Qingfeng Times City is a mature community located in the Dayuan section of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone. It has been built for 4 years, covering an area of ​​40,000 square meters, 8 buildings, and more than 1,300 households.

Picture source @Visual China

Text丨Retail Krypton Planet, Author丨Weiyu Nicole

Qingfeng Times City is a mature community located in the Dayuan section of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone. It has been built for 4 years, covering an area of ​​40,000 square meters, 8 buildings, and more than 1,300 households. Currently, the unit price of second-hand houses is 22,000 to 27,000 yuan, and it is known for its surrounding supporting facilities.

At the end of September this year, a new store was opened at the entrance of Qingfeng Times City Community. The orange store sign was very eye-catching - Orange Heart Preferred Supermarket, marked NO.0280001 on the lower right side.

. It looks like an ordinary community fresh food supermarket has a social e-commerce core.

028 is the Chengdu area code. Only industry insiders know that this store is a small outpost of the community group buying battle that is currently in the eyes of the storm - the first offline physical store opened in the country by Didi Chuxing’s community e-commerce platform "Orange Heart Youxuan".

, a small community fresh food supermarket that looks like an ordinary one, is the same as an ordinary shop on the surface. In fact, it contains a "core" for new social e-commerce players to explore offline: brand communication, traffic - direct offline traffic to online mini-programs and apps, and become a forward warehouse for online orders and offline self-pickup. The "001" store means a start and exploration.

01, Orange Heart Preferred Supermarket: offline operation of consumers' small shop + forward warehouse

html On a normal day in early November, near noon, the store suddenly became lively. Someone will come to buy horse milk grapes, a handful of coriander, or a box of yogurt for the child. These people seem to be very familiar with the clerks, teasing the children, or chatting for a few words before leaving.

"The store has three kinds of vegetables for special prices every day." The special dishes are fresh vegetables on the day, and they are only sold at 0.99 yuan. One person is limited to one purchase, only for stores and cannot be purchased online. The discount for fruits that day was the "second half price".

It is said that since entering Sichuan on June 15, Didi quickly captured users with the strong subsidy policy of "9 Mao 9 Fruits and Vegetables", and quickly copied it after initially understanding the gameplay.

Several clerks are part-time young people, and they are uniformly wearing vests with the "Orange Heart Preferred" logo printed on it. The youngest one is a college student majoring in e-commerce.

A clerk said that the clerks are mainly responsible for the store operations, and there is another dedicated person to be responsible for the online operations. Compared with the store buying , clerks are actually more inclined to guide customers to place orders using the mini program "Orange Heart Preferred". An important role of the

store is that owners who are still concerned about placing online orders can come and take a look at it at any time to ensure that they can purchase online with confidence. The prices of offline products will be kept as consistent as possible with online products, except for special dishes exclusive to offline stores.

If you place an order online, the order will be cut at 11 o'clock the night before, the data will be transmitted to the company's summary and issued to the driver in the corresponding area to connect with the warehouse. The goods will be delivered to the community the next morning. What the group leader needs to do is notify the owner of picking up the goods, as well as the docking of after-sales information, refunds, etc.

Although it has only been established for half a year, Chengxin Youxuan has established after-sales service "Choosei Wuyou", promising that if users encounter product quality problems, they will have no worries about the refund. As long as the customer is not satisfied, you can return the goods no matter what the reason is. Two days ago, a customer bought rice. The bag had been removed. After eating two meals, he thought it was not delicious and returned it.

"48-hour appeal, worry-free refund" is the after-sales service method summarized by first-tier fresh food e-commerce companies such as JD.com and Hema in recent years. As soon as novices entered the market, they quickly got it, but for ordinary people, this is the embodiment of Didi's spending money and generousness.

Don’t underestimate the “Orange Heart Preferred” mini program. The categories of community group buying are no longer limited to fresh food. You can buy almost everything you can think of. There is a Walmart next to Qingfeng Times City. If there are any advantages for large supermarkets, it is that residents can shop and eat after dinner.

Putting aside the rent and huge manpower, the low cost of community group buying and the distance of 100 meters at the doorstep have been severed to traditional retail supermarkets online and offline, including Orange Heart Preferred. A large wave of community group buying brands representing the new model are fighting openly and secretly in this 40,000 square meter community.

02, Group Leader: Exploration of various wild ways

Community group purchase pre-sale-on-demand supply-delivery-self-pickup model reduces warehousing and distribution costs, and relies on the social relationship of group leaders in front-end customer acquisition, and the cost of customer acquisition is also low. Therefore, whether you can do a good job in the early stage depends on whether you can capture the team leader.

Chengdu Poly Lily Garden Community is only 200 meters away from Qingfeng Times City. The "Wuchang Fresh Rice Shop" is not conspicuous in a row of shops. The difference is that in front of the rice shop, not only is there a promotional roll-up for "Orange Heart Youxuan" and "Meituan Youxuan", but there are also a dozen meat and vegetable packages in plastic bags in "Duoduo Maicai" waiting for the owner to take them away. The female owner of

m store, in her early 30s, leisurely accompanied her daughter in front of the door, and occasionally checked out WeChat group chats.

