Community group buying platform private domain operation methodology

Under the epidemic, traditional offline channels in the consumption environment have been affected. In this process, some consumption scenarios are concentrated in the family, and users gradually develop new consumption habits. This is both a challenge and a sign of new opportunities. In this article you will see:

1. During the epidemic, how should small B companies expand their online sales channels?

2. The private domain operation methodology of Kuai Tiao Pinpin, a community group buying platform in Nanning, Guangxi.

3. After the epidemic, will the community group purchasing method still work? enjoy~

The epidemic has caused some companies to struggle on the line between life and death, but it has also allowed some companies to grow against the trend.

As a local third-party community group buying platform in Nanning, Guangxi, the number of housekeeper cooperation and the number of communities covered by the platform on Kuai Tiao Pinpin increased by 60% in just a few days after the outbreak of the epidemic at the end of January, and sales increased by more than 300% year-on-year. The number of community WeChat groups connected to Kuaitiao Pinpin in Nanning has also rapidly increased from 180 to 290, and the number of communities covered has also reached 290 and is continuing to expand.

For the purpose of health protection, most community residents no longer choose offline shopping during extraordinary times. Instead, they choose to pick up the goods after placing an order online such as on food delivery platforms or on community group buying platforms or WeChat groups. Changes in the external environment are accelerating changes in consumer consumption habits. In this issue, we interviewed Lin Zhongtian, co-founder of Kuai Tiao Pinpin , a third-party community group buying platform in Nanning, Guangxi, to understand its business model and its operating methodology during the epidemic, in order to provide food for thought for industry insiders.

1. S2B2C model: “products reach community residents within 30 minutes”

Kuaitiao Pinpin adopts the S2B2C model. One end of the platform connects to the supply chain and continuously enriches and expands the product categories to form a big S end, while the other end reaches C-end consumers by empowering the B-end (steward). Here, the B-end is the platform manager, mainly the owners of small and medium-sized convenience stores and grocery stores in each community. In each community, a WeChat group is established with the B-end store manager as the initiator and community residents as members. The manager can independently choose to promote products on Kuai Tiao Pinpin in the WeChat group and receive a certain commission. After C-end residents place an order through the Kuai Tiao Pinpin mini program in the WeChat group, the platform backend sends a demand to the supply chain based on the corresponding order, and then the supply chain sorts and supplies the goods according to quantity.

"Before 10:00 a.m. every day, all merchants' goods must be shipped to the city center warehouse. Starting at 11:00, our delivery drivers drive to various residential areas to deliver goods, and deliver to all communities before 5:00 p.m. every day so as not to delay residents' cooking at night." Lin Zhongtian, co-founder of Kuai Tiao Pinpin, told us.

(Some products of KuaiTiaoPinPin platform)

According to him, in addition to the increase in the number of communities and residents placing orders in WeChat groups, another change brought about by this epidemic is that in the past, the B-end looked for the C-end, and the S-end looked for the B-end, but now the C-end will mainly look for the B-end. "In order to reduce the number of times they go out, many families often choose to stock up on daily food and daily necessities at home." At the same time, as long as the goods on the S side are good and the supply is sufficient, the B side will also take the initiative to find the S side. The entire market has changed from a one-way search to a two-way search relationship, and the demand at each end is relatively strong.

Lin Zhongtian said that Kuai Tiao Pinpin "empowers both the S-end and the B-end."

The first step is to empower supply chain merchants. As the platform’s offline community outlets become more and more dense, any merchant products on the platform “can reach the local community within 30 minutes.” Logistics costs are also reduced due to intensive distribution. In addition, merchants no longer need to go to offline community outlets to open stores. All B-side housekeepers, that is, community store owners, became their shopping guides, customer service staff, and distributors.

However, the platform also found in practical operations that different merchants have different abilities to drive traffic, "so now we mainly focus on two types of merchants, one is the source-type manufacturers, and the other is merchants with micro-innovations in products." Currently, there are about 700 selected SKUs on the platform.

The second is to empower the B-side. First, the B-end housekeeper’s own community stores may often lack some categories such as fresh products due to location and area limitations. After launching this new business, they can choose to distribute multiple products on the platform, thereby increasing additional revenue. In addition, the B-side housekeeper does not need to worry about procurement, inventory, and logistics. Second, B-end housekeepers can strengthen the relationship with residents through frequent interactions with group members in the group. Residents who purchase goods in the WeChat group can pick up the goods in the store, which can also increase store traffic and continue to drive sales of other products in the store. Strong online links, strong offline relationships, mini programs that take on transactions, and the three-dimensional space that is connected create more profit space.

To a certain extent, community group buying platforms need to rely on the power of group leaders to maintain in-depth operations in the community. In this regard, Kuai Tiao Pinpin has also taken detours.

In order to cover more residential users, the threshold for housekeeper identity was set relatively low before, and each community recruited multiple housekeepers, including mothers, micro-businesses, etc. However, it was later discovered that only community shop owners ran their businesses better, because they themselves had cost pressures from their stores and were more willing to increase their profits through additional operations. However, mothers or micro-businesses had a more casual attitude, and the product categories on the platform were not suitable for their usual style of business. So later we set the threshold for housekeepers: "every store has a group", one housekeeper for each community. Lin Zhongtian said.

Based on the trust relationship between neighbors and the WeChat group established by the B-end housekeepers in the community, Kuai Tiao Pinpin continuously delivers products from upstream suppliers to community residents in the WeChat group through B-end store owners. In addition, Kuaitiao attaches great importance to the improvement of operational efficiency through technology, and has developed Kuaitiao Pinpin, Kuaitiao Logistics, Kuaitiao Butler, Kuaitiao Merchants, etc. for use by all links in the chain.

