Recently, the incident of collecting user information in violation of regulations by a subsidiary of Vipshop has aroused widespread public concern. Vipshop once became the third largest e-commerce platform in China after Ali and JD.com. However, as Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. actively build e-commerce systems and the rapid rise of C2M, Vipshop, which has not seized the opportunity of e-commerce traffic dividends and lacked innovation in model and management, has gradually lost its competitiveness in the industry . Under the situation of lagging behind, Vipshop is applying for a consumer finance license and deploying offline physical stores. Can this series of measures break the dilemma Vipshop is facing now?
"Investor Net" Pang Yu
On October 26, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology notified the list of 131 APP companies that infringed on the rights and interests of users. Guangzhou Vipshop Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Vipshop", VIPS.US) professional The Daigou wholesale platform "Wei Daigou" is included. The notice showed that "Wei Daigou" had problems collecting personal information in violation of regulations and forcing users to use the targeted push function. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requested rectification as soon as possible.
However, Vipshop does not seem to attach great importance to this and actively respond to rectification. As of November 10, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology once again announced that after re-inspection, there are still 60 apps that have not been rectified as required, and "Only Daigou" is still included. Regarding the above question, "Investor Net" wrote to Vipshop via email, but did not receive a reply from the other party.
The above violations are not new. In addition to the notification from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, on November 25, the Guangdong Provincial Communications Administration officially notified that 88 apps such as Vipshop and Xunlei have hidden data security risks and violated personal information protection regulations. It is reported that the published "app list with problems" shows that Vipshop integrates multiple third-party SDKs that can collect personal information in the application, and it does not specify in the privacy policy one by one and whether to share information with third parties. This action has violated the rights of users, and there are security risks such as the risk of Webview plaintext storage of passwords, and Webview File homologous policy bypass loopholes.
is a traditional special sale platform. Since Vipshop was established in 2008, its first e-commerce model of "brand-name discount + limited-time purchase + genuine guarantee" has attracted a large number of customers. With its price advantage, Vipshop became the third largest e-commerce platform in China after Ali and JD.com. However, with Douyin and Kuaishou actively constructing e-commerce systems, and the rapid rise of C2M, Vipshop, which has not seized the opportunity of e-commerce traffic dividends and lacked innovation in model and management, is constantly squeezed by e-commerce giants Gradual loss of competitiveness in the industry. According to data released by Analysys, in the third quarter of 2020, the transaction scale of China's online retail B2C market was RMB 1,869.2 billion, and Vipshop’s market share was only 2.5%, far behind Tmall and JD.com.
However, Vipshop will have its own understanding. Its financial report stated that in the third quarter, net revenue reached 23.2 billion yuan (about 3.4 billion US dollars), an increase of 18.2% year-on-year, and GMV exceeded 38.3 billion yuan. Strong growth in the number of users and orders of Pinhui. Behind the 36% and 35% increase in the number of total active users on the Vipshop platform year-on-year, it reflects that a series of new marketing initiatives launched by Vipshop this year have achieved certain results.
However, despite maintaining profitability for 32 consecutive quarters, due to the low gross profit margin, Vipshop will need to keep costs at a low level for a long time.
has a market view that blindly reducing costs is not a long-term solution. How to expand the scale of users and develop new sales channels has become a key factor in determining the future development of Vipshop.
Obviously, Vipshop seems to have noticed this. At present, the measures taken by Vipshop are to increase advertising and marketing efforts and deploy offline physical stores. But in terms of effect, it is not very satisfactory. The
consumer finance license is approved. The effect is still unknown.
has increased the company's business by obtaining a consumer finance license. This is a matter of recent concern for Vipshop.
On September 30, the official website of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a reply regarding the preparation of the Sichuan Vipshop Fubon Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. The approval of
shows that the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission agreed to Vipshop (China) Co., Ltd. to establish Vipshop Fubon Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The company should strictly follow the requirements of relevant laws and regulations to review the qualifications of shareholders and handle preparations, starting from the date of approval Complete the preparatory work within 6 months. This means that by the end of March 2021, Vipshop Fubon’s consumptionFinancial companies will appear in the public eye.
In recent years, consumer finance licenses have become very popular and have become the focus of competition among Internet companies.
In fact, Vipshop proposed to establish a consumer finance company as early as 2018. After two years, I finally waited for the consumer finance license. It can be seen that Vipshop is very eager to regain the competitiveness of the mainstream “track” through this "admission ticket", but this late consumer finance license is very effective. It is not yet known how much Vipshop financial business will help.
Pangu Think Tank Senior Researcher and Internet Finance Senior Researcher Jiang Han told Investor.com, “Vipshop’s acquisition of a consumer finance license may be a good choice now, but it’s not a good choice. It’s a good thing, because the market saw that after the ant’s listing was suspended, in fact, there are a lot of discussions in the entire market about how Internet companies will go on the road of consumer finance in the future. So in this case, even if you get it For the relevant licenses, for the entire market, Vipshop may not have such a good market prospect. "
In the past few years, domestic Internet finance has grown rapidly. Although e-commerce giants led by Taobao and JD.com first launched financial services such as Huabei and Baitiao, it proved that the "e-commerce + finance" model is feasible. However, Jiang Han said, “For Vipshop, the models explored by companies such as Ant and JD Digital may not necessarily meet the needs of the current market development in a sense. It may not necessarily become a new profit growth point."
Jiang Han believes that “360 Mathematics, Ant Financial, including these companies in the entire Internet financial system, did make a lot of profits, but the development prospects of the entire market, after the suspension of Ant’s listing, actually exist. Larger unknowns. In the future, with the country’s gradual regulation of the market, there is actually quite a big uncertainty about where consumer finance will go." At least for now, financial business’s support for Vipshop is still Smaller. According to Vipshop's 2019 annual report, revenue during the period was 92.99 billion yuan, while financial business revenue was about 300 million yuan, accounting for only 4.6% of revenue.
