Pink, yellow, blue and green, at a crossroads in Wangjing, Beijing, you will see these "colorful" people whizzing by on electric cars from time to time. The companies behind them are Youxian Daily, Meituan, Box Horse and Ding Dong.
Uniforms are a magical existence, just like military uniforms. Different colors represent different camps. Same color, for comrades; Different, the enemy. The last time the camps were divided in a unified color across the country, it was the takeaway war 10 years ago and the bicycle war * * * five years ago. These colors are symbols of different forces on the Internet.
This time, the focus of the war fell on the grocery track, the long-lost smell of gunpowder.
Internet giants and startups of all sizes have launched a fierce battle around fresh retail. Front-line promoters and community leaders have begun hand-to-hand combat. In the deep burning of a residential area in Panjiayuan, Beijing, I saw two groups, namely, grocery shopping and Ding Dong grocery shopping, meet face to face and compete for new users. Meituan bought vegetables and launched the "Thousand Cities Plan", and small and medium-sized players spontaneously formed an alliance to "hold the group against the United States". Didi's orange heart optimization directly listed the person in charge of the US group's food purchase as the recruitment target.
Pinduoduo will buy vegetables as a strategic new business this year, and founder Huang Zheng will personally lead a team to inspect. 10 On June 8th, at the fifth annual meeting of Pinduoduo, Huang Zheng said that buying vegetables is a long-term cause of Pinduoduo, and called on everyone to start the hard-core struggle mode. A Pinduoduo employee told Deep Burning that buying more vegetables should be the biggest investment ever. "Almost all entrepreneurs and supervisors, large and small, went to buy food, and the employees involved in buying food were in a state of no rest. The salary increase for half a year has dragged on for several months, which is rare. "
Shopping online may be the worst battle on the Internet in China after the cycling war. Business BD, take-away riders, community leaders, and an army of iron troops, all kinds of people, are constantly changing our world.
Red, yellow, blue and green, seize the community
Old Joe put on the green Meituan uniform to buy food, screwed on several boxes of eggs and yogurt, and came to the door of a residential area in Fangzhuang, Beijing in the evening to push the ground. In order to avoid things being confiscated by the urban management, he specially posted "not for sale" on the outer packaging.
His task is to let new users download and register Meituan Shopping App, and at the same time complete the first order. After placing an order, new users will give away a box of eggs.
Opposite the community is a shopping plaza. More than a month ago, the store of Xiaoxiang Fresh Supermarket under Meituan just closed. Meituan renamed Xiaoxiang Business Department as "Shopping Business Department" and put resources into the pre-warehouse mode of Meituan's grocery shopping. Unlike Meituan's main color "Meituan Yellow", Meituan adopted green when buying food and launched an independent App.
The new App is not easy to promote First, users download the App, and the path to place an order is too long. Second, the Beijing community is not easy to enter. Old Joe was taken away by the local urban management the day after he was pushed in Fangzhuang Community, and had an interview on the grounds of unlicensed operation.
The bigger difficulty comes from competitors. Beijing is the base camp of daily fresh food, and many communities have been "washed" by daily fresh food. Ding Dong, which started in Shanghai, also entered Beijing in April this year and is being wildly promoted in various communities. There is no essential difference between the three modes. What Old Joe has to do is "wash away" the fresh users every day, and at the same time, grab the users to the Meituan to buy food before Ding Dong buys food.
After being interviewed by the urban management, Lao Qiao moved to a community near Panjiayuan, Beijing. One afternoon at the end of September, he seized an intersection in the community in advance, which was a high-quality push point. But soon, Ding-dong's pushers surrounded him.
Old Joe has only two people here, while Ding Dong has four people to buy food. In terms of volume, the American delegation was soon overshadowed by Ding Dong. Ding-dong under the perfect group, Ding-dong under the beautiful group doesn't leave home, Ding-dong under the group, and then get a box of eggs Ding-dong staged an anti-guest drama at the beautiful group's home, which quickly took away several users of the beautiful group. In addition, some new passing users were stopped by Ding Dong.
Meituan buys food, and Ding Dong buys food. Push source/deep burning photos.
Old Joe, who was originally carefree, suddenly became nervous. Shout louder, walk more, follow the pedestrians for longer and push harder. The smell of gunpowder is getting stronger and stronger.