2. Private domain operations, cross-industry alliances, and deep community development

In the daily operation of the WeChat group, in addition to communicating and providing basic product information needed in daily life, B-side store owners will also conduct some promotions, flash sales or hot products activities in the community WeChat group based on the policy activities of each merchant on the platform. The platform itself also has fund policies to support B-side product promotion and other activities.

Previously, the platform mainly expanded the coverage area of ​​the platform's business by continuously recruiting more community managers, and the next focus is to deeply cultivate the user traffic in each community. "For example, before each community had 1,000 households, and the WeChat group of the B-end managers we connected to may cover 100 of them. Next, we plan to cover 500 of the 1,000 households in each community." Lin Zhongtian said.

In terms of promotion strategy, in addition to the daily operations of the B-side housekeepers, the platform will also encourage them to form cross-industry alliances. For example, barber shops in the community can set up WeChat groups to distribute hair care products, and restaurants and other businesses can distribute products suitable for their customers. "They can get 90% of the gross profit, and residents can still pick up the goods at the original B-end butler store, which gets 10% of the gross profit, while the offline store traffic can also be increased."

(KuaiTiaoPinPin Butler Pickup Point)

How does KuaiTiaoPinpin make a profit? According to Lin Zhongtian, firstly, Kuaitiao Pinpin charges supply-side merchants a platform entry fee, which is a fixed amount every year. Second, the platform will charge commissions based on the merchant’s online sales. "In the future, when the density of offline community outlets is large enough, we can also sell traffic to merchants, similar to the Tmall and Taobao model. For example, if a merchant wants to sell its products in 200 or 300 communities in Nanning, they can just pay by volume."

In addition, Kuai Tiao Pinpin is now incubating some products and has created several popular fruit products.

Through gradual operational verification, Kuai Tiao Pinpin has found a model that suits itself. But the evolution of Kuai Tiao Pinpin was actually created by Lin Zhongtian accidentally being inspired by other cases.

When Lin Zhongtian first started his business, he was engaged in agricultural supply chain, supplying goods to supermarkets, and also doing consignment delivery for Tmall, Taobao and WeChat businesses. But according to Lin Zhongtian, not only can this not make money, but there is often a serious backlog of goods and a long collection period. Later, Lin Zhongtian came into contact with a chain of community supermarkets in Guangdong by chance, and discovered that the other party was improving its capital turnover efficiency and profits by setting up community WeChat groups and pre-selling goods. Therefore, Lin Zhongtian brought in his partners to start a new entrepreneurial direction, which gradually evolved into the current form of Kuai Tiao Pinpin.

Although it is about empowering the B-end, the C-end strategy is equally important. "There must be enough products and services to attract the C-end and stick to the C-end consumers, so that we can in turn have a say in the B-end and upstream suppliers."

In the initial stage, Kuai Tiao Pinpin focused its attention on B-end housekeepers, that is, shop owners in the community, but later found that shop owners in each community might cooperate with multiple platforms at the same time, and there were other situations that might prevent housekeepers from actively promoting Kuai Tiao Pinpin's products. Later, Lin Zhongtian and his team began to focus their attention and offers on C-end residents. For example, frequently hold flash sales, promotions, and continuously launch promotional activities such as 9.9 yuan products and one-piece shipping, so that the C-end will become dependent on the platform, and the number of C-end residents and their stickiness to the platform will force the autonomy and enthusiasm of the B-end housekeepers.

When the 9.9 yuan product was launched without a limit, the B-end housekeepers often placed orders for dozens of units themselves, and then distributed them to community residents for sale, "because the B-end did not want the platform to have access to its own community traffic." Now the platform stipulates that each user can only order one unit of such products, which finally connects the platform and C-end consumers, and forms a reverse check and balance on the B-end housekeepers.

3. The model is not afraid of competition, and "it will be more favorable after the epidemic"

There are also some other community group buying platforms in Nanning. "They are more of a B2C model. The platform purchases products from the supply chain and then sells them to users, making a profit from the price difference. In our S2B2C model, the platform does not make products itself, but focuses more on traffic and services."

Lin Zhongtian said that the social traffic connected by his platform was built up with the effort and emotion of each community, and has a strong localized attribute, so he is not too worried about the competition.

"If you can cultivate community users well, you don't have to be afraid even if other giants come. In this case, it's not like e-commerce that can snatch customers away all at once. If you build a group without a strong relationship foundation like a community, the traffic will be unstable. Users may come in for a while because of an event, and then leave or stop paying attention when there is no demand. We have an offline foundation and strong relationships, so this is a more valuable and stable group."

(Some physical products on the KuaiTiao platform)

This epidemic has had a great impact on all aspects of the industry. Lin Zhongtian believes that it will " accelerate the process of new retail in the community, and community group buying will develop further." "Previously, micro-businesses, social group purchases, and community group purchases have cultivated the habit of many consumers to place orders in WeChat groups, and this epidemic has greatly increased the proportion of people with this habit, and even achieved comprehensive coverage. After the epidemic is over, a large number of such users will accumulate in the WeChat groups of various communities."

Final Thoughts

The epidemic is still ongoing and the situation remains severe. Merchants can be said to be in the midst of it and know the advantages and limitations of more business models well. Crisis or opportunity is not only determined by previous layout, but also closely related to current and future plans. For companies that have suffered losses from the epidemic, Lin Zhongtian believes that they should still promote the onlineization of their business and pursue the integration of online and offline.

Author: Shi Zheng

Source: Private Domain Operation Guide (newrankco)