Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes; where there are rivers and lakes, there are schools of thought. How many schools are there in the community group buying arena?

  1. B2B platform incubation: Strong in supply chain, professional in warehousing and distribution, the absolute main force of version 1.0. Representatives: Retail B2B Xingsheng Youxuan, Meiyijia Xuan, Kaola Xuan, Dunjie Youxuan; Catering B2B Meijia Maicai, Youjing Youtian, etc.
  2. B2C e-commerce platform incubation: Thoroughly versed in traditional e-commerce tactics, with deep research on internet users and precise grasp of internet methods. Representative platforms: Haodongxi - Shihuituan, Benlai Shenghuo executives - Shixianghui, Huangqiu Bushou - Xiaoqule.
  3. WeChat group buying relay faction: The authentic early days of community group buying, taking orders and after-sales in WeChat groups, transferring money via WeChat, upstream procurement, and self-pickup after sorting. Representative platform: Niwonin (already merged into Shihuituan).
  4. Fruit group faction: Originally and currently engaged in fruit retail, with high fresh produce loss, industry volatility, and unstable prices. Extremely sensitive to the market and professional in retail. After incubating community group buying platforms, they are naturally immune to the fresh produce pitfall, but conversely not professional in standard products. Representative platform: Guangzhou Linli Shenghuo.
  5. Community convenience store chains: The protagonists of community group buying version 2.0, with years of accumulated goodwill, professional group leaders, and compatible procurement, warehousing, and distribution systems. Representative platform: Jining Aike Youxuan.
  6. Authentic internet faction: Dabble in Alibaba's station group buying, lack participation in JD's Youjia Puzi, and the once top 5 Songshu Pinpin merged into Shixianghui, fleeting like smoke, cleansed in the mortal world. - 01 - The PK Battle of Three-Character vs. Four-Character Names Unlike the regional rolling development strategy of leading enterprise Xingsheng Youxuan, the so-called Alibaba-affiliated Shihuituan is all about buying! Buying! Buying! Expanding territory by merging peers, piecing together to become TOP2. According to Brother Shouren, a close friend of Brother Chao: Three-character names like to eat four-character ones. In fact, three-character names will eat whatever they fancy.

According to a small sample, Shihuituan's mergers include: Changsha: Bangnisheng + Linlishuo; Jinan: Xiaoxiongle; Liyang: Xinxian Shenghuo; Ganzhou: Lande Shequ; Nationwide: Niwonin... Rumor has it that the first to fancy Niwonin was not Shihuituan but the once-popular Meituan-affiliated Songshu Pinpin, meaning the four-character name fancied the three-character Niwonin first. At that time, Songshu Pinpin likely still had resources, and negotiations with Niwonin were in the final stage. Niwonin co-founder Liu Kai, full of worldly savvy, directly demanded: If you want to do due diligence and see the accounts, bring money! Songshu's boss Yang Jun (Brother Jun), with Meituan shares worth 1.5 billion, was confident and threw in 20 million to see the other side's cards. This look was shocking: Brother Jun gasped, as Niwonin owed suppliers up to 100 million. To proceed, he'd need at least 80 million more; to retreat, he'd lose the 20 million! Whether he consulted old partner Wang Xing or investor Gan Jiawei is unknown, but in the end, he chose to retreat, giving Shihuituan the chance to merge Niwonin. Of course, Shihuituan later encountered trouble: Liu Kai and his ex-wife Liu Xing (also a major shareholder) failed to reach agreement on merger terms, and they are still in negotiation. Once business matters get entangled with personal relationships, the outcome is hard to predict! This entanglement is enough to keep Shihuituan's legal team busy. However, in the Songshu Pinpin vs. Niwonin saga, industry authority Brother Kai provided another version of the story, quite different, adding another layer of complexity. Two flowers bloom, each on its own branch. After Songshu Pinpin saw Niwonin's cards, reflecting on itself, it found that over the past year, its nationwide expansion, except for Changchun, was largely loss-making. Although normal operating funds could sustain it for another six months, it didn't want to fall into the same predicament as Niwonin, waiting for rice. So it decisively restructured from direct operation to a partnership system. In simple terms, partnerships mean no employee salaries; contractors cover their own income and expenses, bearing profits and losses. Of course, there were bugs in settling with original suppliers, drawing criticism from the industry. Brother Shouren, an old acquaintance of Brother Jun, sighed. Songshu Pinpin's value of a nationwide layout across 70+ cities was recognized by someone. Heroes appreciate heroes. Shixianghui, having received Tencent's Pony Ma's venture capital, gracefully arrived, hoping to join hands with Songshu Pinpin for a lifelong bond. "I told you, three-character names eventually eat four-character ones," murmured Brother Shouren, Brother Chao's close friend. - 02 - The Legendary Aikeduo Those in retail may not know Fang Miao, but if you're in community group buying and don't know Aike Youxuan, you're absolutely out of the loop! The 1.0 version of community group buying was dominated by various social forces; the 2.0 version is the reverse harvest by institutional direct-operated convenience store chains. Under the big IP Fang Miao, Aike Youxuan is the top student of the 2.0 version. The Aike system was born in Jining, Shandong, the hometown of Confucius. Fang Miao named his KA stores (34) Aikeduo and community stores (52) Aike Tiantian. Daily foot traffic is 75,000, daily sales exceed 2 million, and physical stores did 620 million in 2018. Aikeduo's community group buying is named Aike Youxuan. "The name is also four characters, peaceful," said Brother Shouren, Brother Chao's close friend.

