Will Vip.Com Be The Next Jumei.Com?

There is a kind of beauty called "beautiful looking". After peeling off the coat, it reveals a cruel reality.

Bubble filled Internet world, similar cases abound.

Zeng GUI, vip.com's third pole of China's electricity supplier, is in such controversy.

Recently, vip.com released its fourth quarter and full year earnings report in 2018. It did not make any profit again. Its financial and operational data maintained growth.

Besides the earnings report, vip.com also has Tencent and Jingdong around.

Everything looks so beautiful.

However, on the following day, vip.com's share price fell off, with the highest drop of 19%, and it ended down by 14%.

After that, vip.com Beijing branch was disbanded and many employees left.

By April 8th, vip.com's market value was $5 billion 668 million, compared with the 2015 high of 15 billion dollars, has dropped to nearly 2/3.

This situation can not be said to be abnormal.

But in vip.com, it is reasonable.

Because, in the past, profits and doubts have always been there.

The flow anxiety of the "son of heaven" has been profitable for 25 consecutive quarters. It is difficult for any vertical field to have such a result.

What's more, vip.com is still in the fierce competition.

This alone is enough to win many honors for vip.com.

In the 2018 China top 500 list released by Fortune magazine, vip.com ranked 108th and ranked third in the B2C business.

In addition, vip.com also has two assists of Tencent and Jingdong.

In December 18, 2017, Tencent and Jingdong jointly invested vip.com in cash, with an investment of about $863 million.

After the completion of the paction, the two holders share 7% and 5.5% of vip.com respectively.

A few months later, Tencent came to vip.com at the main entrance of WeChat wallet's first level entrance, and vip.com entered the vip.com portal on the front page of App.

The relationship between the three is getting closer and closer.

In recent days, Tencent has been heavily overweight. From February 27th to March 6th, it increased its holdings of vip.com shares and bought 5 million 820 thousand shares of ADS in the open market, with a total price of $43 million 410 thousand.

After the completion of the paction, the shareholding ratio of Tencent increased from 7% to 8.7%.

Vip.com has been known as the "son of heaven" in many interpretations.

Every time there is doubt, "Tencent and Jingdong endorse at the same time, there is still a mistake" has become the omnipotent answer.

But is Tencent and Jingdong investing simply because they are optimistic about vip.com? I am afraid not.

The battle between Tencent and Ali has spread to every corner.

In the field of electronic commerce, Jingdong is a strong member of Tencent, and Tencent gives enough support to Ali.

However, Jingdong is a prominent student.

Although the domestic e-commerce platform is ranked second in the whole, there is a clear gap between Jingdong and its competitors, except for the subdivision category outside 3C.

Especially clothing category, in 2017 dozens of head clothing brand collectively withdrew from Jingdong, then many small and medium-sized brands also showed a tendency to queue up, resulting in shorter Jingdong short board.

Clothing for the electricity supplier is the paction volume, profit double high category, therefore, Tencent and Jingdong urgently need a partner to join.

Vip.com started its sale with clothing brand, and when it reached a cooperation intention with Tencent and Jingdong, it has declared itself the third largest electricity supplier platform in China.

As for the Tencent and Jingdong, investing in vip.com is more strategic considerations.

From the perspective of vip.com, it has no reason and capital to refuse.

Data show that before Tencent and Jingdong become shareholders, the number of active users of vip.com has stagnated.

The number of active users in 2016 was 23 million, an increase of 62% over the same period last year. Since then, the number of active users has been dropping, and the growth rate of Q2 has been zero at Q1 in 2018.

Over the next three quarters, user data slowly climbed, with more than 20% of the traffic coming from Tencent and Jingdong.

Insiders said that without the help of Tencent and Jingdong, vip.com would face the embarrassment of negative growth of users.

Covering up the core traffic anxiety, Tencent and Jingdong's aura, vip.com looks even more beautiful.

Calm and calm, the crisis is breaking out and trying to whitewash the peace.

But the crisis is in full swing, and there will be more bubbles on the gourd.

Earnings data show that vip.com's Q4 revenue in 2018 was $3 billion 800 million, lower than expected $3 billion 950 million, and its corresponding revenue growth was 8.1%.

Extending the timeline, vip.com's revenue growth in recent two years has been declining.

At Q3 in 2016, vip.com also maintained a high growth rate of 38.4%. In 2017, Q3 fell below 30%, and Q2 fell 20% in 2018, then to 2018 Q4, and its growth rate dropped to a single digit.

Vip.com's "China's third largest electricity supplier platform" has been removed by competitors.

In early 2018, many GMV surpassed vip.com, ranking only behind Ali and Jingdong in China.

