Recently, a Times Weekly reporter learned exclusively that JD.com has opened an acquisition of Meijia Maicai, a sub-brand of the fresh food e-commerce platform Meicai.com.
An insider close to the senior executives of Meijia grocery shopping has confirmed to reporters that the situation is true. However, the amount of the acquisition is currently unknown, and industry insiders predict that it will not exceed US$200 million.
According to public information, Meijia Shopping is a community group buying platform, that is, with the community as the unit, the mother or the shop owner becomes the group leader, and the community residents are organized to join the group online with the help of WeChat groups, small programs, etc., and deliver them offline Self-mentioned, the platform provides procurement, logistics warehousing and after-sales support.
It is worth noting that the acquirer Jingdong is also actively preparing for community group buying business. Earlier, media reports stated that at the morning meeting of JD executives on Monday (November 30), Liu Qiangdong, chairman of the board of directors of JD.com, said that he would personally lead the team off the court to make good use of JD’s community group buying business.
Currently, JD.com has integrated its community group buying business Youjia Shop, Cricket Buying and Jingdong District Buying, and has set up a community group buying business department under the omni-channel business group of JD.com. The person in charge is Shao Hongjie. The reporter of
Times Weekly learned that Shao Hongjie was the business person in charge of the purchase project in Jingdong District before, and was the sixth management trainee of Jingdong.
In 2013, after Liu Qiangdong personally decided and named "Jingdong District Buy", he personally led him and several other Jingdong management trainees to form a unique small team to implement the business.
In addition, a Times Weekly reporter learned through a headhunting office that Jingdong Group Jingxi Division is also vigorously recruiting heads of community group buying business positions. The candidates are mainly from Internet companies that deploy community group buying business such as Meituan and Pinduoduo.
From toB to toC
It is reported that Meicai.com, founded in 2014, is a well-known B2B fresh food supply chain company, mainly engaged in the to B business of food distribution.
Meijia Food is upgraded from the original community group project Meijia Youxiang. It belongs to the professional community group buying platform of Meicai. It is mainly engaged in to C business directly to consumers. It was launched in June 2018.
According to the data from Tianyan, the main business entity of Meijiamai is Beijing Meixian Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Meicai.com, and the two companies are jointly affiliated with Hong Kong Spruce Technology Co., Ltd. The reporter of
Times Weekly also learned that when the community group buying started in 2018, Meijia Youxiang, the predecessor of Meijia grocery shopping, and Squirrel Fighting were the first batch of platforms for business development in China at that time. Chen Shilong, head of Xiang, is the No. 3 employee of Meicai.com.
Meijia Youxiang acquired several small local communities in North China through group purchases, and started fission based on the scale of more than a dozen cities. After three months, it was exposed to huge financing, and then developed rapidly. DAU and other data were used in the community that year. The leading enterprises in the regiment are at the leading level.
On April 13, 2019, Meijia Shopping Mall opened in Meijia Youxiang Mini Program. The purchasing method of the offline grocery shopping channel was changed from group grouping to pre-sale, mainly using the pre-warehouse model. Beijing opened the city for it "The First City", the embryonic form of a community group buying model is emerging.
On May 20, 2019, Meijia Youxiang was officially upgraded to "Meijia Grocery", which aims to focus more on the family’s three meals a day without emphasizing the concept of “grouping” and move closer to the Internet for grocery shopping. Join group and grocery shopping attributes.
Regarding the reasons for Meijia’s online shopping, an insider said, “Meicai.com is a unicorn in the B2B field and has always wanted to do 2C business. After reading many models at the time, Meijia decided to do the community group project Meijia. Youxiang.”
