Click to read the original article for details. On July 26, the Central Plains Community E-commerce Summit, co-hosted by New Distribution, Innovation Retail Society, Community Social E-commerce Internal Reference, and Central Plains Club of Community E-commerce, with Boda Noodles as co-organizer, was grandly held at Zhengzhou Huazhi Hotel! At the forum, renowned retail industry expert Mr. Wang Jun delivered a presentation titled "Community Group Buying 1.5 Observation," which was compiled and published by Innovation Retail Society for the benefit of readers. We have always said that the essence of community group buying is the optimization and restructuring of the supply chain. Now everyone believes the industry is more than halfway through, and at this point, many changes will occur. During this transformation, practitioners across the upstream, midstream, and downstream of the industry chain will make predictions. As we reach the mid-game, let's examine what changes have actually occurred in the industry. How Can a Group Leader Earn 30,000 Yuan a Month? Suppose a case: if our group leader is empowered through our set of tools and methods, how much can he or she earn in a month? How can this be achieved? So the first topic is how to create a group leader earning 30,000 yuan a month. We hope that by observing and analyzing existing real cases, we can uncover the underlying patterns. Stay-at-home moms are based on LBS location communities. Communities have geographical attributes. A local KOL achieving a monthly income of 30,000 yuan requires three basic elements, not something anyone can do. These three elements are her profile or the abilities she should possess. Traffic With internet platforms, traffic has many definitions. In this round, we generally call this traffic "fans." In what form are these fans gathered? So the stay-at-home mom group needs to accumulate fans through WeChat groups. As we all know, in the new media era, everyone has influence, and in the current internet tool era, influence can be quantified and datafied. For example, if you use Douyin or Kuaishou, you have fans, clicks, reads, etc. These can be quantified and directly generate value. As a seller, the core is to reach influential groups and their fan counts, so this is a prerequisite. First, you need traffic and fans, meaning how many groups you have, how many users, and whether you have influence in those groups. IP IP sounds complex. Broadly derived, it means personal charisma. Why can some people attract fans? We analyze that there are only two reasons: First, individuality. Why are talent shows so popular? Why are reality shows popular? Because the stars they create are nurtured by us. Stars interact with fans, growing up with us. We watch this child grow up in the show, and finally through your votes and the power of fans, they become a sensational traffic star. Everyone feels a sense of participation. This is what we call individuality. So in talent shows, the most popular star is not necessarily the best singer or dancer, but the one with the most topics. Becoming an IP or KOL is not easy; you need personality, in short, charisma. Second, you must provide value. People identify with someone because their statements and content are valuable. The core point of a community is value, not a sales group. Whether people recognize your group as a value group is key. Meiri Pinpin eventually tried a fully robotic path. Everyone is experimenting. Whether we do it ourselves or cultivate it, or worry about group leaders being poached, there are many paths, but what is the result? What we ultimately produce is called a value group. Product Endorsement Ability Our group leader KOLs need to achieve two things in terms of dissemination and endorsement:

  1. Their dissemination will not cause unfollows or annoyance;
  2. They have personal quality endorsement, such as being a KOL in the community, where neighbors trust the products they recommend. This is called trust endorsement. A small circle, built through a small group or several small WeChat groups, constitutes a product endorsement ecosystem. In this process, the core elements are as mentioned. With these elements, they may become a good group leader, and the only question is who they cooperate with. Or you find potential people and cultivate them step by step, which may be a path to solve group leader stickiness. Tools and Methods We talk about how to earn 30,000 yuan a month. Let's look back: is this complicated? Since someone has done it, let's look at successful cases and reflect. Who are stay-at-home moms? They can be considered full-time housewives. Who are shop owners? They are at the bottom of China's retail business owners. FMCG B2B has developed for 5 years, and many heroes have fallen on this battlefield. So creating value rather than price is particularly important in our model. In this field, for stay-at-home moms and small shop owners, especially moms, many Chinese moms have experienced various baptisms. Around us, whether it's WeChat business, direct sales, distribution, or now community group buying, self-pickup points, franchise stores, or short videos, blogging, product