Old Joe said, in fact, these two groups of people know each other, at least they have met before, because Meituan and Ding Dong are next to each other in the front warehouse nearby, and they often bump into each other when pushing and shoving in the community. When robbing users, everyone tacitly held their breath and shouted loudly.
"Fighting is who is more shameless and won't fight." A person who bought food at the scene said to Deep Burning.
It is generally said that the KPI of Meituan's grocery shopping for one day is at least 6 for Racine and 0/5 for Ding Dong/KLOC. The task achievement standards on both sides are the same. Users download the registration and complete the order at the same time. Whose QR code is scanned and whose performance is included. The QR code is valid within 24 hours.
Because the KPI of grocery shopping in Ding Dong is heavier, its promoter is more like a wolf. Their uniforms are uniformly printed with the words "Tiejun", but in terms of words, they are full of tricks. "The smell of wine is not afraid of the deep alley, and the next APP hero is not afraid of waiting" and "Ding Dong sends eggs, and you don't have to buy eggs for a month."
The origin of the "Tiejun" uniform is Ding Dong's shopping/deep burning photo.
Two groups of people cross together, and pedestrians passing by here have to go through two waves of brainwashing. Often, the US Mission will push a wave first, then follow up after losing, or bring a new user, and the US Mission will take advantage of the situation and then treat Amway.
The uniforms of the pushers of Meituan Shopping and Ding Dong Shopping are all green, and they can't tell the enemy from me. Occasionally, everyday fresh riders in pink uniforms and hungry riders in blue uniforms rush by.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the grocery shopping war.
In the large and small communities in Beijing, in the fresh track of the front warehouse, the US Mission is staging a fierce battle of food, food and daily fresh food. Outside Beijing, many cities are blooming everywhere. For example, in Wuxi, another startup named Bunny bought food and joined the battle. Interestingly, it was founded by employees of Meituan before buying food.
Kaicheng, robbing people and selling goods
The competition for early positions is only a starting point, and the broader battle has actually spread to community group buying. This is the most concentrated and capital-intensive area on the grocery track today.
Community group buying takes the community as the central hub and has strong regionality. Winning a high-quality community will occupy the key points in advance. Now all the players entering the stadium are crazy about Kaesong. They took out the map of China and divided the war zones according to administrative divisions. They either took their own soldiers on an expedition in person or formed a team in the local area.
The push and the head of the team are the focus of the first round of competition between platforms. Since June this year, the recruitment needs of group buying and pushing personnel in various communities have begun to appear in major recruitment websites and Internet communities. In Wuhan, Nanchang, Jinan, Chengdu and other second-tier cities, and the sinking market radiated from it, thousands of people are madly occupying communities.
Sporadic, unorganized, but experienced local community leaders are very popular among major platforms.
On July 15, Meituan preferred to open the first stop in China in Jinan, Shandong. Its public appearance in Jinan was a large-scale "face-to-face signing training meeting for heads of delegations", and more than 300 heads attended the meeting and signed the contract. A person close to the selection of the US delegation told Shen Burning that many leaders at the scene were very experienced and came from those local delegations that closed down.
Source/Meituan You Xuan WeChat official account
Pinduoduo opened a city in Wuhan a month later, bought more vegetables and went online. According to a recruitment data of Didui, the main job of Didui is to communicate with community leaders to buy more vegetables, and give priority to other platform leaders who have done community group buying.
Just like the take-away push war of that year, pushers who bought more food ran all over the street, looking for shopkeepers who were interested in entering the platform, including convenience stores, small supermarkets, express delivery sites and beauty salons. These small shops can be used as assembly points and are potential candidates for head recruitment.
Two days after the opening of the city in Wuhan, Pinduoduo and the US delegation preferred to enter Wuhan. In the Wuhan market, Meituan did not copy Jinan's business model from zero to one, but directly changed the pre-shopping of Meituan in Wuhan to community group buying, and took over the flow and supply chain of Meituan's shopping in Wuhan, and the scale instantly surpassed that of Pinduoduo.
You can delay, but time won't. A girl who bought a lot of vegetables received an interview notice the day after she started to apply for a job. When he arrived, he found there was no interview. He completed the process in 5 minutes and registered to promote the QR code. Then I was pulled to a block by a car and got off. Start sweeping the street.
