In 2022, Harbin community group buying showed explosive growth, and the "heads of state" also gradually grew stronger in the business war that could not see the smoke of gunpowder. Some of them withdrew from the store franchise group buying, some united community merchants online coupons offline drainage, and some opened group buying live broadcasts in the community –
With the rapid development of the group buying platform, as an important port in the group buying process of the entire community, the "heads" have experienced the survival of the fittest in just one and a half years. In order to not rely solely on one or two e-commerce platforms, the "heads" of the "winners" have constantly broken the old thinking, adapted to the new situation, and changed their business thinking.
"What I’m doing now is trying to convert user resources into commercial value for my use," said Wang Bingshuo, the "head of community group buying" in Songbei District, Harbin. In order to establish a firm foothold in the tide of community group buying and make it a "serious business" that can settle down, they keep exploring. Some of them operate online and cooperate with community business assistants offline, some start to rub the popularity of live broadcast, and some position themselves as a "community channel" that can organize everything…
Group buying and delivery ↑
According to Tianyancha data, there are currently more than 300 group buying enterprises in the country, most of which are located in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta regions. Community group buying platforms include dozens of big brands all over the country such as Meituan Preferred and Duoduo Shopping, as well as local group buying platforms such as Jiubai Street and Dailuobo.
Light asset "head", redeem the supermarket franchise group buying
Songbei Evergrande Oasis Community Meituan "Leader" Wang Bingshuo rose from the lowest level of "Leader" to the highest level of five "Leader" in just one week. "At the beginning, there were many people in our community who were’Leaders’, but most of them didn’t make it. In the end, I and another’Leader ‘persisted." Wang Bingshuo said, "In the past year, my average daily order volume has been around two or three hundred orders, with a total of three user groups and a total customer volume of about 300 people."
Wang Bingshuo first ran a supermarket in the community, receiving and delivering goods in the supermarket every day, and then notifying the group members to pick up the goods. After operating for a period of time, Wang Bingshuo found that the group buying business came up, but the supermarket business came down. The reason is very simple, buying things online is cheaper than in brick and mortar stores, of course, I bought them online. After thinking about it, Wang Bingshuo decisively gave up the supermarket operation and specialized in community group buying.
Every afternoon, after receiving a call from the delivery staff, Wang Bingshuo will drive a pickup truck to the gate of the community to pick up the goods. "After receiving the goods, immediately notify the group members to pick them up. If some people are not at home or cannot pick them up temporarily, I usually deliver them to the door or keep them until the group members go home to pick them up," Wang Bingshuo said.
After getting rid of the burden of rent, Wang Bingshuo made it easier to start a business with light assets. "In order to retain the members of the group, I invested the saved rent in giving back to the customers." Wang Bingshuo said that the first idea was to send red envelopes in the group buying group, giving away drinks, eggs and other physical objects. This year, I adopted offline interaction and other methods to retain and expand customers, trying to extend the user’s business resources horizontally.
Integrate group buying resources from online to offline
E-vouchers are one of Mr. Wang’s methods. "As long as it is my customer, no matter how much he spends on things, as long as he repurchases a certain number of times, I will send him a 5 yuan or 10 yuan electronic voucher, and he can go to a designated merchant near the community to offset the cash use," Wang Bingshuo said.
Giveaways for group buying members ↑
Offline consumption coupons presented to group members ↑
Wang Bingshuo’s electronic vouchers are all negotiated by one of his stores near the community. "For example, I went to the Malatang shop at the entrance of the community and told the owner that I issued the electronic voucher, and the consumer showed the electronic voucher, which can directly offset the consumption amount." Wang Bingshuo said, "For every purchase, I am regularly responsible for verifying the cash back, which can not only attract money to the merchant, but also stimulate my members to spend online. Moreover, when my consumers go to the brick and mortar store to consume and show the electronic voucher, it is also very likely to bring me more new customers. This is a win-win situation, so offline merchants are basically very welcome. Malatang, burger shop, pharmacy, barbecue shop are all my cooperative merchants. At present, there are three or four merchants that I have cooperated with, and I don’t want to expand too many merchants. The main reason is that my customer base is not enough at present, so what I need to do now is to expand more customers. I want to let the merchants I cooperate with benefit, so that my customers can benefit. My role is to build this bridge of mutual benefit and win-win results, and to get the fees I win from it. "
"The reason for doing this is to better develop customer resources and use them for me. This will achieve cross-border drainage from online to offline." Wang Bingshuo said that this idea was developed by himself. Since 2022, about 200 members have taken e-coupons to the brick and mortar store to spend. Wang Bingshuo’s average monthly income is around 6,000 yuan, which is also in the top 10 among the "head of the group" in Songbei District. "Last year, more than 30,000 of what I earned was basically invested in the group members, and I didn’t leave anything behind. I don’t think about how much money I made in the present, but to make more money in the future," Wang Bingshuo said.
Group buying suddenly stopped, transitioning from community group to community group
On April 16, Harbin online community group buying stopped. According to incomplete statistics, only Meituan group buying one, there will be about two or three hundred community groups in the city to suspend business.
