JD.com hasn't fought a big tough battle for too long.

In the past 10 years, JD.com has not been seen in BAT's crazy participation in travel wars, takeout wars and payment wars. Based solely on its own e-commerce business, JD.com is now a company with a market capitalization of hundreds of billions of dollars.

The popularity of community group buying made JD.com have to take part in the war. Through pre-sale + pick-up, community group buying reduces the cost of warehousing and distribution, relies on the leader to reduce the cost of getting customers, and grabs the minds of users in low-line cities by virtue of low prices. How to obtain a wider range of sinking market users has been one of the most important tasks of JD.com Group in the past two years.

A Beijing-Tokyo Xipan employee told Tech Planet that Jingxi App rarely sank to counties and towns before, and Jingxi's appearance made up for this. In the future, Jingxi can also bring more low-line urban users to JD.com Mall.

However, the situation facing JD.com is not optimistic. The daily order volume of Pinduoduo's "buy more vegetables" has exceeded 2500W, while Meituan's preferred peak has also reached 2700W. By contrast, JD.com entered the game later and expanded more slowly. Tech has learned that within three months, Jingxi has opened up 12 provinces and more than 70 cities.

The most realistic problem in front of JD.com is how to seize a place when there are many giants and the force is relatively late.

Offer a reward of 20 million for the team

The founders of Internet companies like to use words such as "go out in person", "win the battle" and "put no limit on investment" to describe the importance the company attaches to a particular business.

On the morning of November 30, 2020, Liu Qiangdong, who had been away from the front line for nearly two years, proposed that he would personally lead JD.com to fight a community group-buying battle. This boosted the morale of JD.com, who invested in community group buying as early as 2018 but did not make a scale.

According to Tech Planet, on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2021, Liu Qiangdong will hold a meeting with the heads of various provinces and regions for Jingxi every morning. At the meeting, Liu Qiangdong said that if the share of the province reaches the first place, a cash reward of 20 million yuan will be given to the whole team.

A Jingxi employee told Tech that in the competition for the first place in each region, GMV, user volume, group effect, group sales, cost ratio and so on will be included in the assessment indicators. The stimulation of cash is to reduce the internal wear and tear of the same team and activate the combat effectiveness of the whole team.

Maybe he was busy with JD.com 's math IPO. After the Spring Festival, the frequency of Liu Qiangdong's personal meetings obviously decreased. "now it is Arthur (Zheng Hongyan, the head of Jingxi business group) that has meetings every day. A Jingxi Pupan internal employee told Tech Planet.

"Community group buying must use their own warehouses and their own logistics, which means cost control, quality management and data security," DiDi Global Inc. Orange Heart preferred employee told Tech Planet. "JD.com 's resources and genes are actually much better than Buy more vegetables or Orange Heart selection. Now the key depends on Lao Liu's integration strength and determination."

On December 25, 2020, Jingxi launched the conference in Dongguan and launched Mini Program on the 28th. On December 29th, JD.com integrated all his sinking businesses into the Jingxi business group.

With the help of integration, JD.com hopes that Jingxitong (formerly JD.com convenience store), which has 1 million users, can attract users as a medium, while Jingxi App can fight for Jingxi. Furthermore, Jingxitong can also be used as a pick-up point for community group buying.

A Jingxi employee told Tech that at first, in the absence of goods, Jingxi App also undertook the task of supplying supplies for Jingxi, providing as many as dozens of products every day.

Tech Planet learned from JD.com 's internal employees that JD.com had released an internal email in order to support Jingxi's efforts. "it means that as long as Jingxi wants someone, we are willing to go there, and neither the leader of the original department nor the HR can stop it. Many people in the past have been promoted across levels, but this kind of promotion is very difficult within JD.com, and it is very difficult to be promoted to one level a year, "said a JD.com retail employee."

Two senior generals, two key areas

China International Capital Corporation's research report released on February 2, 2021 predicts that community group buying can reach 1.5 trillion yuan / year transaction volume. Even if Duoduo, Meituan, Orange Heart, and Xingsheng have all achieved their scheduled GMV targets this year, the transaction volume will still be less than 500 billion. But the battle bugle sounded late, but JD.com still had a chance to win a place in the market.

The navigation of the sea depends on the helmsman, and the ability of the key figures determines the course of the war. JD.com sent two Guan Peisheng to fight: one is Shao Hongjie, the person in charge of Jingxi struggle, and the other is Li Changming, the former head of natural selection project.

Guan Peisheng is a special existence within JD.com. They win the trust of Liu Qiangdong and can report directly to Liu Qiangdong in the early stage. They are the incubation base for JD.com 's internal managers. Now JD Logistics, Inc. CEO Yu Rui is the former JD.com Guan Peisheng. Due to limited energy, the sixth phase of Guan Peisheng in 2013 became the last one for Liu Qiangdong to participate in the whole process, and Shao Hongjie happened to be the sixth phase of JD.com Guan Peisheng.

A person close to the core management of Jingxipin told Tech that JD.com 's community group buying business is currently focused on Henan and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions. In January this year, Li Changming was sent to Henan to become the head of the advance team, reporting directly to Liu Qiangdong. Other regions are reported to Shao Hongjie by the person in charge of each region, Shao Hongjie to Zheng Hongyan, the person in charge of Jingxi business group, and Zheng Hongyan to Liu Qiangdong.

From the perspective of configuration and organizational structure, JD.com 's determination to community group buying will inevitably arouse doubts from the outside world. Pinduoduo, Meituan and DiDi Global Inc. all regard the community group purchase business as a separate enterprise group. And Jingxi is only a business department under the Jingxi business group.