  • When original big data was shared, this expert, Brother Shouren, commented: Awesome, my brother! After JD Group Alliance's study tour of Aikeduo, I summarized the ten major features of the community group buying 2.0 version Aike Youxuan model:
  1. More aligned with LBS-based logic, doing localized business, serving customers within 1 kilometer.
  2. If version 1.0 is building a new development zone, then version 2.0 is old city renovation.
  3. It's more of a distributed e-commerce, executed more thoroughly.
  4. Years of accumulated business reputation form user trust and word-of-mouth.
  5. Non-physical products like "oil tickets, housekeeping, fitness yoga, new medical aesthetics, tourist attraction tickets, movie tickets, phone cards" shift from supporting roles to protagonists, from local consumption to local life, directly competing with Dianping and 58.com for users.
  6. The entire chain in 2.0 is shorter, with professional group leaders or professionalized group leaders, integrating platform and group leaders rather than two classes: supplier - (platform + group leader) - user.
  7. Rich supplier resources, mainly in fresh produce and standard products, with all-weather themed activities like Aike Youxuan + Metro goods, Aike Youxuan + IKEA.
  8. Compatible warehousing and distribution systems.
  9. Low cost for attracting and retaining fans, converting existing member resources directly into fans, using mini-program and WeChat group tools to build private domain traffic.
  10. The natural front warehouse pickup point is at the storefront. "My goal is not to make the plate bigger, but to invert the future business structure, with online and offline in a 20-80 split!" Fang Miao said in pure Shandong Mandarin, his black-rimmed glasses revealing a determined light. - 03 - Old Fen's Business Wisdom Old Fen is not old, born in the early 1980s, from Shandong, formerly in the judicial system before diving into business. He was a keynote speaker at the first and second sessions of the Beggars' Conference, the premier social retail industry event. In 2017, he was basically the authoritative closing act, with sharp views and frequent golden quotes, making a decisive impact. What happened later? There was no later. By the third and fourth sessions, no one asked for him, except for Brother Shouren, who often mentioned him. Brother Shouren is always criticizing and mocking people. What insights could earn his appreciation? With curiosity and a sense of mission, I climbed over wall after wall to the Beggars' Conference column to read Old Fen's speech from three years ago. This fellow's analysis of the relationship between "social groups, communities, and social retail" was incisive and profound. Portrait scenario: Chinese county towns Compared to first- and second-tier central cities, relationships in county markets are closer. Dimensions like "classmates, colleagues, fellow villagers, clansmen, peers, shared interests, relatives, comrades-in-arms" divide county residents into different original social groups. If finding six people can connect you to the US President, then in a county, connecting three people can find the county magistrate. The point is that in county-based social groups, relationships are stickier, with a higher density of semi-acquaintance relationships. Social groups vs. communities Social groups represent relationships between people; relationships are traffic. Communities represent warehousing and distribution between people and goods; warehousing and distribution are delivery. Currently, community group buying's traffic and delivery are integrated, converging at the group leader. This is why success or failure hinges on the group leader, and why different groups have vastly different generation and contribution rates. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's. Old Fen's literature indicates an early point about separating traffic and delivery. Most community group buying group leaders are convenience store owners, and the typical convenience store structure is a couple plus a brother-in-law. This simplest operational unit cannot fully devote time or expertise to managing social groups. However, the convenience store front is a natural front warehouse independent of manpower, objectively existing to complete delivery functions without compromise. Whether it's convenience stores, courier points, water stations, or even enterprise security booths, they can serve as front warehouse pickup points, solely for delivery, as long as it's convenient for users. The function of managing social groups should be given to Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), who are no longer limited by space, maximizing the value of relationship traffic. Thus, each front warehouse pickup point can carry the traffic pool of multiple KOLs. Conclusion According to Old Fen's deduction, community group buying and social e-commerce have perfectly met, yielding an unparalleled result for social retail. Recently, I've been advocating a viewpoint: from afar, it's community group buying; up close, it's social e-commerce; on closer inspection, it's social retail. This viewpoint also serves as a supplement to Old Fen's forward-looking insights from 2017. Aside There was a best-selling entrepreneurial chicken soup book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," and later the author's company went bankrupt. Rumor has it that after leaving social e-commerce, Old Fen first did catering B2B and is now working on a body shaping and weight loss chain project. "In March or April 2018, if he had gotten 10 million, or even 5 million, the 2.0 era of community groups would have been his!" Brother Shouren, Brother Chao's close friend, said thoughtfully. - 04 - Xingsheng Youxuan: The Bright Summit of the Community Group Buying Universe Legend has it that for community group buying, look to Changsha; for Changsha group buying, look to Xingsheng. Changsha has become the cosmic center of community group buying, and Xingsheng Youxuan is the Bright Summit of that center. In September, Xingsheng Youxuan's GMV peaked at 1.1 billion. Since the second half of the year, provincial, municipal, and national leaders have visited. In the past year, investment bigwigs including but not limited to Xu Xin, Xu Xiaoping, Zhu Xiaohu, and Ma Huateng have thrown dollars directly. This is Xingsheng Youxuan's moment of glory. The unicorn is already formed, and its position as the top player in community group buying is undisputed, leaving Shihuituan, Shixianghui, and Tongcheng Shenghuo to compete for second place. The Shadow Behind the Glory
  • Big supermarkets really have no people, including the old ladies who queued for eggs as loyal fans. They no longer visit supermarkets because Xingsheng Youxuan's egg pavilion controls egg prices in Changsha and even Hunan! This is a challenge from new forces to old forces, like in the late 1990s when open-price supermarkets swept away traditional retail shops. Only the revolutionary force becomes the counter-revolutionary target. The wheel of fortune turns, and those on stage step down while those off stage step up. What goes around comes around.
  • Doing community group buying in Changsha and Hunan is painful. When the combined revenue of the 2nd to 10th players is less than a fraction of the leader's, even breathing is an unspeakable pain. This is the absolute squeeze the industry leader imposes on its followers. Leaving Hunan for other provinces is the survival rule forced on the followers. In the land of Hunan, Xingsheng Youxuan uses a 5-kilometer radius from highway exits as its delivery radius, from provincial capital to prefecture-level cities to counties to towns to villages, penetrating directly to the grassroots. When children in Changsha and children in remote mountain villages simultaneously eat healthy, safe, hygienic, and fresh food, this is the social health dividend brought by the community group buying model. Previously, following traditional e-commerce logic, the model was delivery to home. Xingsheng launched two-hour and even one-hour delivery, but the last 100 meters were too heavy; order volume could not support logistics costs. From delivery to home to user self-pickup at stores, Xingsheng Youxuan opened its Ren and Du meridians. Looking back, that was a valuable exploration phase.
  • This is the view summarized by Ou Jianming, general manager of Furong Xingsheng Group, in discussion with Brother Chao. Delivery to Home vs. Pickup at Store Beauty delivery made Jumei; books delivery made Dangdang; clothing delivery made Taobao; 3C delivery made JD; general merchandise delivery made Tmall; daily necessities delivery made Pinduoduo. Drop shipping is the fundamental manifestation of delivery-to-home business. As long as order volume supports logistics costs, the model works. But two scallions and three garlic cloves for fresh produce delivery is hard to make a giant, including the bullish Hema. Walmart, RT-Mart, and 7-Eleven are standard original pickup-at-store formats, with centralized procurement, centralized distribution, and centralized display, showing that physical stores have low logistics costs but high display costs. Community group buying successfully avoids two pitfalls: the high logistics costs of search e-commerce and the high display costs of traditional real estate retail, minimizing the fulfillment cost of the entire model. Once delivery-to-home and pickup-at-store are clearly distinguished, the underlying logic of community group buying becomes clear: twelve characters: Online pre-sale, next-day self-pickup, centralized procurement and distribution. Product Attributes: Delivery to Home & Pickup at Store Fundamentally, the difference between delivery-to-home and pickup-at-store models lies in the allocation of users' purchase time.

