In 2020, the community group purchase war is in full swing. At the earnings meeting in the fourth quarter of that year, Wang Xing said, "the company will continue to invest in this area. Community group buying is a five-year, maybe once-in-10-year high-quality opportunity." In the first quarter of this year, Wang Xing's statement on Meituan's preference became "Meituan's overall growth rate is not as fast as expected" and "investment in new business will be more cautious."

Accompanied by it, Meituan announced that he would withdraw from the city in the first half of the year, and recently announced that his category orientation would shift from "community group buying" to "tomorrow reaching the supermarket".

Meituan is not alone in the change in attitude towards group buying in the community. After withdrawing the city many times, in June this year, JD.com 's community group purchase business Jingxi App, Jingxitong (the former JD.com new channel), Jingxi Peipin also merged into JD.com retail. Recently, JD.com launched Mini Program "Dongtong Tuan" to launch an exploration in the field of community group buying.

Although the new business looks different from the forgotten "community group buying", both Meituan and JD.com are reusing their previous experience. At the same time, BABA and Pinduoduo are still promoting their "community group buying" businesses, which have been integrated with the company's strategy.

For community group buying, the current actions of JD.com, Meituan, BABA and Pinduoduo have their own emphasis, but the purpose is similar-to tap the sinking market, improve user stickiness, realize supply chain and business coordination, and even improve e-commerce ecology.

"Community group buying" does not yet have the ultimate format, it is more like a means to an end. Based on their own advantages and needs, major companies have launched different explorations in the same field, and behind many actions are their bets on the possibility of the future.

Meituan JD.com, focus on Retail

In the transformation of community group buying business, Meituan and JD.com have differences and similarities in their new business ideas-Meituan continues to deepen in the retail field around the positioning of "retail + technology", while JD.com makes use of the existing retail and supply chain foundation. looking for new breakthroughs.

Click on Meituan APP to see that the "Meituan preferred selection" button is located on the home page, and the front position recommended by the information flow also shows "Meituan preferred selection" related goods, accompanied by "more favorable", "tomorrow up" and other labels, consistent with the "tomorrow up to the supermarket" positioning.

The upgraded Meituan is still focused on the sinking market, but the "supermarket" means that it is no longer just focused on fresh products, but extended to the whole category. As can be seen from the app side, Meituan's selection can now provide users with more than ten categories, including seasonal fruits, vegetables and beans, drinks and milk drinks. Meituan preferred that the gamification design in the middle of the home page is very colorful, including "earn while playing", "invite to make money", "earn eggs every day", "check in" and so on, which is also intended for customers to obtain and improve retention time.

As the previous Meituan has focused on the sinking market and has a large number of pick-up points, now the "tomorrow up supermarket" can continue to make use of these resources. According to the Daily Business News, so far, Meituan's preferred "order today, pick up the next day" service model has covered more than 2000 cities and counties across the country.

At the same time, after the brand upgrade, Meituan preferably makes Meituan one step closer to his goal of "retail + technology". In April this year, Meituan has already tested "Meituan e-commerce" in the Beijing area, and the model is "reach tomorrow". In August, 11 people of Finance and Economics reported that Meituan's e-commerce business had been merged with Meituan's preferred Business Department. In series, the recent brand upgrade optimized by Meituan coincides with the pace of the company's strategy and organizational adjustment, which once again confirms the direction of Meituan.

JD.com recently launched Dongdong Tuan Mini Program to join the group to buy the track. Dongtangtuan Mini Program mainly provides tools for the "leader", including commodity release, sharing, receiving, statistics and other functions, as well as supply chain solutions and marketing services.

In the Dongdong regiment, the "colonel" is the core to some extent. According to the Electronic Commerce Daily, Dongdong Tuan adopts the form of secondary distribution, and the big colonel can look for "help to sell". The more the number of "help to sell", the higher the income of the colonel. At the same time, after the influence of the colonel has become greater, you can find the merchant to set up targeted links and get a higher commission ratio than other leaders. In addition, the colonel can also adjust the commission ratio of "helping to sell" to achieve win-win results.

It is worth noting that at present, only leaders who have received targeted invitations or invitation codes can initiate group purchases in "Dongtong Tuan".

JD.com bet on the group-buying business of the social group, which is intended to find a new breakthrough for the retail business based on the advantages of the supply chain. The "community group purchase" mainly focuses on the pre-sale model, which is based on WeChat group fission, relying on the credit endorsement of the "head" to gather people with various needs, and there are no restrictions on the group purchase category and the population area.

