Crown Club analyzes why the Three Squirrels can do better and better?
Speaking of Three Squirrels, we must mention Squirrel CEO Zhang Liaoyuan and the Shell Fruit he once created. This is Zhang Liaoyuan’s initial training ground. Recently, Three Squirrels once again received IDG financing, this time it was injected with 6 million US dollars. Just a few years ago, none of us would have thought that opening an online store would cost so much money.
1. The world of fast fish eating slow fish has never changed
Kekeguo, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anhui Zhan Group. Now let us look at Ningguo, Anhui, which is known as the "hometown of Chinese pecans". The pecans produced are characterized by thin skin, thick kernels and high oil content. In 1998, when many of Ningguo's peers were still investing in the bulk market, Zhan Quansheng, the pioneer of the Zhan brand, gave the walnuts he had been operating, which had a name: Ningguo Zhan Group. One year after 2000, Zhang Liaoyuan joined the Zhan Group and started as a salesperson. Of course, like all of us, we must have experienced a lot of hardships, but Zhang Liaoyuan, the strong man, finally gained his own place in the Zhan family with his own efforts.
In 2011, Zhang Liaoyuan began to build the "Chekeguo" online nut sub-brand of Zhan's company, and proposed the concept of sub-category brands and 15-day fresh nuts. The sales exceeded 10 million in 8 months, and was known as a dark horse in the e-commerce industry. During this period, it was called "Cheke Daddy" by the industry because it quickly created the "Cheke Guo" online nut brand. At this time, Ningguo Zhanshi Group had grown into a first-class brand in the domestic pecan industry. Some people can't help but ask, why don't you directly use the Zhanshi brand to enter the e-commerce market?
The reason why the founder Kekeguo was not used for Zhan's family is based on two points. One is the serious conflict between the "electric shock" of traditional industries on offline channels and prices, which is also a problem facing Gome and Suning Online Mall; the other is that the corporate image and brand positioning of the traditional industry cannot be fully adapted to the mainstream group of online shopping today - that is, young people in 80 90. To date, Zhan has opened its own Tmall flagship store online, but due to the lack of obvious brand differentiation, it cannot match the online market, which is far from the influence of Kekeguo back then. This is also the same problem faced by many traditional companies today when they are electrocuted.
In 2012, Taobao Mall was officially renamed Tmall. This year was also the year when Jack Ma's "Big Taobao" strategy began to be implemented. Just when major brands believed that the form was in great shape, Zhang Liaoyuan was sensitively aware of the existence of the crisis. In his opinion, there are still about three years to establish a brand in the e-commerce field. If you miss this window period, big brands will appear in all fields. It will be more difficult and costly for later generations to take the lead. He has been in the food industry for 10 years and is unwilling to see the opportunity slip away. At this time, Zhang Liaoyuan is waiting for an opportunity.
2. The sea water has quietly turned red
Zhang Liaoyuan’s well-known opponents: Xinnong Ge, Baicaowei, and Huaweiheng, who has always been rarely mentioned but is also very powerful. Among them are also high-quality teams, powerful brands, and courageous CEOs. If someone specializes in researching on the nut industry on Tmall this year, they will find that the competition is extremely cruel. It can be seen that the paper packaging for nuts, brand cartoons for young consumer groups, and internal gadgets included in the package to cater to user experience, are all imitated by several large brands in the industry without any implementation. This is the Chinese market. Of course, it can also be said that this is a natural evolution of brand services for user experience. Indeed, this is beneficial to consumers, because e-commerce itself is a more convenient business model, but what follows is that the cost and entry threshold of the entire industry have been raised.
The selling point is never on nuts
At this time, Zhang Liaoyuan had left the Zhan Group and began to build her own brand - Three Squirrels. For her, who had just obtained a 10 million venture capital for iDG, everything seemed familiar. The supply chain should have been prepared. The team was soon to land, and everything was done again, but Zhang Liaoyuan knew very well, where was the differentiated selling point of the nut industry. Regardless of whether major online brands recognize it or not, I will say that it is definitely not nuts!
Three Squirrels have indeed studied nut flavors, and it can be felt that they have been screened and repackaged. However, for the same supply chain products, are other big brands selling second-rate nuts? Speaking of this, what comes to my mind is a kind of food in my childhood, just dough. Yes, that's right, it's the little raccoon, the little tiger team, and there are cards or small toys in it. In childhood, many children even bought crisp noodles just for the cards inside. In fact, the current young online shopping group has not regressed compared to childhood, and has even improved in some aspects as purchasing power increases. The brand animation of Three Squirrels and the small things attached to the food derived from the brand image are exactly the path that they took in the noodle market back then.
Now let’s take a look at what parts that cannot be eaten in the package of the Three Squirrels: mouse box—a package with a brand cartoon image; unboxing device—are you still worried about finding scissors and tape? ;Commissioned brother's message - business deals are important to warm people's hearts; nut packaging bags - it says to eat nuts and identify this big head; mouse clip - sealing clip for the oil product of nuts; mouse clip - garbage bag for spitting out fruit shells; slow food Happy Micro Magazine - brand concept; cartoon key chain, service card, etc. - small toys that capture users' hearts; mouse towel - wet wipes, you must wipe your mouth after eating.
What is user experience? Many people now talk about this word, but no one has really studied it. Readers who see this, as an online merchant, ask themselves whether they have really thought from the perspective of users and seriously think about what users do in every link from receiving packages to using products? What are you looking for? What else can be provided to users in addition to requirements?
3. The God-making Movement, the CEO’s inspirational legend is part of the brand SNS
It has to be said that the competition in the nut industry is still very cruel. Even if the user experience has been achieved here, it will still be imitated by its competitors. Then, here we can see that Zhang Liaoyuan has used a killer weapon that other brands do not have, perfectly combining the CEO's personal marketing with SNS.
If the popularity of the word "diaosi" reflects the social status of young people after graduation, then the popularity of "Chinese Partners" represents the general pursuit of the younger generation in China today, that is, counterattack! Young people are eager to get positive energy, but what is more convincing than Zhang Liaoyuan’s original path of losing streak?
Why does Zhang Liaoyuan always like to call himself a father, from the time he called himself a father, to the time he was a father, to the time he is a father of squirrel? Instead of using your real name? Why did he write articles from time to time and accept interviews? There is only one answer, and Zhang has integrated himself into brand marketing from the very beginning! And doing so has at least three major advantages.
(1) Inspirational stories about personal struggle to build a brand can easily form a public opinion position and spread rapidly in the media. (2) For the Three Squirrels brand, it lacks kernel support for attracting fans. For example, Apple may not be able to gather a considerable "Apple fans" on a large scale. But the "Apple" + Jobs model can succeed. (3) Heroes in the world, join me and build an "idol"-level CEO is of great benefit to absorbing talents and management teams.
4. The revolution has not been successful yet, and the road to e-commerce is endless battle
Facing the media, talking about IDG's second financing, Zhang Liaoyuan said that he had the idea of optimizing the later stage and building his own warehousing, which reminded me of a model called Taobao Logistics Bao backbone that Jack Ma made, which was that big brands transport goods to local warehouses in advance and then deliver them according to orders. Of course, this model failed to succeed due to operability issues, but Jack Ma did not give up. This year he proposed the plan for Cainiao Logistics and China's logistics backbone network.
For more Taobao operations, please pay attention to Crown Club !
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