In recent days, we can see the micro blog screenshot of the factory director in the @ wind in various groups:
Last year, the daily necessities business that made 200 million yuan in Pinduoduo earned a profit of 550000 yuan, and even a negative gross profit, relying on the large number of orders. It earned advertising fees by putting game cards in the package. After deducting the loss, it earned 550000 yuan a year.
I looked at the discussion, but it was still quite split. Ordinary migrant workers were wondering how the capitalists could force them so hard. They sold too much and quickly turned themselves into philanthropists. However, most e-commerce practitioners said that they had become numb about this. In recent years, it is very happy that sales can stabilize the transaction scale and make profits. What kind of bicycle do you want?
Although this example does not mean that all e-commerce sellers are in dire straits, as far as I know, in the market where consumption expectations are delayed, many factory direct delivery stores have only one way to keep their production lines running.
Some people swear that e-commerce can't survive as long as it doesn't fail. In fact, the problem is not here. According to historical materialism, there will be less competition without more competition. You can't hope that no one will pay attention to the sinking market in the rising consumption.
I'm not saying that existence is reasonable. Over the past few years, Pinduoduo has made Alibaba Jingdong realize the importance of returning to establish "price power", which is a very stimulating example of breaking the Matthew effect and providing new solutions for the market by destroying the original business ecosystem.
As for whether the new is good or the old is good, this kind of value judgment can be argued endlessly. I think it is not meaningful.
In the past few years, there was a kind of popular We Media topic selection, which was to find a real China in Pinduoduo's buyer show (commodity review area), such as a 200 yuan LCD TV. From the print, we can see who is buying it - most of them are in the empty environment, And users are particularly happy that they can spend 200 yuan to buy a TV - this is what happens when the mainstream Internet filter is turned off.
Everyone mocks Zhihu's average annual salary of one million yuan, but thinks that the world is an ordinary person like himself, drinking milk tea, taking the subway, and playing with God, which is not necessarily another form of Zhihu's arrogance.
So from another perspective, if the so-called ordinary people buy a 200 yuan LCD TV in Pinduoduo, they will probably be dissatisfied with the quality of the goods, and wonder what defective gadgets are sold on Pinduoduo, and the platform must not be saved... This judgment is very reasonable. Ali Jingdong used to think so until he found something wrong, The e-commerce platform has never been responsible for anchoring the bottom price for the market. You find the business with the lowest profit, and then what? How to sell advertising, traffic and location?
In fact, when you go to see Pinduoduo's financial reports over the past few years, the advertising revenue and commission income are not less than they earn. This is the value of designing a business model. Just like the American jokes, they often satirize the tax collectors. The withered oranges squeezed by Hercules are given to the tax collectors, and a full glass of orange juice can be squeezed out. Pinduoduo can still take the profit from the platform while eliminating the interest margin, This is its ability.
In his early years, Huang Zheng also wrote an article on the official account - Zhang Xiaolong's Fan No, Zhang Yiming's Weibo, Huang Zheng's official account, and called it the three electronic relics that must be reached in the archaeology of scientific and technological media - the article "Turning Capitalism upside down" is worth reviewing and learning new things. I even doubt whether Huang Zheng regrets exposing his original design of Pinduoduo too early.
The article was published in 2016, when Pinduoduo was just launched, it was still a little transparent. Huang Zheng's theme was insurance and compound interest, which had nothing to do with e-commerce. Only in one example, he used the e-commerce scene, which was actually the original idea of Pinduoduo. It was very powerful.
Huang Zheng said that insurance is the ultimate creation of capitalism. On the one hand, poor people with weak risk resistance ability pay to buy risk resistant resources from rich people with strong risk resistance ability. On the other hand, rich people invest their money in asset orchards that can generate compound interest. The whole structure ensures the continuous transfer of wealth from poor to rich people.
Huang Zheng said that he wanted to reverse capitalism, which meant that he wanted to design a reverse insurance product so that the poor could sell risk resistance to the rich and take advantage of it. Up to now, Huang Zheng has only been making a hole in his brain, but then he used an example to explain it, which has triggered association:
1000 people jointly wrote to the garment factory and were willing to pay 10% down payment to collectively purchase 1000 pieces of down jackets, while the garment factory would also be willing to give a 30% discount, because the scarcest thing is the certainty of consumption. As long as the order is smoothly scheduled, the cost can be squeezed from upstream.
Huang Zheng further said that if these 1000 people have good credit records, even if they do not pay 10% down payment, will there be a garment factory to take orders? The underlying logic is that the clothing factory buys an insurance policy of "you must pay when I deliver the goods" from the consumer by giving interest. In this relationship, the clothing factory plays the role of the rich and the consumer plays the role of the poor. The rich have to distribute their wealth to the poor in order to expand their business, which contributes to the result of "reversing capitalism".