promotion, and live streaming, these moms are constantly being influenced and baptized. To exceed 10,000 yuan, there is only one way: rent a front warehouse and put up shelves, because you have fresh produce, cold chain delivery, and insulation cycles, so you need professionalization. Therefore, such a path can derive a chain store format through excellent group leaders, or a format based on front warehouses with certain instant sales attributes. But our core essence is still to solve our initial topic: how to earn 30,000 yuan a month. The Arrival of the Second Half What is the second half? From August last year, financing was hot, until March this year when the industry rarely saw financing news. Recently, Xingsheng Youxuan received $40 million. From the capital market perspective, the entire industry has entered the second half. In the second half, head players will emerge, forming a "dragon fight" (Alibaba vs. Tencent). What will that look like? From the path of the internet industry driven by capital over the past decade or more, we see that Xingsheng Youxuan, with strong capital support, has become one of the giants. Who is the other of the duopoly? Recently, there have been many news items, one notable being Squirrel Pinpin's merger with Niwoniw, and Alibaba's heavy investment in Shihuituan. In short, once giants achieve a duopoly with Xingsheng Youxuan through integration, it indicates that head traffic platforms have emerged, and capital players will start taking sides. We say Alibaba and Tencent have always been in competition, and since last year, all aspects of new retail have been in a benchmarking form. Looking back at several cases, when these two are involved, the entire industry will definitely take sides, forming a dragon fight. At this point, we see that whether it's shared bikes, early group buying, food delivery, or Didi Chuxing, these platforms eventually have a very interesting form: after Alibaba and Tencent take sides, all funds are poured into them, leading to rapid industry mergers and acquisitions. Is this inflection point already appearing? We think it's possible. Let's look at a statement by teacher Liu Chunxiong:

"Industries or platforms with high concentration will inevitably see most enterprises or platforms die. Traditional industries die slowly, but with capital support, they die quickly. Capital merely condenses the industry evolution process; the final pattern remains unchanged. Capital initially bets on tracks, then on success rates. Once a platform shows the king's appearance, other capital is abandoned, and all flows to the king." —Liu Chunxiong Is community group buying an industry that is particularly easy to concentrate? Is it an internet platform-style business model? If so, then when the two giants divide, they will quickly harvest, eventually incubating a monopoly enterprise like Meituan or Didi, and under capital promotion, eventually form a monopoly. Capital can afford to lose for three or five years, and will eventually accompany the company to IPO and achieve profitability. Can community group buying constitute such a large track worth betting on? At least now, in this round of Xingsheng, when a second player may appear, capital is still trying to bet. Viewing Community Group Buying from the Essence of Retail You must understand clearly how small shops can earn more. Returning to the essence, retail used to be very simple: labor efficiency, area efficiency, and products. Labor efficiency: A standard data analysis method in the industry: how many people earn how much money, how many people do I hire to earn how much? Area efficiency: When Hema came out, it emphasized that area efficiency is five times higher than hypermarkets, but its cost per unit area may also be five times higher, requiring a long time to amortize marginal costs, etc. Products: Products are our core competitiveness. Today, retail has two changes: one is the concept of traffic, and the other is delivery cost. For retail stores, this is an enhanced membership management and marketing tool. We made a prediction earlier, and now let's support it with data. Data source: Business Observer At that time, they surveyed Henan's Green City Supermarket, Jining's Aikedo, and Changsha's Bubugao. These are traditional chain convenience stores that use community group buying as a marketing tool, abandoning group leader commissions and turning them into bonuses for store managers, a direct control system. Advantages: It quickly improves store labor and area efficiency. In terms of delivery, pre-sale can be done, and SKUs can be infinitely expanded online. Disadvantages: There are only so many stores, and it will never become a business model because it cannot be replicated. If you franchise, it's better to invest in pure group buying platforms, internet companies, or people with supply chain genes. So for traditional retail enterprises, their membership marketing systems already have some data, especially Jining Aikedo. According to data it published to the media, sales are quite excellent. As a community fresh food store with 60 stores, it has expanded into horizontal categories like small appliances, eye