At present, the representative of this model is the fast regiment under Pinduoduo. According to the Guojin Securities Research report, the DAU (number of daily active users) of Express Mini Program reached 448 per cent year-on-year in March.

In contrast, Dong Dong Tuan has an obvious "JD.com color", the suppliers are mainly JD.com self-employed and pop store merchants, and JD.com is also responsible for the logistics, customer service and after-sales of goods.In short, Dong Dong Tuan pays more attention to the reuse of JD.com platform goods and supply chain capabilities.

Dodo Ali, specializing in agriculture

Compared with Meituan and JD.com, what is done by "buy more vegetables" and "Amoy vegetables" by BABA is still similar to the "community group buying" model familiar to the outside world. The difference between the two is more reflected in the fact that the two will shift their attention to the "back end", that is, opening up the agricultural supply chain in different ways.

"Agriculture" is the key word of spelling duo. In 2020, Pinduoduo is already the largest e-commerce platform for agricultural products in China, selling fruits and vegetables to the whole country at low prices. At that time, agricultural and sideline products accounted for 16% of Pinduoduo's total transaction volume. After the rise of community group buying, Pinduoduo made great efforts to buy more vegetables.

From the app point of view, buy more vegetables to enjoy the first-class entrance of Pinduoduo's main station, providing users with fresh goods, supplemented by daily department stores. At the same time, Pinduoduo lowers the threshold for user decision-making by presenting the best-selling list, user evaluation, editor recommendation, etc., on the Buy more vegetables page. In addition, Buy more optimizes the consumption process of community group buying, allowing users to place orders directly in APP without going through the leader.

Due to his close relationship with suppliers, Pinduoduo not only supplies a large number of low-cost products, but also has more deep investment in agriculture. Last year, Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng retreated behind the scenes, and then Pinduoduo set up a "10 billion agricultural research project" to improve agricultural efficiency. In order to make buying more food more sustainable, Pinduoduo is also reducing costs. According to "later LatePost", the implementation cost of buying vegetables from Duoduo and Meituan was 15 per cent last year, and by September this year, Duoduo had dropped to 10 per cent, lower than Meituan's about 11.7 per cent.

Taocai appeared later than its peers, and BABA regarded it as an important business to infiltrate the sinking market. In BABA's financial report on Q3 in fiscal year 22, senior officials expressed the positioning of Taocai in BABA's system: "for clothing and consumer electronics, the penetration rate of 30%, 40%, 40% is already very high. The future opportunities lie in fast consumer products, food and fresh products. BABA has been in this field of high, medium and low user value in three markets, respectively, the layout of the box horse, Gao Xin retail, Amoy vegetables. "

On the app side, the Amoy entrance is located on the home pages of Taobao APP and Taote APP, and also goes beyond the role of "leader". Users can place orders directly and pick up goods in community stores. On the supply side, the business focus of Amoy is to make use of and transform stable community stores while opening up the fresh supply chain.

According to Caijing, 30% of the heads of Amoy vegetables come from small stores. Retail pass is an Internet service platform for urban community retail stores to provide ordering, logistics, marketing, value-added services, etc., to help small stores achieve digitization. The coordination of the group's capabilities provides support for Amoy to open up the supply chain. The sources of Amoy goods include the agricultural product bases and producing areas connected by the Digital Agriculture Division, and businesses such as Da Yun Fat, Retail pass, and Amoy also provide resource support for Taocai.

Turn the bow and explore separately

Since 2020, BABA, Meituan, Pinduoduo, JD.com and DiDi Global Inc. have fought a scuffle with many startups to buy the track in the community. At that time, community group buying often appeared with "huge numbers":Hundreds of cities, tens of thousands of employees, billions of financing, billions of GMV, trillions of markets.

But the upheaval was more violent than the industry players expected. Under the influence of multiple factors, start-ups sought after by capital have fallen one after another, endless investment, no timetable for profits, superimposed new industry environment, all of which are promoting community group buying participants to open up a new path.

"emphasizing profit and business synergy" has become the new industry logic-JD.com emphasizes the revitalization of the supply chain and Wechat flow; Meituan further explores the "retail + technology" strategy; increasing investment in agricultural research while reducing expenditure and enhancing business coordination; Zhang Yong will also say in BABA's Q3 financial report of fiscal year 22 that in the future, he will pay more attention to the growth quality of vegetables, optimize efficiency, and narrow losses.

On the way to new exploration, big players will encounter new problems. The community group-buying war is over, but the "community group-buying" has not disappeared, and the thinking of new business type will continue for a long time.