There are no clear rules, no uniform words, and some just have to deal with the host. For every successful buyer in Wuhan, 30 yuan will be rewarded with commission, and 5 households will be rewarded with KPI every day, and 8 households will be rewarded with 30 yuan. Each pusher is equipped with an independent background, which can query the nearest target store, support one-click navigation and find the phone number.
Many people interviewed by Shenzhan belong to different labor outsourcing companies. They were sent to the group buying platforms of major communities, and shuttled through different cities and communities with their projects, pushing one community to the next and fighting on the move.
Now, the opening path of each player is gradually clear. Starting from Jinan, Shandong Province, the US Mission penetrated into lower-level counties and cities, and at the same time expanded into second-tier cities at the same level. Pinduoduo was first piloted in Wuhan and Nanchang, and then quickly entered Xi 'an and Hefu, and also entered Xianyang, Huanggang, Huangshi, Ezhou, Xianning and Xiaogan around Wuhan; Didi's orange heart is more inclined to put its base camp in the southwest, and has won important towns such as Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Guiyang and Nanning.
In Wuhan, Meituan, Pinduoduo and other latecomers have been playing hot games with local old players such as Shengxing Youxuan, Food Enjoyment Club and Tenth Club. In Guangzhou, Meituan's grocery shopping and optimization business are promoted at the same time, competing with Ding Dong grocery shopping, Pupu supermarket and Tongcheng Qianxianhui for the South China market; In Hefei, Pinduo competes head-on with Yipin Xian, Xian Legend and Qian Ayi. In a small city like Wuxi, Bunny quietly attacked the local market by buying food and painting the land as a prison.
The price war has also come. Didi directly moved the style of burning money in the past online car industry. On the one hand, the head of the delegation was given a commission higher than the industry average, and at the same time, users were subsidized through commodity price reduction. A pusher who buys a lot of food said: "Simple and rude, high commission, this is the status quo of the industry."
The opportunity to attack from behind is also a metaphor for worrying.
Interestingly, before the giants swarmed in, the entrepreneurial trajectory of buying food was almost abandoned by capital.
At the end of 20 19, large and small community group buying projects died, contracted, laid off employees, closed down and merged in batches. Squirrel fights, community music, and silly radishes, once the darling of capital, have been blindfolded for more than a year, either integrated by a larger platform or directly closed down and got into trouble.
But no one expected that the epidemic was coming.
A 20 18 joined the community group purchase, and now an industry insider on a giant platform told Shenzhan that the epidemic has reactivated the fresh entrepreneurial track. The most typical example is that during the worst epidemic period, residents in Fengcheng, Wuhan were unable to go out. The local government encouraged residents to use the Internet to buy food, and completed the market education overnight. Before the outbreak, the main players in Wuhan market were Shengxing Youxuan, Ten Clubs, Food Enjoyment Club and Meijia Shopping Club. After the outbreak, the Food Enjoyment Club sprang up suddenly, because it was a local enterprise registered in Wuhan and quickly rushed ahead.
This has greatly stimulated those internet giants who have not yet entered the game.
In August this year, Pinduoduo entered the bureau, and his first stop was in Wuhan. After opening the city in Jinan, the US delegation immediately turned around and entered Wuhan. The balance of power in Wuhan has been broken, which has put great pressure on local players such as the Food Enjoyment Club.
Zhao Yibo, an entrepreneur who switched from live broadcast to cross-border community group buying, told Shen Ran that the competition in Wuhan market has become fierce, the giants have changed the previous rules, and startups such as the Food Club have faced real challenges.
Source/pixel
An insider in the community group buying industry felt: Two years ago in winter, a group of community group buying entrepreneurs held a meeting with the theme of "holding a group to keep warm and boycotting the US delegation". At that time, the US Mission stood still and stood by; This summer, the focus of community group buying discussion is still the US Mission, because the US Mission has really come.
In fact, in addition to the US Mission, Pinduoduo, Didi, Tencent, Ali and JD.COM all joined the battle. Meituan, Pinduoduo, Didi and JD.COM went to do business in person. Tencent and Ali participate by investing and supporting agents. Tencent invested in Shengshi Youxuan, Food Enjoyment Club and Tongcheng, Ali invested in the Tenth Club, and Ali's Box Horse Business Group is also in preparation. At this point, all five domestic Internet giants have entered the community to buy.
This seems to have a meaning of "mantis catches cicada, yellowbird comes last": first, start-up companies should explore business models and burn money to make the models work. At the same time, after completing market education, giants will enter the market, quickly attack the city with capital and scale advantages, and then destroy their opponents with price wars.