Large items suit delivery to home; small items suit pickup at store;

Complex products suit delivery to home; simple products suit pickup at store;

Planned purchases suit delivery to home; impulse purchases suit pickup at store;

High-value products suit delivery to home; low-value products suit pickup at store;

Light-experience products suit delivery to home; heavy-experience products suit pickup at store;

Low-frequency purchases suit delivery to home; high-frequency purchases suit pickup at store; Therefore, it's the category characteristics based on user needs that determine delivery-to-home or pickup-at-store, not what I have or what I want to do! Delivery-to-home and pickup-at-store are actually different connection methods between products and users. The difference in models lies in whether order density, order quantity, and order quality are balanced with user acquisition, retention, and repurchase. Xingsheng Youxuan is not community group buying, but community e-commerce. I accept your context, not because you're the CEO, but because you're beautiful. So there are such conflicts or differences because the model is defined from different identities and perspectives. Broadly speaking, from the platform's perspective, it's e-commerce: information flow and capital flow are fully online, with mini-programs and WeChat groups as main communication tools. From the user's perspective, this model is group buying, so-called group buying even for one item, and it's regional group buying at concentrated times. Revitalize stores, empower upstream, change consumer lifestyles. Xingsheng Youxuan, an e-commerce with warmth. - These are Xingsheng Youxuan's values and mission. In fact, these two sentences also describe the entire industry track. Revitalize Stores This means the frontline foundation is 6.8 million small retail stores. Since Taobao's birth in 2003, search-based e-commerce like Tmall, JD, and Vipshop have slashed the left arm of physical stores. Social platforms like Weishang, Yunji, and Beidian have slashed the right arm. The double-bladed sword has cut offline store traffic to near death, with "For Lease" signs everywhere on streets and alleys. Based on maximizing the value of store members (users), community group buying platforms directly open an online store for each small store without adding any cost. Like Iron Man, it brings a fresh stream to physical stores that have been depressed for years. Empower Upstream In 1997, Walmart came to Shenzhen, China, opening its first store, introducing KA hypermarkets to the Chinese people. The situation of "you're good, I'm good, everyone's good" didn't last long; the youth turned into a dragon. So brand manufacturers joke, "Doing KA is suicide, not doing KA is waiting to die; either way, you have to die." Of course, years later, this game repeats, but the protagonists have changed from Walmart, RT-Mart, and Carrefour to Tmall, JD, and Vipshop. Same taste, same recipe. "Really bad!" sighed Brother Shouren, who has witnessed twenty years of business wars. Community group buying is currently friendly to brand owners: no brand fees, barcode fees, store anniversary fees, or other exorbitant taxes, and settlement cycles from three days to half a month make suppliers feel great overall. Everyone knows that settlement cycles are proportional to markup rates, and consumers ultimately benefit. Of course, some say that in the future, community group buying will also turn from youth to dragon, but the time hasn't come yet. Industrial goods go to the countryside, agricultural products enter the city, and making the matchmaking business bigger is exactly the power of Xingsheng Youxuan as a platform. Change Consumer Lifestyles The post-90s generation has reached the age of 30. They are internet natives, a generation raised on beating little monsters. Consumption and entertainment are no longer the same word. They are willing to waste time on beautiful things, and saving time on purchasing goods is a major source of comprehensive time utilization. Thus, family consumption centered on fresh produce has become the main consumption scenario for community group buying. They use fragmented time to place orders in mini-programs, choosing the products they need, and the platform's daily product structure changes, keeping it fresh. Accumulating big data and cultivating user habits is what any industry leader should do, making the industry cake bigger. It's clear that Xingsheng Youxuan is leading by example. E-commerce with Warmth Group leaders connect the platform and users. The relationship between group leaders and users is semi-acquaintance. This relationship traffic, combined with the platform's tool traffic and product brand traffic, converges into a force that strongly pulls up the community group buying track. Only with stickiness is there warmth. In the social relationship between group leaders and users, cognition forms, and commodity transactions are a natural result. This aligns with Dr. Shi Wei's advocated logic of "relationship, cognition, transaction" as a trinity. "Brother Chao, let me give you some advice: your research on community group buying is too influenced by Xingsheng as a single entity, making your industry views prone to bias." - Brother Shouren, Brother Chao's close friend, warned me. Okay, I accept the correction. Let's talk about bugs and shortcomings:

  1. Xingsheng's Hunan headquarters has turned products into a shopping mall, with various specialty pavilions emerging, dazzling users and greatly reducing the shopping experience.
  2. Xingsheng Youxuan's big group leader system, while playing an active and irreplaceable role in group leader fission, often attracts criticism.
  3. As the leader, it's the target of many followers. Competitors' counterattacks, including poaching group leaders, start with Xingsheng Youxuan.
  4. The platform and group leaders compete for private domain traffic. Capable and business-savvy group leaders introduce products self-centeredly, treating the platform as just one upstream supply chain.
  5. New forces are sniping. Institutional direct-operated convenience store chains have awakened from deep sleep. They come with professional group leaders, years of accumulated goodwill as trust certificates, compatible supply chains, and mature warehousing and distribution. These chains reverse-harvest community group buying, directly activating traditional offline store public domain traffic, even starting community group buying without adding a penny of cost. Every place has local chain stores. This warlord-like force is the strongest opponent to Xingsheng's national layout.
  6. Fresh produce entry, long-tail follow-up, from local consumption to local life. From FMCG to durable goods, this directs competition toward search e-commerce; starting bulk wholesale goods directs fire toward Alibaba Retail Link and JD New Channel FMCG B2B; extending from family consumption to restaurant procurement directs fire toward Meicai and Liancai restaurant B2B; adding movie and scenic spot tickets directs fire toward Meituan Dianping and 58.com local life portals. This newborn tiger is starting to fight a pack of wolves - huge pressure! Not Unnecessary Words A single flower does not make spring. Small success comes from teammates; great success comes from opponents! Regarding the current competitive landscape of community group buying, Brother Shouren, Brother Chao's close friend, said this, his voice low and eyes blazing. - 05 - JD, Why? Community group buying went from budding to on track to officially exploding by 2018. Alibaba's Jack Ma invested in Shihuituan, Tencent's Pony Ma invested in Xingsheng Youxuan and Shixianghui. What about JD's Richard Liu? Of course, Alibaba quietly tried station group buying, basically just dabbling; JD did Youjia Puzi, but it didn't make much of an impression. This is evidence of self-proclaimed giants fumbling on their own. Longing, longing, I finally arrived at JD's Little Egg in Beijing's Yizhuang and had a bowl of beef noodles - that was Sister Milk Tea's noodles. At that moment, I drank all the soup. Not because it was delicious, but because I was really hungry, as there's a distance from Capital Airport to JD headquarters in Yizhuang. On October 11, the JD Community Group Buying Alliance was officially established! This is an alliance initiated by JD. As an initiating unit, Mai Marketing Consulting Agency is honored to serve as an infrastructure knowledge service provider. Other partners include internet media New Distribution, SAAS system Order Rabbit, catering B2B Liancai Network's incubation platform Zhengzhou Youjing Youtian, and regional leading chain supermarket Jining Aike Youxuan, the top student in reverse-harvesting community group buying. This is a major event in the community group buying world. Since Alibaba and Tencent have invested as capital, JD is entering with its strongest suit: supply chain and warehousing systems. "This is the arms dealer," sighed Brother Shouren, Brother Chao's close friend. The consensus of the JD Community Group Buying Alliance is that social capital can accelerate the industry's progress, but it doesn't fundamentally change the logic of the track. Community group buying is essentially a retail business of bending down to pick up coins. It must start from "procurement, warehousing, sorting, and distribution" and provide refined empowerment support. Postscript In less than a month, the JD Group Alliance has over 290 partners, covering 224 cities, with partner companies managing over 48,000 group leaders. Partner companies' monthly group buying sales are nearly 400 million. Additionally, alliance companies own or cover 6,756 offline stores, have 580,000 square meters of self-owned distribution warehouses, and 2,651 self-owned distribution vehicles. This has formed good market response and scale advantages. This camp is still quietly splitting... Source: Shuizhu Marketing (ID: mabrosyx), Author: Chen Haichao Payment of 400-2000 yuan will be made upon adoption of tips.