"All three of us are doing it, so I am equivalent to the group leader. We will recommend it to the owners who are cheaper. Everyone can buy any one, but we don't care." The owner of the rice shop said that there are about 150 people in her community group buying group now, all of whom are community owners.

When talking about the difference between the three companies, she feels that each has its own strengths. There are red envelopes every day, which can be used for product deductions and more flash sales; Meituan has many product categories and fewer discounts; Pinduoduo category has fewer discounts, but the discounts are very strong, and it is very fierce.

For group leaders, the commission ratio of the three companies is about 10%, while Meituan is slightly higher, 12%. There was originally a store, and the female owner of the rice shop did not need to find another place to stock. I recommend products to the owners in the group every day, and I can also sell rice at the same time, making money on both sides.

There are two young women in the Capita De Community, which is also in the Dayuan section, who work with community group buying. They do not have ready-made stores and place the delivered goods on a 4-story shelf in the community gate every day. The group QR code is also posted on the top of the shelf, so that interested owners can scan the code to join the group. Group purchase racks such as

are becoming more and more common in many communities. The two group leaders are full of enthusiasm. Chengxin Youxuan is just one of the many community group buying products they operate. They also connect with local or surrounding specialty products in Chengdu from time to time and initiate group buying series, such as Leshan Sweet Skin Duck, Jiajiang White Cut Chicken, Chengdu Xieshenglong Pastry, etc. Every day, we continue to launch various exquisite product photos, accompanied by attractive copywriting, and the group of nearly 400 people is very active.

A group leader who has done a good job in operation is a couple who rented a house in a larger community in Shuangliu, Chengdu. They rented a small first-floor shop outside the community, and at the same time, they operated the group buying of Xingsheng, Meituan and Chengxin. They can achieve a performance of more than 200,000 yuan a month, and the monthly income of the couple can reach more than 200,000 yuan at a commission of 10%. Since you don’t have to bear any losses caused by the goods, there is almost no risk except rent and your own labor.

The same group leader may be working on Chengxin Youxuan, Meituan Youxuan, Xingsheng Youxuan , Duoduo Maicai, Shihuituan... At present, no one excludes the group leader from being a competitor group.

In the current competition for community group buying, in the Internet giant team, compared with Meituan, Pinduoduo, Alibaba , etc., Didi is the farthest away from the retail industry. Knowing your innate shortcomings, Didi is also most eager to open up the situation. Some media reported that Chengxin Youxuan chose to continue Didi Taxi’s crazy subsidy strategy and would spend 10 billion yuan in products, partners, and group leaders.

In terms of partners and group leaders, Chengxin Youxuan uses a high commission of 20% higher than Xingsheng Youxuan to encourage partners to attract new shares, group leaders, and partners, and at the same time promises the group leader to pay a service fee of 10%-30% of the turnover of the pick-up flow through a daily settlement.

has media reported that in Chengdu base camp, after large-scale orders before the National Day, the order volume of Orange Heart Preferred entered the bottom after the National Day. "The core reason is that the subsidies of the group leader did not keep up, and after the subsidies were reduced, the problems of the group leader's side gradually emerged." Like Orange Heart Preferred, each company will give additional subsidies to the group leader who is a competitor group to win over the group leader to open its own platform, and also focus on its own platform. This approach is based on the fact that market competition is still in its early stages, and the strategies of enterprises are converging, so we have to take advantage of each other and jointly expand the market.

03. The nearest community, the farthest Didi

CITIC Securities , released a community group purchase report in October this year, pointed out that the total online retail sales of agricultural products in the country was 397.5 billion yuan, and the online rate was only 3.2%. It is expected that online platforms will have certain substitutions for vegetable markets and traditional supermarkets, with huge potential space. Community group buying is considered a verified online model.

, Qingfeng Times City, a small No. 1 store, is an outpost where Didi and super Internet giants such as Tencent , Alibaba , Meituan, and Pinduoduo are currently fighting in the community group buying field. With the pace of all giants competing for the game and the ruthlessness of claiming to spend money, this melee will sooner or later evolve into the narrow path of "bayonet fighting", and now it is just a qualifying match. The entry of

, the newborn calf spirit of a small Internet giant, almost reappeared Didi's sharpness when it first launched in the travel field.

records the progress of light speed of "Orange Heart Preferred" on a public account called "Orange Dui".

html In Beijing in April, Orange Heart Youxuan has no name yet, it is just a small idea in the minds of a few people, a few strokes on the whiteboard.

htmlOn April 28, Changsha, the founding team gathered to Hunan for investigation.

htmlOn May 13, Chengdu, the initial five-person R&D team began to go into seclusion. 28 days later, on June 11, the "Orange Heart Preferred Community E-commerce" mini program was born.

htmlOn June 15, Orange Heart Youxuan officially debuted, with orders exceeding 10,000 on that day.

html On July 3, Chongqing Kaicheng was launched, and it took only 22 days to implement it. The trial operation exceeded 1,000 orders on the first day, and the online orders exceeded 1,000 orders on the 4th, and exceeded 30,000 orders in a week.

htmlOn July 31, Sichuan, Chongqing and Japanese orders exceeded 100,000.

htmlOn August 1, the battle to fulfill the contract began.

htmlOn September 11, Sichuan, Chongqing and Japanese orders exceeded 500,000.

html was launched in Xi'an on September 21, with orders exceeding 150,000 on the first day.