"Post-90s" Xiao Lu joined the army of "head of the group" as early as the rise of Meituan community group buying. Like most other "head of the group", Xiao Lu runs a supermarket in the Daoli Engineering Community. "I am familiar with the Internet and have mastered all kinds of winds. After a period of observation, I feel that traditional supermarkets must transform online compared with community group buying, so while running supermarkets, I also do community group buying of several brands." Xiao Lu said that in more than two years, the customer base is basically fixed at about 200 people.
"Running a group buying group is actually very sophisticated. Many people think that they just need to spend a little bit of time every day to receive the goods and notify the group members to pick them up. In fact, this is not the case," Xiao Lu said. "Whenever a group member comes to pick up the food, I will recommend them to join the community group I set up. In the group, I will send some special product information from time to time, and sometimes I will send some red envelopes to give back to the group members."
Because of the suspension of online group buying, Xiao Lu’s community group has become active. "Many members in the group always ask when the delivery will resume," Xiao Lu said. "They all ask me if I can organize everyone’s group buying some milk, bread, vegetables or something. I run a supermarket myself and know some suppliers, so I help you buy some daily necessities, and the price is also the lowest. During that time, there were about a dozen orders per day on average, which not only made it convenient for community residents, but also allowed me to accumulate my own customer resources. This makes me more optimistic about the model of community group buying. Regardless of whether there is platform support or not, as long as you do it with your heart, you can do it well."
From local group buying to "community live"
"The local farmers’ ****** eggs are 80 cents a piece, and the soybean oil is also freshly squeezed soybean oil. Consumers can eat things like this with confidence." Wang Shilin, general manager of Jiubai Street, a local group buying brand in Daqing, said that the main reason for being favored by local citizens is the high quality and low price. We entered the community group buying track in April 2019. "The original intention of the establishment is to give full play to the advantages of community group buying close to the people, while avoiding the drawbacks of numerous categories." Wang Shilin said that many large group buying platforms have many suppliers, and there are more products in the same category. In our words, there are many imitations, and fresh products are lost due to long-distance transportation, so the consumer experience is different, which quite affects the reputation of the platform. So we choose high-quality fresh fruits and ve***ables produced in Heilongjiang as products, focusing on cooperation with local farmers, local ve***able wholesale markets and general agents of various commodities, the cost is relatively low. With the Dongfeng of national community group buying e-commerce, it has become a local head community group buying platform serving 200,000 families.
Daqing Jiubai Street Pickup Point ↑
Jiubai Street delivery warehouse and logistics vehicle ↑
"Dear, we will kill in the live stream at 10:00 am, don’t miss it." Right now, community group buying has also rubbed the heat of live streaming and goods, and they have turned to short video platforms.
"If the community group buying is the 1.0 of group buying, then live + group buying is the 2.0 era of group buying upgrade." Harbin Douyin live streaming host "Sister Le" said that in the live stream, seckill is carried out by sharing the QR code to Moments, and linking to Moments will bring more intra-city traffic. After the traffic enters the community, it is re-promoted and diffused by sharing the live stream link. This private domain traffic dissemination matrix is very amazing, especially in small counties and other relatively concentrated areas. Because the relationship between people is closer, the communication effect based on trust will be better.
A while ago, Daqing Jiubai Street community opened a group buying live broadcast. In the nearly 5-hour live broadcast, 585,000 people entered the live broadcast room and placed an order of 61004 orders. A total of 35 tons of rice, 2 tons of beans, 14 tons of Russian flour, 6 tons of eggplant, 3 tons of grapes, 3.5 tons of soybean oil, 3 tons of Baijiu, and the total order amount is nearly 900,000 yuan. And such a special live broadcast will be carried out twice a month.
"This year is a bonus year for Douyin’s group buying live broadcast in the same city." Sister Le said that it’s not that the business is not easy to do now, but the method is useless. Drawing customers to buy group buying goods through live broadcast will bring double traffic and income. A few days ago, we did a group buying live broadcast for a pet store in Harbin, which directly brought 3 times the income to the store.
From the beginning of 2022, Harbin community group buying has clearly shown explosive growth. On the one hand, more people choose this contactless home delivery model, and on the other hand, the scale effect of community group buying has begun to appear. After the accumulation of last year, the popularity of community group buying of major brands has become more and more prosperous, the network has become more and more extensive, and the sales volume has increased. What is more gratifying is that the group members who have settled down also more recognize this model, and the repurchase rate is very high. "Due to the repeated epidemics across the country, consumers who cooperate with prevention and control measures at home have an increasing demand for online fresh purchasing, and various new methods and gameplay will be extended in the future," Wang Bingshuo said.
"If the’head of the group ‘wants to do well, he has to understand his own development direction and have his own plans." Wang Bingshuo said, "I have a bolder idea that has not been realized. When the number of merchants and customers has accumulated to a certain extent, customers can be converted into each other. If a customer sends Moments for three days in a row, then his neighbors and friends will basically know about my consumption channel. Consumers will compare. If he finds that my group is more favorable than other groups, then he is likely to jump directly from other groups to my group. At present, my customer resources are not very large. My goal is not to integrate the customer resources of a nearby community, but to integrate the customer resources of more nearby communities, and even the group buying customer base of the entire Songbei District." In order to realize this plan, Wang Bingshuo plans to use this year’s "head of delegation" income to attract more members. (Harbin Daily reporter, Wan Jia)