Understanding the role assignment and the reverse design above, we can also understand why Pinduoduo has made the refund only industry standard configuration.
Obviously, in the process of realizing his idea, Huang Zheng replaced the work of checking the credit records of those 1000 people with Pinduoduo. Through flow distribution, Pinduoduo has enough credit to inform the supply side that I have countless consumption intentions, but I only match the lowest bidder.
The bottom logic of the e-commerce business's "blood flowing into a river" is so simple and straightforward, but it is also powerless. The previous game rule is bidding. Who pays the most, who takes the best access to traffic. The current game rule is pricing. Who sets the lowest price, who locks the most customers.
Maybe someone will say that it is not Pinduoduo's initiative to package consumption into futures at all. Isn't group buying like this?
Group buying is a service industry, and the supply is inherently flexible. A hotpot restaurant has empty tables during meals, which is essentially a loss, so it is willing to discount to recover the loss. But in the retail industry, the marginal cost of production is relatively fixed. Unless it is to clear the inventory, the seller will not easily damage its pricing system.
The way to play roll price will make brands feel uncomfortable. Because brands naturally pursue premium, which is also a business rule for centuries, they don't need to roll again after they start. Once they accept the price check, it means "returning to the pre liberation overnight", so white cards are far more adaptable than brands.
Even the concept of "integration of industry and trade" has become popular. Since the profit space is thinner than paper, and the platform is willing to fill the flow, it can only cut down the intermediate costs. The left hand is the factory, the right hand is the shop, and the return to money and goods trading. What is the brand? Can we eat it?
Furthermore, in the traffic system with strong distribution and weak operation, even the store/account is not important. The seller is equivalent to the delivery machine of the platform SKU, and the user does not need to know who you are.
As we all know, the distribution of short video platforms is determined by the algorithm, so many plain girls change their number every once in a while. Because the platform will not push the stream after the bonus period expires, and if they continue to broadcast, it will only get worse and worse. Anyway, all the gifts that should be received have been received. It is better to start the number again and go to a new wave of novice protection.
The classical We Media like us can't understand at all, or in our understanding, the account should be a personal brand asset, and all content production is accumulation. How can we use the daily throwing model? But the algorithm is very considerate. Don't think that I don't know that you will lie down after you save fans. Don't even think about it. No matter how many fans there are, there will be no traffic.
The same is true of many stores in Pinduoduo. If the flow of stores is abnormal, for example, the return rate may not be well controlled at once, and the cost of opening a new store immediately is far lower than that of re optimizing the data of the old store. As long as you can fulfill the contract and deliver according to the platform standards, the flow will not be much different from that of the past.
The merchants who are used to Taobao can't understand this. We have spent our best efforts to collect the comments of Huangguan. How can we stand such abuse
In fact, I went to see Ali's recent financial report conference calls and always explained to Wall Street what is "omnipotent Taobao", which means that Taobao should be able to undertake the market of consumer stratification, so that users with monthly salaries of 2000, 20000 and 200000 can buy products with corresponding prices and quality.
The truth is right, but it is still difficult to implement. This involves the platform's restructuring of the distribution system, so that sellers who can only ship at cost price and those who have a large budget to invest in the direct train can compete in the same environment and still get what they need. It is a headache to think about. Ali certainly does not want to compete with others, and this battle is expected to continue for a long time, Won't decide easily.
In his early years, Cao Dewang had a speech that spread widely, to the effect that China has only a population and no ability to consume. Buying rice and noodles is not consumption, but survival.
In fact, this is not true. Banerjee, a Nobel laureate and Indian economist, wrote a famous research book "The Nature of Poverty", which contains anti common sense statistics: in many families who are too poor to eat next meal, they will choose to buy game consoles after earning some money.
The reason is a little close to the theory of tittle joy. The daily poverty will gradually dispel one's expectations for future improvement. So they would rather not spend money to verify changes - such as learning a skill or something - and the most important thing is to meet the desire to live in the present. So even if they live in an area with high incidence of malaria, they can only buy a mosquito net and a box of potato chips, Most subjects will not hesitate to choose the latter.
The complexity of the economic system itself also includes this misplacement of perception. On the one hand, there are worries about weak consumption, on the other hand, there are people everywhere on holidays. On the other hand, it is said that businesses will pay for their underpants when they roll up, and on the other hand, there is no way to grab the pit of the popular live broadcast room. On the other hand, there is flame, and on the other hand, there is sea water. Water vapor is steaming, which blurs all the pursuit of accurate judgment.
In fact, it is not so important whether business is within or outside the Fifth Ring Road. However, in the past few years, there have been frequent queries, understandings and successes, and the business laws have been washed away too many times. A few years ago, Internet companies vowed to talk about the second half of the game. Now they have all reflected that what they played was not the final game of the elimination game, but the opening game of the league, The result of the half court ball is nothing.
