancing social fairness, because efficiency improvements can benefit the vast majority of farmers.
**In short, the competition between community group buying and small vendors is not a competition between capital and the poor masses, not a competition between giants and the weak, but a competition between channel efficiency and business efficiency, a competition between advanced, efficient, low-cost business and backward, inefficient, high-cost business. It is normal business behavior and ultimately conducive to social stability.**
**-05-**
**Will community group buying affect national welfare and people's livelihoods?**
**1. Community group buying will not subvert small vendors, and the guarantee of people's livelihoods will not be hijacked**
**On the industry side**
As mentioned above, the impact of community group buying on vegetable vendors is uncertain, and the impact on the entire physical retail is uncertain, possibly a penetration of 20%. In this process, there will definitely be many people who lose their jobs or even fail in their careers, but another group of people will find jobs and start new careers.
I do not think community group buying will seriously disrupt national welfare and people's livelihoods as those articles that cannot withstand scrutiny claim. As analyzed earlier, I believe the impact of community group buying is more beneficial than harmful.
**On the people's livelihood side**
According to my analysis with senior industry insiders, the community group buying market will not form an oligopolistic monopoly like ride-hailing or food delivery, but will present a regional pattern, a multi-oligopoly pattern with multiple formats, and will coexist with the original formats (the original ecosystem accounts for 80% of the market).
This also means that the situation described by the media, where giants enter with capital, form a monopoly through subsidies, and ultimately raise prices to harvest the public, will not occur. The guarantee of people's livelihoods will not be affected by the entry of giants.
In addition, agriculture and the fresh food industry are national welfare and people's livelihoods, and are areas of strong government control. I believe that China's excellent internet entrepreneurs have great wisdom and a sense of the big picture, and will never be enemies of the public, nor enemies of the guarantee of people's livelihoods and the will of the state. Moreover, they do not have that ability.
Excellent entrepreneurs in the industry will definitely stand on the side of the Party, the country, and the people, correct wrong practices, and work with everyone to create a better future.
**2. Small vendors are not the bottom-level working people as commonly perceived**
Many people think that people who run mom-and-pop stores are the bottom-level working people in society. This is a very wrong perception. Take the Furong Xingxing store in Hunan (the predecessor of Xingyou Preferred) as an example. The following is its storefront.
Mom-and-pop storefront.
A friend of mine who works at a bank checked one of their mom-and-pop stores and found that its gross profit is 200,000-300,000 yuan, with daily turnover between 3,000 and 8,000 yuan.
Mom-and-pop store income.
You should know that the average monthly salary in Changsha is only 6,000 yuan, with an average annual income of 72,000 yuan. The annual income of those poor small vendors mentioned by the media is in the top 10% of the local level!
You should know that I, a 985 university graduate with a master's degree and 5 years of work experience, who has appeared in major well-known media and has strong professional ability, earn only a little more than them in Changsha.
Perhaps what my friend saw is survivorship bias, but it has always been said in the workplace that office white-collar workers are not as good as breakfast pancake sellers. This is really not an isolated phenomenon. Anyone who can open a store and do business is not from the bottom of society.
The store terminal is not the most profitable; the second-level wholesalers above are even richer. Taking my fresh food industry as an example, an annual income of 3 million yuan (net profit of about 200,000-300,000) is the worst business, with their scale ranging from 3 million to 300 million yuan, and most people's scale is in the tens of millions. The first-level wholesalers above are even larger, with annual net profits ranging from millions to tens of millions.
**3. Community group buying will not compete with the 'small vendors' cited by the media**
Many media use examples like the old man in the following picture to illustrate the poverty of small vendors, but they do not know that these people's real identity is not small vendors, but farmers or unemployed people. They generally grow their own produce for their own use, and sell the surplus in the market to supplement their household income. These people are not only not small vendors, but are also parasitized by small vendors.
Community group buying cannot eliminate these people because their costs are low enough, their time value and labor value are low enough, and their goal is to earn dozens of yuan a day. No business model can eliminate them, because any business organization's daily employment cost is more than 100 yuan, and these people just want to earn dozens of yuan a day!
What can really eliminate them is the urban management officers, because they cannot afford to pay the stall fees!
**4. Adhere to government guidance, supervision, and intervention, and adhere to normal business competition**
Community group buying will not subvert the 'wealthy' small vendors, nor can it compete with the real bottom-level working people. Even so, I do not believe that giants and capital can always restrain their greedy nature and not extend their claws into areas that affect the guarantee of people's livelihoods. Therefore, government guidance, supervision, and intervention are necessary, and the anti-monopoly law for the platform economy is essential.
However, the government should not manage too much detail. Under normal market competition, eliminating backward business forms and improving industry efficiency is a natural law, and the government should encourage it. The government should balance fairness on the basis of advocating efficiency and need to tilt toward the bottom-level working people.
However, the government must identify who are the real bottom-level working people and whether community group buying is beneficial or harmful to them. Do not be led by ignorant self-media and stand on the opposite side of the times and the industry.
**-06-**
**Why do absurd viewpoints become popular?**
**1. Malicious incitement of public emotions and the 'herd'**
In previous years, public opinion and the public called 'high-speed rail, mobile payment, shared bikes, and online shopping' the four new inventions of our country, exporting our influence to the international community. However, in just a few years, under the leadership of some people, they maliciously incite public emotions and summarize the history and contributions of the internet as a trilogy of 'subsidies, monopoly, and slaughter,' saying it is worthless.