In 2018, the number of platform GMV was 471 billion 600 million yuan, and vip.com GMV was 131 billion yuan, and the gap was widened again.

This is not the trouble.

According to the Economic Observer website, vip.com Beijing branch has been dissolved.

The information provided by the sky eye check shows that the vip.com (Beijing) Agel Ecommerce Ltd has been cancelled.

These are obviously not good omens in the cold winter.

Vip.com was caught in the vortex of public opinion. The official response did not say that it was disbanded, but the restructuring of the technical department.

This official statement failed to get too convincing, and the halo on vip.com's head began to dim.

The crowd realized that no one could save himself if he did not save himself.

Has vip.com ever thought of saving itself? Yes, but not very well.

For example, vip.com chose to go the same way with Jingdong, and build logistics to distribute orders for users.

By the end of 2018, vip.com's storage space had reached 3 million square meters, of which 1 million 900 thousand square meters were owned by the company.

Vip.com's emphasis on logistics is not inferior to that of Jingdong, but its utilization efficiency still needs to be improved compared with Jingdong.

This leads to the high proportion of performance costs in vip.com's total operating expenses, which has been hovering around 50%.

More revenue is needed to offset this part of the expenditure, so the self built logistics stage is more like a sweet burden for vip.com.

Again, on the basis of logistics, vip.com set up offline stores, and began to layout new retail business is also faced with many obstacles.

In October 28, 2017, vip.com opened its first product and fresh community store in Zhuhai, Guangzhou.

It is reported that its goal is to open 200 stores in 2018 and expand to 10000 in the next three years.

Product Jun life has many enemies, considering the comprehensive strength, its future is not clear.

Ali Ma Xin Sheng has announced that it will open 30 stores in Beijing in 2018. Jingdong 7FRESH plans to open 1000 stores in the country in the next three to five years, and Suning shop has more than 4000 stores in 2018, all of which are not rivals.

And in the search engine, "pin Jun life" was entered. The search results stayed in the opening of eighth stores in April 2018, and there was no update on the store's information.

When a teacher is not good enough, a little bit of a business and a poor management, the reason why vip.com has been frustrated repeatedly in its new business is rooted in its lack of clear and comprehensive cognition of its own field.

Expanding the category, expanding the social networking business, and expanding overseas business, trying again and again to accelerate the process of the crisis.

The next jumei.com? There will always be a comparison between vip.com and jumei.com. There are many similarities between the two.

It has also been brilliant for a while, but also fell from the altar.

In May 2014, four years after jumei.com was founded, it landed on the New York Stock Exchange. Its initial share price rose all the way, and its total market value was as high as $5 billion 780 million.

CEO Chen Ou also became a considerable net red entrepreneur at that time. He was "speaking for himself" everywhere.

It never lasted long, the credit went bankrupt, the business pformation failed, the internal contradictions among executives, and so on. After jumei.com slipped into orbit, it failed to turn over again.

Today, the total market capitalization is only 353 million dollars, and Chen Ou has become a blackbody.

Vip.com ran into the capital market for a shorter time and grew faster than jumei.com.

In March 23, 2012, vip.com listed on the NYSE at a price of $6.5.

In July 22, 2014, the closing price of vip.com reached US $204.2, the first time to break through US $200, corresponding to the market capitalization of more than ten billion. This surge has made vip.com once known as the "monster stock".

The frenzy is only temporary. To calm down, vip.com's share price has dropped below 10 US dollars.

Vip.com closed at $8.53 as of April 8th.

The statistics of Baidu index are also corroborated the similarities between vip.com and jumei.com.

From the rise to the peak and then to the decline, the search index cycle and trend of the two are roughly the same.

But vip.com is on the top and jumei.com is down.

So, will vip.com become the next jumei.com?

From the perspective of the times, the situation of vertical electricity supplier dividends has been unable to reverse.

Compared with jumei.com, vip.com will have to cope with worse environment in the future.

In October 2018, vip.com announced the return of the special sale strategy, to do a full channel, the whole camp, the system of special sale system.

However, in the analysis of many people in the industry, the retail industry will eventually enter the era of no tail goods.

With the maturity of big data and double line integration technology, the data at both ends of production and marketing will be synchronized, and the inventory risk of businesses will be lower and lower.

Moreover, Alibaba, Jingdong and other electricity providers have begun to reverse operation, to sell their products.

Accurately grasp the actual needs of users and markets, and then guide production.

The above trend is very disadvantageous to vip.com, which is going to digest inventory. Its flagship sale mode will be directly affected.

Even so, in the short term, vip.com will not decline completely like jumei.com.

Because, as of now, the whole is still looking beautiful.

But then again, just like dreams, dreams are beautiful, and they will wake up one day.