surgery, physical exams, and electric vehicles around flash sales. For its strong fresh food category, one group buying event sells more durians than several years of sales, fully enjoying the dividends of WeChat communities and using hit products to capture market advantages. This is traditional retail. So when we face your small shop group leaders, you need a very professional team that truly stands in their shoes to help them achieve better labor and area efficiency. Only then is there a real connection. Thoughts on Community Group Buying 2.0 From online pre-sale to store self-pickup to organizational structure, from platform to group leader to consumer, from application systems to WeChat groups plus small tools to products, we focus on fresh produce, supplemented by general merchandise for customer acquisition, using offline ground promotion and store group building. The supply chain is city-level sorting, delivery to stores, and user self-pickup. The price strategy is low-price entry. This is the current basic form of community group buying. Currently, the advantage of community group buying is low customer acquisition cost. The benefit is that the WeChat ecosystem is already very mature, providing us with a series of tools, the core performance being mini-programs. So for the trend of community group buying 2.0, I think there will be huge changes. I'll make a bold prediction: Model: Online pre-sale + drop shipping Why can the current community group buying model work? First, you need to think: why can some stay-at-home mom group leaders earn 30,000 yuan a month? Just think about this one question. We won't discuss the pros and cons of the model. Just think about how your mom can earn 30,000 yuan a month through the platform and how to achieve this goal. Organizational structure: Platform - Group Leader - Consumer The organizational structure hasn't changed much, but a layer of multi-level distribution will be added in the middle. System: WeChat groups + mini-programs + APP Now some big platforms have started to divert traffic to APPs, which is not much related to the current development of the platform. Products: Fresh produce + general merchandise + services This is a very clear model of using fresh produce to attract traffic and drive high-frequency with low-frequency. General merchandise, including frozen products, represents high-margin products, and services are gradually introduced, such as cleaning, dog washing, and child care. Why? Going back to the fundamental source, based on LBS points and community social groups, what value is actually generated? If it's just a sales group, how can it compete with value groups? I think the former has no competitive ability. So services are not only products that help you earn more money but also core elements that help you shape a value group. Customer acquisition: Offline ground promotion + store group building + fission In community group buying 1.0, I wasn't very optimistic about this. What I didn't like about 1.0 was the lack of fission. In small shops, selling something with a 0.5 yuan gift or even nothing to get people into groups gives us extremely low customer acquisition costs. Where is the fission? If the biggest dividend isn't used, how can it be called community group buying 2.0? Traditional community group buying models, supplemented by fission methods, we believe this is what community 2.0 should be called. Supply chain: National service system + city-owned system I think the supply chain will definitely form two systems that combine: one is the national supply chain system as a service center. For example, in the Yiwu small commodity wholesale market, how to find suitable products among 2 million SKUs in the Hailiang product library has given rise to professional supply chain platforms like "Meipinshu" and "Yiwu Good Products." Second, the traditional city supply chain system will be the main battlefield. Price strategy: Hit products + experience Now we use low-price hit products as the core experience. You can sell more excellent products, and human nature will play a bigger role here. This is what needs thinking: how to make your mom or shop owner earn 30,000 yuan a month? What exactly should they do? Keep posting ads or do more valuable things to help you sell higher-margin products? This is worth deep thought. Advantages: Fan economy + efficient supply chain We believe that all marketing based on groups is a fan economy logic. What I want to tell you is that the core essence of our business success is that it re-establishes a to-C sales system. This is not a traditional direct sales method. Everyone should only study this one thing (community group buying). Through this line, you can gradually understand the core key points of the entire distribution system over the past 20 years in China or even 70 years abroad. Use that experience to arm and enrich yourself. There's nothing new in what we do; just remember this. Under the fan distribution system, coupled with an efficient supply chain, we believe that in the future, especially with fresh produce at the core, the huge delivery market cost is promising. Extended reading on community group buying column: