Event background:
There has been a lot of negative news about group buying websites recently. The main problem exposed is the large number of group buying websites and the uneven quality. For example, 1288 Group Buying Network attracted users to pay at low prices but never delivered goods, and was eventually investigated by the police; some group buying websites falsely reported the number of people buying in the group, causing users to be blocked from shopping at merchants; and so on. In addition, the phenomenon of group buying slaves caused by daily group buying has also become one of the issues of concern to the market.
Ai Rui comments:
As a new model that emerged in the Internet market in 2010, group buying websites have attracted as much attention as the hot Weibo market. According to incomplete statistics, the number of large and small group buying websites that have emerged in the market has developed from a "war of a hundred groups" to a "war of a thousand groups."
iResearch has observed that the recent group buying market has shown two major phenomena: On the one hand, the "group buying craze" is still attracting many new competitors to participate, including some companies with strong backgrounds and strengths, such as Sohu on June 21 Aijia Tuan, which was launched around the world on May 11, 2020; on the other hand, the extensive development of the group buying market has also exposed various problems and even caused the intervention of the police. There have been more and more negative comments and reports about group buying in the market recently.
iResearch believes that although group buying websites have just started in 2010, group buying has been a form of consumption for a long time. For merchants, the current group buying website has at least two functions, one is a sales channel, and the other is a marketing channel. This has the same effect as the most popular "flash sales" and "limited time sales" activities in the online shopping market in 2009. The biggest difference between them is that group buying has stricter requirements on the number of people, while flash sales and limited-time sales have clearer requirements on time nodes. In this sense, iResearch believes that the group buying market will continue to be hot, and group buying as a marketing and sales channel will gradually become the standard for major merchants and shopping platforms, as well as various media with high traffic.
Of course, group buying websites have exposed various problems at present, and the main problems fall into two categories: 1. False information on pre-sales websites to deceive consumers into participating; 2. Issues with after-sales services and consumer rights protection. iResearch believes that the root cause of the above problems lies in the qualification issues of group buying websites. Currently, the websites that have problems are all low-profile and small-scale group buying websites. Due to their limited scale and limited resources, these websites have low bargaining power in cooperation with merchants. Once a consumer dispute occurs, it is difficult to resolve the issue in a short time. Solve the after-sales problems within the time limit, thus damaging the rights and interests of consumers. Therefore, for consumers, when choosing a group buying website, the most important factor should not be the low price, but the qualifications and reputation of the group buying website. From the perspective of long-term market development, issues such as qualification certification and credit evaluation of group buying websites are also on the agenda. This not only requires self-discipline of group buying websites, but also requires the joint efforts of all parties in the industry chain, including regulatory authorities, third-party group buying navigation websites, etc. promote.
In addition, judging from the current group buying transaction process, consumers generally pay to the group buying website first and then receive the goods or services, without guaranteed services in between. Although the current mainstream group buying websites also have access to third-party payment tools, they mostly use real-time payment functions and do not use the third-party guaranteed transaction function that is most commonly used in C2C online shopping. iResearch believes that group buying websites can appropriately introduce third-party guaranteed transaction functions to enhance the trust of the website on the basis of protecting the rights and interests of consumers.
iResearch will launch a series of research content on the group buying market in July. On the one hand, it will launch case studies of leading overseas companies. On the other hand, it will also conduct research on Chinese group buying users to understand the group buying behavior preferences of domestic users and their Opinions and suggestions for group buying websites. stay tuned!