Rebirth of the Internet: Starting from Games

Chapter 560 Hundred Regiments Battle

The arrival of the era of collective consumption has caused many netizens to fall into carnival.

After all, consumers want to buy goods or services without middlemen making price differences.

A meal that originally costs four to five hundred yuan can be purchased on a group buying website for only about one hundred yuan.

A director-level haircut that originally cost hundreds of yuan can be purchased for only 9 yuan on the group purchase website.

The take-off massage, originally priced at 298 yuan, can be purchased for only 69 yuan on the group purchase website.

During the egg delivery event in the supermarket, a bunch of old men and women got up early to queue up before the store opened, which aroused the disdain of the young people, who also took advantage of the three yuan and two yuan.

When the era of group buying came, they all became members of the True Fragrance Party.

Selling it so cheaply, doesn’t the merchant make money? Of course they make money. They can save a lot of money originally invested in advertising, 58.com and other websites to subsidize the price difference of group purchases. Moreover, their own profits are also very high, which can completely cover the costs.

Merchants who can make a lot of money through group buying websites naturally flock to them.

Buyers can buy goods and services through group buying websites at prices they would never dare to imagine, so of course they will come in droves.

The group buying platform has gained huge user traffic and revenue, laying a solid foundation for subsequent financing and expansion.

The popularity of the entire group buying model came naturally.

In just one month, August, various large and small group buying websites have sprung up on the fertile soil of the Internet, with dozens of them in total.

Large-scale companies such as NetEase Tuanzhang, Sohu Aijia Tuan, Sina Weituan, Taobao Group Buying Network, and Nuomi.com from Thousand Oaks.

There are countless small group buying websites, and even some workshop-style enterprises suddenly launched a group buying website within half a month.

This news even caught the wind of the Pacific and reached the ears of groupon, the originator of the group buying network on the other side of the ocean, shocking the latter.

What the hell, I just figured out Boston and New York. I haven’t raised any money yet, but my disciples are blooming all over the distant Eastern countries.

While they are envious and jealous, they also have the embarrassment of being a clever woman who cannot make a living without rice. They do not have enough funds to promote the current successful model to other cities in North America, and they even talk about global expansion.

It is a pity when funds cannot satisfy ambitions.

The founders of Groupon, Lefkofsky and Andrew Mason, worry about funding every day.

In fact, during this period, several local investment institutions were interested, but the valuation and quotation were too low. With $1000 million, who are you looking down on?

At this moment, as if arranged by God, before they went out to raise funds, they received an investment intention from a consortium in the East. The amount of investment made them excited.

This made the two of them smile. It was as if someone gave them pillows just as they were about to doze off, and they happily accepted this timely help.

On August 8, Groupon announced to the media that they had received a US$10 million investment from Century Investments, which will be used to improve Groupon's service capabilities and expand its business territory.

Leif and Andrew had just received financing, and they received a request from a company called Tencent to seek cooperation. They were a little surprised. These rich Easterners were so optimistic about Groupon?

Brother Xiao Ma also learned about Century Investment’s trends at the same time. What a coincidence?

He quickly called Chen Hao and talked about it first. After a while, he found out that Tencent wanted to cooperate with Groupon, but the other party didn't care.

Brother Ma, who was afraid of being cheated, was relieved but felt that something was wrong. After thinking for a long time and having no clue, he gave up and ordered to fully promote the cooperation with Groupon.

After some contact and understanding, Groupon found out that Tencent wanted to set up a joint venture with Groupon, with both parties investing 50% each, mainly to expand the group buying business in the Chinese market.

After communicating with Century, the major shareholder, the two founders found that the other party had no objections. They originally wanted to expand overseas markets, so they agreed to Tencent's request for cooperation.

<divclass="contentadv">At the end of August, Tencent announced with a high profile that Gaopeng.com was officially established. Gaopeng.com is a 8% to 50% joint venture between Groupon, the originator of group buying, and Tencent, leveraging Groupon's mature operating experience. , coupled with Tencent’s huge user base, it will bring absolutely cost-effective goods and services to consumers. balabala.

To put it beyond words, we at Gaopeng.com are the direct descendants of the orthodox family, and you motley crew should stay back for a while.

After the news was released, the emergence of Gaopeng was regarded by the media as a crushing revolution for Chinese group buying websites. Some media even predicted that some smaller group buying websites would also be quickly eliminated in the next few months.

At this point, all the major players have entered the game and are taking their positions.

The Hundred Regiment War is about to break out.

Before the soldiers and horses are moved, food and grass go first, which has always been a very important part of business behavior.

The first wave of battle, the financing battle has begun.

They are all copying Groupon, and their operating models are the same over and over again. Who can be worse than the other?

Everyone is on the same starting line. Although Meituan has a head start, nothing is finalized until the finish line.

If you want to survive to the end in the fight, you must first be strong and durable, so the prerequisite is to have money first, so financing has become the best way.

Rely on the power of capital, get financing, have money to subsidize users for advertising, and conquer the market. With market share, you can raise more money, and have more money to continue a proper virtuous cycle, forming a virtuous cycle. closed loop.

Infinite nesting of dolls until all other opponents are exhausted, and finally one will succeed and the bones will die, forming a dominant situation. Whoever monopolizes the market will have absolute say, and the rest will be interests.

This is also a set of snake oil methods that have been tried and tested in business.

And capital giants like Sequoia, IDG, Hillhouse, etc. are not fools. Why do they keep throwing money in again and again?

Provide a large amount of financial support to startup companies in their early stages to support their growth. After the company goes public, increase its market value, and then cash out in an orderly manner in the stock market to find the next potential stock, a unicorn.

The most successful case is MIH South Africa Newspaper Group, which was invested by Tencent during its most difficult period.

There is also Li Zekai, who made more than 10 times the profit after investing in Tencent and cashing out midway.

Masayoshi Son, the boss of SoftBank who invested in Alibaba, etc.

This is what these websites and capital think and do.

In early September, LaShou.com took the lead in announcing that it had received 9 million yuan in Series A financing, with the company valued at 1000 million yuan, taking the lead in firing the first round of financing.

A few days later, Dianping became even more aggressive, announcing a financing of US$1 million, mainly for the development of the company's group buying business.

At the same time, Wowo Tuan was not far behind, announcing a high-profile first round of financing of up to US$2 million.

Nuomi.com, a rising star that has only been established for less than half a month, is unique. It told the media that Nuomi.com does not need financing at all because it has people.

who? That was Chen Yizhou, the boss of Thousand Oaks Group. Then he faced reporters and made a domineering declaration,

"Nuomi.com has no upper limit on investment budget and no pressure to make profits. It is just to bring more benefits to the majority of users. Easy-to-use products have always been our purpose!"

Of course, the rumor is that when Boss Chen gave an internal speech to Nuomi.com employees, he would overthrow his opponents at all costs and win the final victory in the Hundred Regiments War.

There are also many financing news about Xiaokara group purchases.

What’s the next step when there’s enough food and grass? Of course it's a war, and for the Internet, that's a classic repertoire,

Money-burning war!