Even now, there are people who are anxious because they can't buy anything with the community 00 1 stored value card. For example, Wang Apo, who lives in a building in Xietu Road, Shanghai, said in an interview with local media: "It was agreed that 20 15 10 returned to normal, but now 18, the community 00 1 card still doesn't work. What should I do with the money in this card? " Some media even went on to write: "She (referring to Wang Apo) didn't know that this once-popular community business O2O closed down and the boss didn't know where to go."
The ups and downs of community 00 1 are embarrassing.
This company, once regarded as the pioneer of community O2O by the industry, was officially registered in March 20 12. Its founder is Shao Yuanyuan. Before he founded Community 00 1, he had the experience of being the president of SouFun. Although he finally failed to achieve the goal of SouFun IPO, he also helped the latter expand from "more than 40 cities" to "more than 300 cities".
It was this experience in SouFun that gradually evolved into Shao Yuanyuan's thinking habit of paying attention to the development of traditional Internet e-commerce and community services, and prompted him to establish the 00 1 community. At that time, he thought that the main body of online shopping in China was young people, and many middle-aged and elderly people still queued up for shopping in the supermarket sooner or later. Therefore, the mainstream consumer groups of community 00 1 are defined as middle-aged and elderly people living in the community, that is, "network novices" who are not good at using the Internet.
The first round of financing was also in the early stage of 20 12. Shao Yuanyuan, Xue Manzi and Du Guoqiang, a Malaysian Chinese who knows technology, invested more than 20 million yuan and started an ambitious and prosperous start.
Community 00 1 Take community shopping as the breakthrough point, cooperate with Shang Chao near the customer's community, 1 deliver goods within 5 kilometers per hour. My career started in Beijing. It is understood that the large supermarkets that cooperate with it include Carrefour, Century Lianhua, Metro, Yonghui and Lotus. In the next two or three years, divided by a distance of 5 kilometers, the community 00/kloc-0 initially established 26 business districts such as Ciyun Temple Business District, Wangjing Business District and Chaoyang Business District for six urban districts in Beijing ... The owners of the community bought goods from offline stores near the community 00 1 and delivered daily necessities such as rice, noodles, grain, oil, vegetables and drinks to their homes quickly through express delivery channels.
Shao Yuanyuan feels that community O2O is promising. According to his idea, shopping is only the first step. Community 00 1 will also expand life services, cooperate with beauty salons, hair salons, fitness restaurants and hotels around the business district, and pay with its electronic wallet (community 00 1 stored value card); It is also necessary to do property electronization, develop a property management system and give it to the properties of various communities free of charge ... That is to say, the bureau set up by Community 00 1 is to complete the community life service circle and become the largest service provider and intermediary.
In 20 13 years, community 00 1 pushed into Shanghai. The shopping list reads the slogan "Community 00 1 Shanghai Station-the leading online shopping supermarket in residential communities in China-saving time, effort and money". Since then, there have been many financing. According to public media reports, in 20 13, in June of 5438+00, it obtained millions of angel rounds of financing from Hai Yin Capital and Shanghai Zhijing Investment. In April 20 14, it received a series of financing of over 100 million yuan (of which Wuyue Tianxia invested 40 million yuan); On June 5438+1 October of the same year, Xue Manzi announced in Weibo that the community received $010/billion in Series B financing with a valuation of RMB 2 billion.
In addition to entering Beijing and Shanghai, by the beginning of 20 15, Community 00 1 had covered nearly 20 cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Wuhan, Shenyang, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Dalian, Tianjin, Fuzhou, Jinan and Zhengzhou.
However, it is such a community full of ambitions and dreams that the valuation is so high. In the second half of 20 15, O2O came to an abrupt end. Its ups and downs, before and after the contrast, people sigh.
2065438+A large-scale crisis broke out in September 2005. At that time, many media reported that community 00 1 was on the verge of bankruptcy because there was no money to burn after crazy subsidies. In fact, before this, there were layoffs in community 00 1 many cities, and employees could not be paid.
In view of the seriousness of the situation, Shao Yuanyuan, CEO of Community 001issued an open letter to employees on September 4th. The letter said, "We are looking for all kinds of positive and effective methods and measures to solve the company's short-term difficulties and problems", and we hope that employees will keep a cool head in the face of "a few malicious competitors and some people with motives and moral problems use such problems to create panic and chaos and stir up chaos". This letter not only failed to stabilize the "morale", but also dashed the expectations of employees more quickly. A few days later, its business stopped across the board, completely stopped taking orders, and many employees came out to ask for salary.
What is the reason for the failure?
From September, 20 15, all the news about community 00 1 "death" and the discussion about community O2O industry are on the internet. Community 00 1 promised to return to normal in June 65438+1October 18, but it could not be restored. Even until now, it has failed to complete all kinds of "clean-up" work, and it seems that it has no ability to clean up.