Only these rich and powerful super giants can have the energy of rapid replication and national layout. Meituan said that it plans to enter 20 provinces in the next three months and achieve "thousand cities" coverage during the year.
From the personnel layout, we can see the importance that the giants attach to this battle.
The person in charge of Meituan Optimization is Chen Liang, senior vice president of Meituan and member of S-team, the core management team. He reports directly to Wang Xing. The head of the Buy More is Abu, the co-founder of Pinduoduo. He is the CEO. There were many products before the merger with Pinduo. The person in charge of Didi Orange Heart Optimization is Chen Ting, senior vice president of Didi, who reports directly to Cheng Wei.
An internal employee of Pinduo told Deep Burning that with the entry of other giants, Pinduo has paid more and more attention to community group buying. Now it is a strategic project, and personnel are being transferred from various departments. The department that buys more food implements super week, which is the most tiring of all departments.
At the fifth anniversary meeting, Huang Zheng specifically mentioned and emphasized the business of buying more food. In order to win this battle, he called on Pinduoduo employees to start the hard-core struggle mode.
From toVC to to giant
The entry of giants has completely changed the industry ecology of internet food buying.
In the past, entrepreneurs chose to take VC money. 20 18 fresh start-up boom, venture capitalists such as Sequoia Capital, Today Capital, Jinshajiang Venture Capital, Qi Ming Venture Capital, Zhenge Fund and ggv Capital have accumulated billions of dollars in real money. But this year, few venture capitalists have entered, and those who have spent a lot of money in the industry have become Internet giants.
Most of the projects that can't beat the giants and lose money are all declining after the wind. Squirrel spelling is a star entrepreneurial project of 20 18. Founder Yang Jun once co-founded Fanfan.com, hainei.com and Meituan.com with Wang Xing. After leaving the US Mission, he founded Squirrel Spelling and soon got a lot of financing. But the squirrel bucket got into trouble on 20 19, and then the project stopped.
Source/pixel
After the US Mission entered the community group purchase, it undertook some employees who fought for squirrels, and laid out the whole country with great fanfare. Yang Jun's unfinished business was taken over by the super giant Meituan.
This situation has led to the merger of many fresh entrepreneurial projects. In the community group buying circle, last year 10 clubs merged you, me and you. This year, Tongcheng Life merged with its neighbors. After the completion of the merger, Shishe received two rounds of financing in succession, Ali continued to raise funds, and Tongcheng Life Insurance also completed the C and C+ rounds of financing. These two companies stand in the ranks of Ali and Tencent respectively.
Capital chooses to hold a group to keep warm, concentrate resources and hold the giant's thigh tightly, and no longer give new entrepreneurs opportunities. In this case, it is an unavoidable obstacle for entrepreneurs to choose to stand in line or sell projects.
According to the analysis of an industry insider who is close to Ding Dong to buy vegetables, it is unlikely that Ding Dong will be listed independently at present, because almost every order will lose money. From the big warehouse to the front warehouse, each order will lose about 4-2 5 yuan, not counting the operating cost and marketing cost of the headquarters. "On the whole, it may be acquired in the future or merged with which company."
Being acquired or merged does not necessarily mean failure, but it is sometimes a strategic choice. In fact, Liang Changlin, the founder of Ding Dong Shopping, is a serial entrepreneur, and all the companies he founded in the past have been sold. At present, there are no giants in Ding Dong's grocery stores.
Zhao Yibo bluntly told Deep Burning that he had been in this industry for almost a year and found that the business was too heavy and the profit was too thin. He has completely given up independent development. His strategic intention now is very simple, that is, to find a giant to make some money, seize the time window to expand the project quickly with the help of the giant's resources, and then sell it to the giant for cash. He is approaching Tencent through various relationships.
Now is really a good time window. Lao Qiao told Shen Burning that online shopping is regarded as a livelihood project by the government, and there will be special subsidies and corporate tax rebates every year. This is also one of the reasons for attracting all kinds of enterprises to enter the market crazily.
The grocery shopping war is still going on and getting worse. The result of this campaign will affect the Internet pattern in China to some extent.
As a front-line pusher, Lao Qiao doesn't care about these grand patterns. He is planning how to attract more users tomorrow. "This battle will last for some time." Old Joe said.