Abu, the person in charge of Duoduo Buy, is one of the founding members of Pinduoduo. Chen Liang, the person in charge of Meituan, is a S-team member of Meituan's top management and decision-making body, while Chen Ting, the person in charge of Orange Heart, is considered to be the person with the strongest business ability of DiDi Global Inc.. The two senior generals of Jingxi, Li Changming, used to be the director of the food category of JD.com Mall, and Shao Hongjie was the person in charge of JD.com 7FRESH community group shopping. They are far less important to JD.com than Abramovich to Pinduoduo, Chen Liang to Meituan and Chen Ting to DiDi Global Inc..

Li Changming has a good reputation in JD.com Retail Group. There is no problem with doing platform business, but expansion is not necessarily. JD.com, a former employee familiar with Li Changming, commented to Tech Planet.

Tech learned from JD.com insiders that Jing Xi is mostly recruiting students for Guan Peisheng and the school. "Brother Dong hopes to use these people more, because Jingxi is equivalent to a new kind of vitality, which is different from the original JD.com main station, and the company also hopes to break JD.com 's old thinking of purchasing and selling. "

However, Guan Peisheng, who grew up from within JD.com, obviously had his own limitations, so he chose Zheng Hongyan, a professional manager with more experience, as the head of the entire business group. "Zheng Hongyan has his own resources and has a more diversified vision," commented a JD.com insider.

JD.com wants to fight a protracted war

Due to the late entry of a large scale, JD.com 's strategy in community group buying is obviously different from that of Pinduoduo, Meituan and DiDi Global Inc..

JD.com adopts the mode of internal and external combination, JD.com is doing exploration internally, and JD.com has injected US $700 million into the prosperity optimization outside. Tech Planet learned that the cooperation between JD.com and Xingsheng optimal selection is still deepening, and JD.com wants to provide bid supply for Xingsheng optimal selection. Of the 40 billion GMV selected by Xingsheng last year, 32 billion were non-standard and 8 billion were standard.

An insider close to Jingxi's core management told Tech that there are now two groups of people, one is doing Jingxi, and the other is docking Prosperity selection.

In the second quarter of 2020, many vegetables, Meituan and Orange Heart began to join the community group buying, relying on strong financial support, they hit subsidies and opened the city as soon as possible. "JD.com hopes to fight a protracted war and does not pursue Kaesong speed too much, and subsidies are no longer meaningful," the person said.

"there was no quick preemption strategy from the beginning. The latter will recruit a smaller, tougher, preferably experienced team, open a city, and then move on to the next city in the province when it is stable enough. "

Jingxi employees also seem to be aware of the situation. A Jingxi employee said that at present, Jingxi can't compete with the other three companies, but it can't be too backward. The second is to attach importance to quality and group effect, and the next is to roll it out in an all-round way.

Interestingly, so far, Jingxi has not set a target for Kaesong or GMV for the whole year. A Jingxi insider said that the group wants BC integration (B-end and C-side), to integrate the KPI of the new channel and the KPI of Jingxi. This is regarded by some employees as not paying enough attention to community group buying within the group.

Xu ran, CFO of JD.com Group, said after JD.com released his results for the fourth quarter of 2020: "the sinking e-commerce market is very volatile and highly competitive. Our short-term strategy is not to aggressively acquire users and expand infrastructure, but to build core competencies and upgrade technology in a down-to-earth manner. "

In the way of opening the city, Jingxi is more inclined to the countryside to surround the city.

"the other three companies will choose to do business in densely populated provincial capitals first, and then spread out from provincial capitals and send them to other cities to support Kaesong, which seems to be very efficient and high-profile. However, after the infiltration is completed in a hurry, when it comes to the implementation of the contract and distribution, it is easy to drop the chain. "an analysis of a Jingxi Pinpin employee said.

On the other hand, Jingxi is more inclined to "intensive farming". "from the village, to the township, and then to the county seat, and finally to the whole province-- a province that can be lit up within two months for Meituan and Orange Xin. Jingxi Pingpin is expected to take a year to fully light up. "the employee added.

This creates an illusion for most pairs.

"the speed of Kaesong in Jingxi is very slow. "A number of industry insiders who have come into contact with Tech have made such comments. An employee who bought more vegetables said that they didn't care about Jingxi at all and "didn't have them as competitors in the first place."

Based on this strategy, it seems a little cautious in recruiting people to Beijing. "some cities even recruit only competitor personnel from 1max 6 to 1max 5. From the logic of recruitment, this approach seems to be training a backbone force with experience value in snowball." If a city steps on a pit, the second city has a better chance of avoiding it. Under the scale effect of Becton Dickinson & Co's experience, the speed of Kaesong will naturally accelerate in the later stage. "

A community group buying employee who has just changed his job to Jingxi is quite satisfied with this method. "in this way, whether it is personnel training or everyone's working status, it is relatively saturated, and there are very few cases of touching fish. He revealed that his region's daily average GMV, order users, as well as delivery implementation time limit, have exceeded the orange heart optimization.

But a partial victory doesn't mean anything. If JD.com wants to win a share in community group buying, he needs to quickly make up for the shortcomings in addition to the advantages of warehouse allocation, such as the supply chain.

"because it is decided on the basis of sales, the timeliness of distribution is critical, and with the central warehouse and grid warehouse model, suppliers have to get the goods ready and delivered to the central warehouse within a few hours, which is a great challenge and difficulty, and not all suppliers can do it. Therefore, a large number of JD.com 's high-quality suppliers have not been brought in, and they all find their own local mining suppliers. "said a person in charge of attracting investment in the supply chain.

Every player in group buying in the community is not short of money and determination. As a company with 320000 people, JD.com needs to improve executive efficiency and greater determination.