However, as a typical sample of community O2O, community 00 1 is still worth discussing, which is why it changed from a smash hit to "on the verge of bankruptcy", why it failed, and what "pits" community O2O should avoid.
The first is to use crazy subsidies to burn money to attract users (especially in the early stage of entrepreneurship) and try to retain users. The commodity price of community 00 1 is the same as that of its cooperative supermarket, and there is no customer delivery fee for the early promotion. Even if customers only use 1 yuan to buy things, community 00 1 will be delivered within 1 hour. Not only that, but also bear the cost of distribution, community promotion and staff (including a large number of full-time distributors). According to the interface news 2065438+ September 2005, there are nearly 100 employees in four business districts in Chongqing, and the salary of grass-roots employees is about 3000 yuan, which means that the monthly salary of employees alone needs 65438+10,000 yuan. Not to mention that Beijing has 26 business districts, not to mention the dozen or twenty cities it covers. ...
Second, the business model is not clear. Shao Yuanyuan once said that community 00 1 should first attract and retain the main consumers by burning money, and then accumulate users before considering what business model to adopt. To some extent, Shao Yuanyuan is too optimistic and underestimates the entrepreneurial difficulty of community O2O. According to the original design, Community 00 1 did not build a supermarket or e-commerce platform, but connected the large supermarkets around the community. At that time, it was thought that the profit model was to get rebates from the supermarkets that supplied it. But how many deductions can there be this time?
According to Shao Yuanyuan's vision, Community 00 1 not only cooperates with Shang Chao, but also attracts brands to settle in through the platform. He doesn't expect to make money in cooperation with monk Chao, because this part is used to develop users, and the main source of income is supported by charging the service fees of the settled brand merchants, including fresh food, electrical appliances and other businesses. In addition, logistics and distribution costs can also bring them some income. In this cycle, if the customer unit price is high (reported in 300 yuan) and the customer is sticky, it is not a problem to support the offline distribution team.
This involves the third question, that is, is the asset-oriented model feasible? The distribution teams of community 00 1 are all self-built, and without their own supply chain, the platform construction effect is not obvious, and they can only be attached to cooperative supermarkets. However, because there are too many brands in cooperative supermarkets, they cannot get the full support of one family, and as a result, they can only be reduced to "porters" who help supermarkets deliver goods for free. Although Shao Yuanyuan also wants to get rid of the fate of "porters", it is very difficult. Let's talk about whether the (distribution) team of community O2O should be built by itself. Self-built teams can control the quality of products and services, but the pressure of capital and operation can also be imagined, especially when faced with financial pressure, one more step may "die". However, Aixian Bee and JD.COM, who are similar to community 00 1, adopted a light asset model when they got home. The former delivers the goods to the owners of mom-and-pop shops and street shops, while the latter adopts crowdsourcing logistics. Of course, we can't say that these two companies will succeed by adopting this model. After all, entrepreneurship relies on comprehensive and all-round capabilities, but at least it also provides us with another way of community O2O.
4. Community 00 1 defines its main consumer groups as middle-aged and elderly people in the community, among which the price-sensitive elderly people are the main ones. Because they see and think that the mainstream people in the community are children, nannies and retired people within 24 hours. Therefore, Shao Yuanyuan also established an interactive electronic system between the property and the owners. The property can send various notices to the owners through SMS, and the internal interactive system is electronic. This is the foundation he laid for the community 00 1. In fact, this is unnecessary. However, we should also take into account that the consumption habits of the elderly are very different from those of the young. Although couriers are needed to help deliver rice, noodles, grain and oil home, start-ups may not last long by burning money subsidies. Needless to say, in the future, I will become a beauty salon, fitness and catering hotel around the business circle and become the largest service provider and intermediary in the field of community life service. The ideal is full, and the reality is too skinny.
Fifthly, after the domestic community O2O market heats up, there are too many competitors in the industry, which has also seriously suppressed and impacted the community 00 1. For example, in Beijing, the home base of community 00 1, there are at least several strong competitors, such as Aixian Bee, Duodian and JD.COM Home. In terms of operation and mode, capital reserve is better than community 00 1. If we look at the whole country, there will be more competitors. The most important thing is that community 00 1 does not have its own core competitiveness. What can it do to compete with its competitors? The capital winter is coming, which investor is willing to continue investing?
Another point, though detailed, is also worrying, that is, the system that users of community 00 1 receive membership fees in advance. It is understood that the early purchase of 1 1,000 yuan of stored-value cards was sent to 200 yuan, and later 1 1,000 yuan was sent. Although this is a discount for customers and a pre-sale method of community 00 1, it is also like a fund-raising behavior to add fuel to the flames and attract more consumers in this way. Enterprises will burn money early, and there are always hidden concerns. For consumers, are they not afraid of not getting the goods and not getting the money back?