According to media reports, Shihuituan has closed all its businesses in cities across China, and the company has entered its final stage, mainly dealing with the liquidation of suppliers' payments and the settlement and payment of employees' wages. As early as the end of January this year, the new suppliers of Shihuituan were offered the chance to settle payment for the goods with a one-time 30% discount. The company had received many rounds of investment from Alibaba and then has gradually been abandoned because various indicators from Shihuituan have not met Alibaba's expectations.
According to the monitoring data of the Dianshubao e-commerce big database, Shihuituan has obtained a total of 7 rounds of financing, with a total amount of more than 8.29 billion yuan, and the investors include Alibaba, Huachuang Capital, GGV Jiyuan Capital, etc. It raised a lot of funds, but spent them just as quickly. The fall of Shihuituan is related to its flow of loss settlement. It has not formed core competitiveness, lacks profitability, and can no longer operate.
Alibaba invested in Shihuituan to shorten the distance to Pinduoduo, JD.com, Meituan, and others on the community group buying business and seize market share. On the one hand, Shihuituan faced external competition, and on the other, it faced internal competition from Alibaba. Alibaba's attempts at community group buying have never stopped, with multiple business lines such as Lingshoutong, Hema Jishi, Ele.me, etc., and the merger of Hema Jishi and Lingshoutong to form MMC business groups has placed great pressure on Shihuituan. Under this pressure, it eventually became the "victim".
It is difficult for the business model to exist alone, and there are problems such as false promotions and poor after-sales service
Yuezhong Bao, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and an expert on new retail, said that community group buying, as a type of community retail, is a new form of retail, and it is very difficult for this form of retail to become an independent model.
Shuai Zhuang, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and the founder of Bailian Consulting, said that community group buying belongs to the subsidiary models now, and it needs to rely on mature platforms (such as e-commerce, supermarkets, convenience stores, etc.) for development. Therefore, independent community group buying enterprises such as Shihuituan cannot afford excessive operating costs and too long investment cycles in the face of competition. It is difficult to sustain if it is no longer supported by the capital.
According to the domestic online consumer dispute mediation platform Televised Bao, Xingsheng Youxuan, Chengxin Youxian, Shihuituan, Meituan Youxuan, etc. received complaints from users in 2021, and the complaints mainly focused on the problem of refunds, product quality, order problems, false promotions, poor after-sales service, network fraud, etc.
Community group buying will continue to exist for a long time relying on some mature business platforms
At present, the main players in community group buying are all e-commerce giants: Pinduoduo, JD.com, Alibaba, Meituan, and Didi. After all these giants entered the community group buying business, the competition on the price and the rebate of the group leader has become the norm. No one can achieve positive benefits in the short term, while the service innovation and experience innovation on the user side has stagnated. The entire industry has serious internal frictions. However, community group buying will continue to exist for a long time relying on some mature business platforms.
Source: Wanguohui