What is the model of social e-commerce?

Pattern classification of social e-commerce

The three modes of collective purchase, distribution and community group purchase are all based on the acquaintance network under strong social relations, and guide users to spread independently through price concessions, distribution incentives and other means. So only these three modes are discussed here. Content-based social e-commerce, such as Little Red Book, originated from social communities with weak social relations, and created synergies with products through high-quality content to attract users to buy.

1, purchase category

1) pattern analysis

They gather two or more users and organize groups through social sharing. After success, you can enjoy greater discounts, enhance the enthusiasm of users through low prices, and let consumers spread themselves.

After years of development, traditional e-commerce has entered the stage of brand upgrading under the background of "consumption upgrading", with traffic gradually concentrated in head businesses and a large number of low-end production capacity eliminated. This part of excess capacity is perfectly combined with the needs of users in third-tier and below cities. By taking advantage of WeChat social channels to gain customers, centralized social e-commerce quickly penetrated into third-tier and below cities, achieving explosive growth.

Its target users are price-sensitive users in low-tier cities, mainly commodities with high consumption frequency and wide audience, such as daily necessities and clothing, most of which are less than 100 yuan. Low price is the key to attract users to share and spread, and the main reasons why the public can buy social e-commerce at a low price are as follows:

A, guide users to share in group work, reduce the cost of obtaining customers, and increase users' stickiness in game-like way;

B. Shopping socialization embodies the characteristics of "discovery" shopping. The platform integrates a large number of flow sinks into a few explosive products through reverse recommendation algorithm, and drives the production end to reduce costs through scale;

C. The platform concentrates a large number of orders through the way of grouping, and obtains the premium right to the upstream. At the same time, the merchants entering the platform are mainly factory stores, which greatly shortens the supply chain and reduces the intermediate costs.

2) Advantages

Attracting users to actively open groups only requires a drainage cost. In order to reach an order as soon as possible, users will share it in their social relationship chain. In the process of communication, group information may also attract other users to open a group again, and the number of communication times and orders will increase fission.

3) Trends and challenges

With the gradual development and maturity of the industry, a large number of players will enter the market, and the cost of acquiring customers will rise rapidly. The low-cost advantage of social e-commerce will gradually be lost, and the process of brand transformation will still be faced. The powerful premium right and traffic collection ability of brand merchants actually conflict with the thinking that such platforms win at low prices.

2. Distribution category

1) mode analysis is a business mode of connecting suppliers and consumers to realize commodity circulation under S2b2c mode. "S" refers to the distribution platform that provides standardized services for the whole industry chain. "B" refers to the pusher of the shopkeeper, who is only responsible for customer acquisition and user operation. "c" refers to the user. Under the "traditional WeChat business" mode, individual shopkeepers need to complete the whole process of purchase, pricing, sales and after-sales consumption. As for the "distribution" social e-commerce platform, the distribution platform provides standardized services for the whole industry chain, and shopkeepers can earn income by sharing and recommending through social relationships.

2) Advantages

The advantage comes from the customer bonus brought by distribution fission. Through attractive promotion and incentive mechanism, the platform benefits shopkeepers, promotes shopkeepers to innovate and promote products, and effectively reduces the customer acquisition and maintenance costs of the platform.

On the other hand, shopkeepers will also enjoy discounts when purchasing goods on the platform, which effectively enhances the activity and loyalty of platform members.

3) Trends and challenges

In the early stage of the development of membership-based e-commerce, a large number of former WeChat business practitioners poured in, which promoted the rapid development of the industry. Many brands and e-commerce companies have entered the market, exploring ways to leverage the small B-end to achieve rapid fission. At this stage, the competition and cultivation of small B-end is the main task of each platform.

On the other hand, when the penetration rate reaches a certain level, the industry competition will return to the middle and back-end supply chain and service capabilities.

3. Community group buying

1) pattern analysis

Community group buying mode is also a kind of S2b2c. Community group buying platform provides warehousing, logistics and after-sales support, and community leaders (usually Ma Bao or community convenience store owners) are responsible for community operations, mainly including community operations, order collection, commodity promotion and distribution.

After the community residents join the order, the community group buying platform will uniformly distribute the goods to the delegation leader, and the consumer will pick up the goods at home or the delegation leader will complete the last mile distribution.

2) Advantages

The core value of community group buying mode is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.

1) The social network of light acquaintances centered on the team leader facilitates the natural spread of products in the community and can effectively reduce the cost of obtaining customers;

2) Community residents need to place an order in advance and complete the payment. The platform locks orders through the prepayment system, collects a large number of orders to gain bargaining power with upstream suppliers, and at the same time reduces losses and inventory costs through sales;

3) In the logistics stage, the supplier transports the goods to the warehouse of the platform, and the platform is responsible for transporting the goods to the heads of various communities, who will complete the last mile distribution or the users will pick up the goods at home. There are few intermediate links, and the terminal distribution cost is effectively controlled.

3) Trends and challenges

Community group buying mode is relatively simple, and the industry threshold is not high. In the mode of community group buying, the transfer cost of group owners and users is not high, and they are not too loyal to the platform. The key to attract users to buy is good quality and cheap goods, and the large-scale growth of orders can also push down costs in reverse. Therefore, industry competition is ultimately the ability of supply chain and refined operation.