If the Alibaba incident is compared to the "earth movement" in the workplace, then Beidian's default on payments for goods can be called a "big earthquake" in the e-commerce industry.
The businessmen's hard work
On August 6, the bustling crowd once again inspired the hustle and bustle of the Beibei Group, but the movement this time is different from the past.
Many merchants have been withdrawing the store for half a year, but the money has not been returned. After the communication between the two parties failed, they could only go to the headquarters of Beibei Group to pull up the banner.
As of the 9th, the amount of defaulted on the money has exceeded 60 million, and more than 600 registered merchants have been registered. Most merchants on the scene were owed between 200,000 and 900,000 yuan, with the most two companies reaching about 5 million yuan. In addition, there was a deposit of 10,000 to 50,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan that had not been refunded.
In just a few days, the rights protection group has expanded to 3, with more than 1,000 people. At present, many merchants are not included in the debts, which means that the total amount of debts will continue to rise.
When the merchants began to realize the seriousness of the situation, the headquarters of Beibei Group was deserted, its chairman Zhang Lianglun could no longer contact him, social media had also closed the comment function, Beidian had moved its office location, and the group currently only left a public relations girl, but did not provide useful information.
On the 10th, the debt collection merchant came to Beibei's headquarters. Only Beibei's Nikki business employees were outside normal work, and other workstations were still empty.
Some merchants said that since April, the funds involved in Beidian have been between tens of millions and hundreds of millions of yuan, and this part of the funds has been misappropriated to Beibei Group's new project "Ximei".
The dark horse once
In 2017, Beibei Company began to be grouped and launched a social e-commerce platform - Beidian. At that time, the concept of social e-commerce had just emerged. In just four months, Beidian received more than 1 million orders during Double Eleven.
In the same year, Beidian won the "Fastest Dark Horse APP". The following year, the MAU exceeded 15 million.
In addition, Beibei.com, a subsidiary of Beibei Group, reached the honor of monthly sales of 200 million yuan and a valuation of 1 billion yuan in 8 months after its establishment.
In May 2019, Beidian completed 860 million yuan in financing, and star investment institutions such as Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, and IDG Capital participated in the investment.
In 2020, Beibei Group launched the "Super Beidian" project to help small and micro entrepreneurs, and at the same time launched online store operation and community traffic tools such as Beidian live broadcast and community photo albums to help beginners with insufficient operation experience continue to sell goods.
In the same year, the "e-commerce helps farmers" plan was launched one after another. With the explosion of traffic from social e-commerce, Beidian achieved sales breakthroughs in many times, including selling 320,000 kilograms of Xinjiang Hami melon in one day, selling 3 million cans of adopted cow yogurt in one day, selling 30,000 kilograms of Gannan navel orange in one hour, and selling 60,000 kilograms of Blue Moon Laundry Detergent in five minutes.
Falling from the altar
Beidian, which is born in the forefront, claims to open a store for free in line with the creation concept of "everyone can open a store", but in fact, users who want to open a store must spend 298 yuan to open a store. In addition, they also need to pay a deposit and a certain proportion of technical service fees, which runs contrary to the concept of "free store opening".
The "membership system" that has become Beidian's "fatal blow". Users need to pay a monthly fee to become members before they can open and shop in Beidian. Unlike members recognized by the public, the price of Beidian's products is not discounted because you are a member. The price does not fall but rise, and is even generally higher than other platforms.
In order to prevent users from losing, Beidian Party takes advantage of the advantages of social e-commerce and obtains benefits through users' new registrations, sharing products, etc., and can even develop new store owners, with a profit commission of up to 40%.
This method is both like a micro-business and has the shadow of pyramid schemes.
But no matter whether it is to attract people or to the "membership system", no matter how attractive the benefits are, the bottleneck period will always come. After the social exchange volume was exhausted, Beidian wanted to transform and upgrade in one fell swoop with the projects of "e-commerce support for farmers", "super Beidian", live broadcast, and community photo album, and tear off the label of "membership system", but it was still fruitless.
In addition, in the "2020 National Retail E-commerce (Social E-commerce) Consumption Rating List", Beidian was rated as "Putting Orders with Cautiousness".
Source: Telephone Refuge
Are “membership system” and new recruitment mechanisms false propositions?
Beidian uses the "membership system" to continuously lose users, and continues to absorb new customers through the new recruitment mechanism. This reminds me of the math problem of "release water in the swimming pool while filling water", but the answer to Beidian is negative.
It’s not that these two methods are wrong. For example, Pinduoduo, first of all, its platform does have many affordable products, which can be favored by more sinking users. Secondly, it is backed by a strong capital chain and can continuously subsidize users. There is funds and core competitiveness.
The "membership system" is used in many places, such as major video websites, Sam's supermarkets, Laogao e-commerce clubs, etc. Why are these products still healthy?
Because this cannot be separated from the tangible value and intangible value of products and services, this type of value-added service is mainly used to classify consumers. For consumers at different levels, merchants will provide products and services that are worthy of prices, so that consumers can truly feel the gains and efforts, thus forming an effective business closed loop.
Video members can see the latest video one week ahead of ordinary users; Sam members can buy products that are not available on the market; Laogao E-commerce Club members can get unique connections and knowledge in the market.
This is the value of products and services.
In fact, the most basic logic of business is that merchants provide products and buyers pay; merchants provide better products and buyers are more willing to pay, so doing good products and services is the key to the development of an excellent platform!
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