I believe everyone knows about Dong Ge’s search for his ancestors. Obviously, this may be a well-known joke in the e-commerce industry in the New Year. But no matter how much I smile, Dong Ge may be serious about this matter today.
JD.com and Meili United (Miyushuo, Mogujie Taoshi) jointly established a new company.
This was nothing.
What attracted everyone's attention was Tencent's support and WeChat's support - the new company will be rooted in the WeChat social ecosystem, combining JD's existing portal in WeChat and the experience accumulated by Meili United in social e-commerce, and using the openness of WeChat mini-programs to explore new models in the social e-commerce field.
We have been involved in e-commerce for a few times. From the beginning of Gaopeng.com to the opening of exclusive first-level shopping portals for JD.com on WeChat, it can be said that it has been a battle of repeated failures. If you can't do it well, you can bring JD.com to do it together.
As a result, JD.com discovered that although WeChat is a golden signboard and the traffic is also considerable, it can’t be pried. In desperation, Liu Qiangdong had to find another way.
As early as the beginning of last year, news of "JD.com's acquisition of Meili United" continued to spread, but now it has changed from acquisition to cooperation. Although it has not been done as expected, it has also increased the bargaining chips to resist Tmall in the clothing field.
Why does Liu Qiangdong like Meili Union
This is an alliance between the frustrated ones.
In order to expand the scale and increase market value, in January 2016, Mogujie, Meilishuo and Taoshi announced a merger, and the new company was named Meili United Group. After the merger, the performance not only did not increase, but continued to decline, and even rumored that it was layoffs.
Beauty United, which focuses on women's groups, is not only unclear how to play their respective advantages after the merger, but the fatal thing is that the three highly overlap in product positioning, operation model, and business categories. Not to mention, they were attacked from both sides and left and right, including Tmall and JD.com in front, Vipshop, Xiaohongshu, etc. behind.
On the other hand, JD.com, the second largest e-commerce company, also suffered a steadily defeat in the clothing field last year. In March 2017, JD Fashion Business Department was independently split from the Clothing and Home Furnishing Business Department, which was interpreted by the outside world as "to tear a hole in the clothing category that is advantageous to Tmall." Later, even Zhang Zetian came in handy and appeared frequently in major fashion shows.
The advancement of milk tea has not saved JD.com's decline in the clothing field. In last year's Double 11 battle, JD.com's clothing business, which has been growing the fastest, stagnated. During the Q3 financial report conference call, Liu Qiangdong said that JD does face a very difficult "two-choice-one" unfair competition in the clothing category. Since the second quarter, more than 100 Chinese local clothing brands have been forced to withdraw from the JD platform.
The nightmare of vertical e-commerce began in 2012 and continued until last year.
Jumei Youpin, which once had a glorious popularity, has been falling all the way. Last year, Secoo, which was the first luxury e-commerce stock to land on Nasdaq, also plunged. Not long ago, the "monster stock" Vipshop also threw itself into the arms of JD.com and Tencent... In this life-and-death test, players like beautiful alliances seemed to be a wise move to hold their thighs.
Tencent’s E-commerce Dream
It has been 5 years since WeChat was born, and the outside world has been speculating when WeChat can do a good job in e-commerce.
Helplessly, before e-commerce starts, micro-commerce goes first. Various monsters and monsters in the micro-business world have made the circle of friends chaotic, causing Zhang Xiaolong to kill and ban the micro-business.
Although Zhang Xiaolong cut off the path of micro-business, WeChat did not give up e-commerce, but instead adopted the "curve-to-nation" approach to e-commerce. This "curve" is mainly reflected in the external alliance (JD) and the internal opening (open mini programs).
Speaking of mini programs, it has always been "high thunder and little rain", and the originally envisioned traffic dividends are nowhere to be found, which has made many entrepreneurs return in disappointment. Through the frequent actions of WeChat official in 17 years, it can be seen that mini programs have become Tencent's core strategic product. Tencent wants to integrate cloud services, AI and other toB services to attract merchants to enter mini programs.
As an important role in promoting the joining hands with JD.com, Vipshop, Meili Union, etc., Tencent has the potential to set up a stage for e-commerce platforms through mini programs.
Where to go about social e-commerce
The "2017 Shared Social E-commerce Industry White Paper" shows that the scale of social e-commerce merchants has reached 13.8 million in 2016. It is estimated that the scale of social e-commerce merchants in my country will reach 24 million in 2020, and the market size will exceed one trillion yuan. The industry will have more than 10 times the expansion space in the next five years.
The traffic has declined, the supply of goods is serious, malicious competition, and high marketing costs... Whether it is a Taobao seller of 6 million or a micro-business group of tens of millions, they are walking on thin ice in the ever-changing market environment.
On the one hand, there is the rising social e-commerce market size, and on the other hand, there are e-commerce operators who are struggling. Wu Sheng wrote in the book "Scene Revolution" that new soil will give birth to new scenes, new scenes will produce new species, and new species will define new categories, and this is the possibility that the Internet has given us unprecedented. Mini programs + e-commerce may be the new species in Wu Sheng’s eyes.
WeChat’s gene is social. With consumption upgrading, decentralized social e-commerce based on experience and sharing may become the easiest platform to explode.
Judging from 2017, both JD.com and Tencent have become more open. Liu Qiangdong and Alibaba are fighting for female users, and the bigger thing is the new retail war between Alibaba and Tencent.
If Tencent + JD + Meili United can't do this, it can only be said that the "time" of social e-commerce is not enough.
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