On March 20, according to Tonghuashun Financial Report,AlibabaRecently, an MMC business group was set up, with Ali partner Dai Shan responsible for community group buying. Zou Zhijun is responsible for channels, Wang Tingxiang is responsible for operation, Chen Ming is responsible for the supply chain, and Guo Wei is responsible for technology. At an internal meeting at the beginning of this month, Dai Shan said that there is no upper limit on investment in community group buying projects, and the first stop for the MMC business group is Zhengzhou.

Community group buying is one of the buzzwords in 2020, and I'm sure everyone is familiar with it. Since ordering first and then shipping, there is no need to worry about product backlogs, and intermediate distribution channels have been reduced. By ordering through online platforms, vegetable farmers can directly ship to consumers, and the cost is greatly reduced, so the price of products purchased by community groups is generally lower than in the vegetable market.

In fact, many online platforms already started community group buying in 2016, but people are used to the vegetable market, so the pace of development is slow. Travel was inconvenient until 2020. Community group purchases did not require crowds and were more convenient than traditional grocery shopping methods. So DiDi,Pinduoduo,MeituanOrange Heart Preferred, Duoduo Grocery Shopping, and Meituan Preferred were launched one after another, and community group purchases began to be arranged. At the beginning of this year, Lei Technology reported thatShun FengThey have also regained their strength and are back into community group buying, hoping to compete with Pinduoduo and Meituan with their logistics advantages.

At present, Duoduo Grocery Shopping has covered more than 300 cities, with an average daily order volume of over 10 million, and Meituan's average daily order volume surpassed 20 million in January. The advantage of these two companies is that they are well-known. They are giants in the online shopping and takeout fields, respectively. They enter the market early, making it easy to attract consumers to join. SF Express's advantage lies in channels. After all, it is a logistics company, and is more experienced in product delivery and product channels.

Alibaba's advantage in community group buying is that Taobao, Are You Hungry, and Alipay have extremely high penetration rates, can develop a huge user base, and also has Cainiao Logistics, and has also done Hema retail fresh food delivery. It is extremely experienced and has strong technical skills. Although it hasn't been officially launched yet, Alibaba's community group buying business is already a rival that Pinduoduo and Meituan cannot ignore.

The advantage of Pinduoduo and Meituan is that they have been running the community group buying business for a long time, the initial investment costs have basically been returned, and the channels are relatively perfect, so you can fight the price war with confidence. However, Alibaba's attitude is very firm this time. It has not set a cost cap and forcibly launched a community group buying business. It is estimated that it will lose quite a bit in the early stages, but later it will adopt a policy of selling more with a small profit to recover costs.

Many netizens have previously worried about whether large-scale price increases will begin if community group purchases overwhelm the vegetable market. Judging from the current situation, it probably won't. Competition among community group buying platforms is very intense, and they all need to use prices to seize the market. Even if the platform's user base is basically stable in the later stages, it won't be more expensive than the vegetable market, and shopping for groceries is also convenient.

Also, community group buying should be viewed as a supplement to the vegetable market, suitable for consumers who don't have time to go to the vegetable market to buy groceries. If you buy food in the vegetable market, you can carefully select it yourself. The quality is more guaranteed, and the timeliness is high. These advantages will last for a long time.