It is said that Didi currently provides the strongest human support for this business. The general manager of the Orange Heart Preferred Business Department is Chen Ting. He has led the special car and express business and experienced two battles between Didi, Kuaidi, and Uber. Lai Chunbo, CTO of Didi online ride-hailing platform company, was also transferred to Chengxin Youxuan. Judging from the progress after going online and the team's efforts, it is quite exciting.

A public internal letter mentioned that the Orange Heart Preferred product and R&D team "optimized 62 system problems" during the National Day holiday, and the team often worked overtime until 4 a.m.

In the office where the Chengdu headquarters is constantly expanding, the number of people has rapidly expanded from more than 20 people transferred from the headquarters to more than 500 in October. HR is in the crowded office, "almost at the top of his voice"...

As of the end of September, "Didi Youxuan" claimed that the daily order volume has exceeded 2.8 million. In contrast, Xingsheng Youxuan, the leading player in community group buying, disclosed an average daily order in September of 8 million orders - this is the highest level in the industry at present.

6 months after the business started, on October 21, Didi President Liu Qing posted a thumbs-up to the Orange Heart Preferred Team. She said, "...Without hesitation with such a partner? Let's not fall in love with each other and move forward."

html At the Didi member meeting on November 3, Didi CEO Cheng Wei said: "Didi has no upper limit on its investment in Chengxin Youxuan, and strives to win the first place in the market." The article "Wang Xing, Cheng Wei and Huang Zheng, Go to the same battlefield" recently published by Huxiu compares the advantages and disadvantages of the current major players:

Xingsheng Youxuan: leading enterprises, financing is smooth. The sinking market is the most laid out and the supply chain is relatively mature.

Meituan: traffic is not a worry, the sinking market is widely deployed, and Meituan has the experience of selling vegetables and Kuaituan, and the supply chain is relatively complete. It will definitely be the main player in the future.

Didi: has a lot of funds, and there is no pressure to go public financial report. Quickly raise the market threshold and force small competitors to death. There is a lot of traffic, but there is not much sinking market and there is no experience in supply chain. It will be very strong in the short term, and the long-term sustainability remains to be seen.

Pinduoduo: funds and sinking markets are both very advantageous. There are a group of stable suppliers who lack experience in logistics infrastructure construction. But they have strong changes and learning abilities, and not making big mistakes will definitely be the main player in the future.

Alibaba: multiple lines layout, not much internal coordination. Hema is unlikely to be the main player. It may acquire Shihuituan in the future and copy the second Ele.me .

is obvious. Didi’s entry into community group buying has made many people worry?

is undeniable. Didi has also fought many years of war, but "the business depth and complexity of travel are far lower than that of takeaway and e-commerce, and takeaway and e-commerce are lower than fresh food e-commerce/community group buying. Didi is not separated by a mountain." Although

has brought strong explosions with subsidies and sprints in the early stage, since community group buying is not closely related to its main business, it is likely to be under pressure in supply chain, logistics, and fulfillment during subsequent expansion, and start from scratch. Although Meituan, Pinduoduo and others will also face this problem, in comparison, both Pinduoduo and Meituan have retail and supply chain accumulation, and theoretically have more resources and "avoid pits".

More importantly, community group buying, subsidies can be used for the initial amount, while long-term money requires continuous investment. From the current perspective, Didi uses the speed of 100 meters to sprint as soon as it starts, is eager to win, and values ​​the number of orders and the number of expanded areas, and there are still many pitfalls to be stepped on.

Many cases in the past have been verified. In the field of retail, the supply chain is not solid, and the traffic generated by short-term high subsidies will not last long.

Some media cheered for the current "Orange Heart Preferred". "No historical burden and the constraints of rules and regulations, Didi, which is faster, has already taken the strategic advantage of the community e-commerce war."

However, community group buying is a war of attrition between protracted war and regional separatist forces. Only by living for a long time can you have the opportunity to advance and win the championship. The initiative is not of great significance, and it is easy to misjudgment the situation.

Meituan Wang Xing said that an investor who participated in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam told him, "Most people's understanding of war is wrong. War is not composed of struggle and sacrifice, but of patience and suffering." The players entering the community group buying track under the inventory of

are all tough characters, such as Meituan, Pinduoduo, Alibaba... they are rich, powerful, methodological, and accumulation. It is unknown who can finally advance to the top, but the characteristics of the people who were eliminated in this war are very obvious.

A person who has been observing the industry for a long time pointed out in an article, "Whether it is about thinking, strategic literacy, organizational motivation, business matching or capital, it is worrying. Didi should be the easiest to get out, or it is destined to be the one in the game."

Let's take a look.