From 2016 to 2018, the consumer credit balance of Vipshop's consumer finance product "Vipshop Flower" was 3.3 billion yuan, 4.7 billion yuan, and 5.7 billion yuan, respectively. However, as of the end of 2019, the consumer credit balance of "Vipshop" was only 1.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 77.2%. The "Vipshop" consumer credit balance has experienced a cliff-like decline, reflecting the weakness of Vipshop's core e-commerce business.
The recent approval of the consumer finance license should have been a "happy event" for Vipshop, but with the suspension of the listing of Ant Financial, the future of e-commerce finance has become an unknown.
advertising placement is overwhelming, but user growth has encountered a bottleneck
For Vipshop, consumer finance licenses are only one of the channels for business expansion. For the general public, Vipshop's advertisements this year have indeed brushed a wave of existence.
once dominated the screen’s "Thirty Only", "Twenty Not Confused", "My Girlfriend", "Sister Riding the Waves" and other major hit dramas and variety shows. Ways and angles are also full of tricks. Not only in the commercial clips, the protagonists have the constantly-swiping "Vipshop" shopping interface and the endless "Vipshop" express delivery. Vipshop's LOGO can be seen everywhere even in scenes such as the elevators, desks, and job fairs of the feature film.
"Go to VIP.com, buy the same style from celebrities" and "Both are good brands, with a 30% discount every day" have also become familiar advertising slogans.
According to the third quarter financial report of Vipshop, the marketing expenses of Vipshop during the quarter were 1.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%, and the proportion of net income increased from 3.7% to 4.9%. The vigorous investment in marketing has resulted in an increase in Vipshop's user activity. In the third quarter of this year, the total number of active users on the platform reached 43.4 million, a year-on-year increase of 36%.
However, while the overwhelming advertising placement has brought huge exposure to Vipshop, the relevant data is not eye-catching. By combing through the financial data of Vipshop over the years, it is not difficult to find that in recent years, the compound annual growth rate of active users has only been 13%, which is quite weak. In fact, since 2016, Vipshop’s monthly active user growth has encountered bottlenecks, rising and falling. In the first quarter of 2018, the number of annual active users showed zero growth over the same period, reaching the lowest point in history, until a rebound in the second quarter of 2018. ThisIt shows that although Vipshop has always used advertising and marketing as the main means to expand its brand reputation, the long-term effect is not obvious.
Jiang Han believes, “From the current point of view, if Vipshop will simply rely on burning money and advertising and marketing to obtain traffic, it is not a very good development direction, because from the entire e-commerce industry, the e-commerce industry has now entered a comprehensive The post-e-commerce era. In the post-e-commerce era, there is a traffic bottleneck problem for the entire industry. Some companies use new retail to get traffic from offline, and some companies get traffic through social platforms. So It’s not so easy for Vipshop to get more traffic.” Z1z
Cui Lili, Executive Director of the Institute of Electronic Commerce, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, told Investor.com that the influence of advertising on e-commerce platforms is different from that of physical objects. Products, “If consumers want to use a certain platform, they must have a process of downloading apps or searching for small programs and URLs. After media advertisements transmit information to consumers, there is still a lack of a “pull” process. We also know that consumption People are getting lazy. If they are not very eager, then who will download, search and use this platform? This is still in the case of potential customer groups and media content audiences. If they do not match, the effect can be Think about it.”
After knowing that the offline layout will inevitably still have trial and error costs
In addition to working hard on advertising and marketing, Vipshop will also secretly make efforts in offline physical stores in 2019. At present, Vipshop has established physical stores of Vipshop in many cities across the country.
Some consumers reported on the Zhihu platform, “The items in Vipshop’s offline physical stores are very ordinary, and the categories, prices, and styles are not attractive. Because they are outdated styles, the things look a bit old and they don’t want to buy. In addition, some consumers expressed their expectation to see the changes after the transformation and upgrading of Vipshop.
At present, the offline physical store business is an innovative project launched by Vipshop in accordance with the company's special sales strategy, and it is still in the experimental exploration stage. But from the perspective of the general environment, the new retail wave has already begun. Beginning in 2017, online e-commerce companies are fully engaged in the acquisition and integration of traditional offline retailers. From Ali to Tencent, from JD to Suning, major Internet giants have invested in offline retail companies.
In response to this phenomenon, Cui Lili gave a professional analysis, “Online platforms have shifted to offline based on two factors. On the one hand, from the perspective of the total number of Chinese Internet users and the number of online shoppers, there is not much new space to be discovered online. Moreover, the competition between platforms for traffic is becoming increasingly fierce. The cost of acquiring a new customer is often more than two or three hundred yuan. On the other hand, the experience and data accumulated by online e-commerce over the years also enable offline operations to be supported by data. Get a better user experience, supply chain capabilities can also be fully supported, and offline user stickiness may be more stable. Offline sales are also a way, but if there is not enough data support and offline operation experience integration, it may not be It is an easy road, and it may be a faster road to death.”
Therefore, Cui Lili said, “Although Vipshop needs to make some changes in the face of market share being divided, it is impossible to move to the frontline. There are too many controlling factors, such as offline location, product selection, operation and expansion mode, etc. I once saw an offline store of Vipshop in a shopping mall in the inner ring of Shanghai, but it did not take long to close its doors. By changing the gate, at least it can be inferred that Vipshop may not have some more mature strategies in terms of location selection for offline stores, and it may also increase some trial and error costs.” (Silhouette Finance) ■
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-