A supplier close to Meicai’s grocery shopping said that Meicai.com owns agricultural supply chain resources, but what it lacks is online 2C traffic. Meicai.com serves as an entrance for Meicai.com to obtain C-end traffic. Choosing grocery shopping as the main focus is precisely the flow requirement. Liu Chuanjun, the founder of
, once said bluntly, "Meicai is a supply chain company." In his opinion, the logic of toB and toC is not the same. “The subsidy of toC is to obtain traffic, and toB must rely on services to retain users.” In addition, according to a report by Yibang Power, Meicai.com once received Nearly 1 billion yuan of investment, the investor may be its early investor Shunwei Capital. According to people familiar with the matter, this round of financing will be mainly used for the layout of its community group project Meijia Youxiang.
Therefore, in the early stage of the establishment of the Meijia Youxiang project,It is highly valued by Shunwei Capital Chairman, Xiaomi Technology Chairman Lei Jun and Meicai CEO Liu Chuanjun.
Lei Jun personally presided over the relevant meetings that year and made Meicai.com to invest heavily in Meicai.com. It was the general direction set by Liu Chuanjun and Lei Jun at the meeting. Lei Jun mentioned that he wanted to All in Meicai.com at the meeting held jointly with Meicai.com. Lei Jun himself publicly stated that "the rural Internet industry is our core investment area in the next ten years." How
complements
After the reshuffle of the community group buying industry in 2019, Meijia Shopping has become one of the few "surviving" companies.
Meijiamaicai CEO Wang Tianye said recently that the Meijiamaicai platform has covered about 31 provinces and cities, covering more than 20 million users, with a total turnover of about 2 billion yuan in 2019. The
Aladdin Mini Program Index in June 2020 shows that in the community group buying circuit, the top five platforms are Xingsheng Optimal Group, Shihui Group, Meijia Grocery, Food Sharing Club, and Tongcheng Life.
Among them, apart from Meicai.com, the other four are backed by Internet giants. Behind Prosperity Optimum, Food Sharing Club, and Tongcheng Life is Tencent, and Shihui Group is behind Ali.
Since Internet giants frequently announced their entry into the community group-buying track this year, leading community group-buying startups such as Xingsheng Optimal, Meicai.com (the parent company of Meicai.com) and Shihui Group have experienced brain drain and performance losses.
According to a number of former employees of Meijia Grocery, which broke the news to reporters of Times Weekly, about 40% of the warehouse staff and 60% of the quality control staff of Meicai.com were mostly used by Didi’s community group buying platforms such as Orange Heart and Baoneng. Other leading community group buying platforms poached with high salaries, or left.
Not only that, the news that Meijia's grocery shopping is gradually closing the city began to be released frequently in the second half of this year. Z1z
Times Weekly reporter learned that November 25 was the last day of Meijia's grocery delivery in Changsha. The supplier was notified in advance to clear the goods and return the deposit. In Guangzhou and other cities, its related business has long been closed. According to analysis by industry insiders, for the new entrant JD.com, it may be the best choice for it to catch up with other giants through the acquisition of community group buying old players "Meijia Buying" and self-built community group buying platform.
For Meicai.com, selling the C-side project "Meicamaicai", which may currently be profitable, to JD.com, may alleviate the current dilemma of staff turnover and frequent business withdrawal. A data from
China E-commerce Research Center shows that 4% of the more than 4,000 fresh-food e-commerce entrants are flat, 88% lose money, and the remaining 7% are huge losses. In the end, only 1% made a profit. Liu Chuanjun, CEO of
Meicai.com, publicly disclosed at the end of last year that Meicai is still at a loss but has good cash flow. It is expected to achieve profitability by the end of 2020 and achieve large-scale profitability in 2021. However, industry insiders believe that due to the impact of this year's epidemic, the profit plan of Meicai.com in 2020 may change. Selling Meicaimaicai to JD.com will be of great benefit to Meicai.com itself.
A senior community group buying practitioner confessed to the Times Weekly reporter that the giants’ entry into the community group buying will also put greater operating pressure on platforms such as Tongcheng Life and Food Sharing. It is not ruled out that under the urge of capital, opportunities for mergers and reorganizations will continue to appear in the future track.