As said in 'A Chinese Odyssey': 'When I used to watch the moon with you, you called me sweetheart. Now that the new has replaced the old, you call me Mrs. Niu.' It is truly shameful and despicable.
What is even more ridiculous is that these people, while attacking the evil of the internet or internet giants, are enjoying the freedom and convenience of ranting that the internet gives them. Moreover, they may be eating takeout provided by internet giants, taking ride-hailing services provided by internet giants, using the convenience of buying tickets provided by internet giants when traveling, and using online resources provided by internet giants when studying.
These people attack community group buying, attack internet giants, and attack the internet, ignoring facts, in order to gain traffic and incite public emotions.
More seriously, this kind of statement and behavior erases part of the efforts and achievements of the Party, the country, and the people in the past two decades. Because information technology and the internet are industries in which our country has rarely formed a strategic advantage worldwide, comparable to the United States in some areas, and overall forming a duopoly pattern with the United States.
Some people, carrying the emotions of the masses, use the phrase 'subsidies, monopoly, slaughter' to erase the efforts of a generation on the internet. These people stand on the opposite side of the times and the masses.
More deeply, this behavior is not a single act, but a model with a deep social and industrial foundation.
These coerced masses are called 'the herd' in 'The Crowd,' and 'the mob' in 'The Age of the Crowd.' They lack opinions, judgment, and information, and are easily incited in the social environment.
Those who incite emotions use channels such as Douyin, WeChat, self-media, and even the media to influence the masses, achieving their goal of gaining traffic and ultimately monetizing it. These people hold the banner of 'fighting for justice' and 'upholding righteousness' while doing their own selfish deeds.
It is under this social foundation and interest structure, and under this communication channel and threshold, that this kind of behavior has become a model. Today they target community group buying and the internet; tomorrow they will turn their guns and attack something else indiscriminately. This kind of thing is not only happening now, but has often happened before, and will inevitably happen in the future, such as public intellectuals and 'road guides.'
Finally, I hope the government and relevant media platforms will be vigilant against the behavior model and the soil that breeds such 'herd' behavior, because these people can attack community group buying today, and tomorrow they can attack chips, or even be used by public intellectuals and 'road guides.' I hope relevant media platforms will fulfill their due responsibilities and not encourage meaningless content to fill the entire society, occupy public resources, and even mislead policy-making.
**2. Society's reflection on the internet model**
At the beginning of the 20th century, the internet was the hope of the country and the masses, the dragon slayer that killed the evil dragon and created a new world. However, when the 'dragon slayers' were worshipped as heroes, these 'dragon slayers' began to become evil dragons. P2P, big data price discrimination, monopolies, forced exclusivity, inhumane pressure on riders, long-term rental apartments running away, etc., emerged one after another.
Internet practitioners and capital have colluded and formed a mature internet industry structure centered on traffic and models, lacking reflection and influence on society, the country, and the industry. These practitioners, entrepreneurs, and capital have lost the early entrepreneurial spirit, lost the original intention to change the world and others, and are fully transforming into capital and wealth orientation. This is worth reflecting on and being vigilant about.
Under the influence of internet models and capital, a large amount of social resources, talents, and funds have entered model-level businesses, lacking infrastructure construction, lacking core technology accumulation, lacking world influence, and only engaging in endless involution and internal friction, playing wealth transfer games.
With the comprehensive and deep confrontation between China and the United States, with the gradual expansion of US restrictions on companies like Huawei and TikTok, and with the gradual realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the country and the masses will become more and more disgusted with this kind of game. The current attack on community group buying is just a shadow of this disgust.
**-07-**
**Summary**
Among those who say community group buying will subvert small vendors and take away the livelihoods of the bottom-level working people, a small minority are emotional expressions with no credibility. The majority are talking nonsense without any bottom line for traffic and interests.
The real identity of the 'poor small vendors' mentioned online is not small vendors, but farmers or unemployed people. Community group buying cannot take away their livelihoods, and it is beneficial to them.
The real small vendors are the middle class with annual incomes of hundreds of thousands of yuan, comparable to the income of college students. Community group buying will affect 20% of their market, but it is absolutely impossible to make them homeless and without food and clothing as said online. Community group buying has a symbiotic relationship with them.
Community group buying is not simply subsidizing and monopolizing the market. It requires heavy investment in building localized warehousing, distribution, and supply chains, greatly improving the industry's informatization level, improving industry efficiency, and creating more social value. Under the leadership of community group buying, it is likely to build a multi-temperature warehousing, distribution, and supply chain system spanning first-tier cities, provincial capitals, prefecture-level cities, and villages and towns in the future. This is a great undertaking that even e-commerce cannot achieve.
Community group buying can greatly drive private capital investment, create a large number of jobs, help the government transform backward industries, and alleviate fiscal pressure.
The platform economy and giants need to be regulated and disciplined, and need to be guided toward a direction that is beneficial to national welfare and people's livelihoods and social development. This direction includes not only chips but also vegetables and fresh food.
Source: Product No Return Road (ID: yiguojiren) Author: Chen Weilong
Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once the tip is adopted.


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