Chapter 614: Fierce as the Sky
The university town has its own business district and is not in the same ecosystem as the entire city’s business environment, so there is such a thing as a natural barrier.
Considering the types and richness of businesses near the university town, it can operate independently even without the city's commerce.
Initially, group buying relied on the cover of university towns to continuously accumulate strength, and then launched countless powerful combination punches in the national market, establishing its position as the group buying overlord.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that university towns are fertile ground for group buying.
In addition, Zhihu Campus, the most vertical social application in the field of college students, also provides group buying, so in this field, the entire group buying system is almost a legal system.
This is actually the reason why Kuaishou and Baidu Waimai have always been reluctant to enter the college student market.
In this independent market, few can outperform group buying.
The reason why Ele.me did not expand into the university town market in the later stage was not because it felt it could compete with group delivery, but because it needed a higher market share to raise funds, so it had to enter the university town market.
Even if they lose the money after making it, as long as they get the financing, they will not lose money.
In other words, everyone knows that the decision by group-buying to not operate in university towns is only temporary. By the time they want to start doing so, it will be hard for any competitor to withstand the pressure.
But no one expected that group food delivery would choose to sink at this time, which surprised everyone.
Why? Because summer vacation is only two months away.
There are actually very few students staying on campus during the summer vacation. There is no doubt that the business of food delivery platforms in university towns will instantly fall into a trough.
In the opinion of Kuaishou, Baidu Waimai, and Ele.buy, the best time to start group food delivery is actually the start of the school year in September.
The enrollment of new students is just the right time to inject fresh blood into the university town.
Students who have just entered university are curious about everything, so promotion work will be much easier.
However, group buying suddenly came to an end at the end of April.
Generally speaking, the entry of a new competitor will not cause much impact in the short term, but group food delivery seems to come with the force of wind and thunder, and it starts off as fierce as the sky.
Several brands that had already been confirmed to be members of the Linchuan business group stopped pretending and went straight to the exclusive page for group-buying takeout.
The first was the Xitian milk tea, which became popular all over the country. It immediately launched three new products that could only be purchased through online group buying channels.
Burger King has also launched a Juhuasuan package for group takeout.
The profit margin of midnight convenience stores is relatively low. A delivery fee is charged for general deliveries, but this is not required at all for group takeout.
The most important thing is that you don’t need to download a special app to use group-buying takeaway, because the group-buying takeaway port has been connected to the main group-buying app.
College students like to sing karaoke, watch movies, and have hotpot gatherings. Group buying can be said to be one of the indispensable software for this group.
Therefore, the exclusive merchant made swords, and Zhihu expressed support online, and there was no need to download an app. The university town market was a place where people went crazy.
"Oh no, it seems to be directed at me?"
Hungry, no headquarters. Zhang Xuhao's face suddenly changed when he received the message.
The last time they spent a lot of money on subsidies, but the fruits of their labor were directly taken by Jiang Qin, so their capital chain is now under pressure again.
Currently, Tencent focuses its business on WeChat promotion and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support Tencent Video, and has no energy to care about them.
Therefore, Zhang Xuhao is also constantly looking for new investors.
Alibaba extended an olive branch this month, hoping to acquire a stake in Ele.bu, and the conditions offered were very attractive.
Zhang Xuhao is very excited and is currently in contact with Li Changming from Alibaba. He has already washed his feet several times.
Just as things were going smoothly, group food delivery suddenly came to grab the market among college students, which really made Zhang Xuhao's heart rise to his throat.
They lost to group-buying food delivery in the national market once. If they also lose the university town market, Alibaba's investment in Ele.Buy may shrink indefinitely.
Because Alibaba is not a fool. It is impossible for it to bet on you when it knows you can't beat it.
"Mr. Zhang, Manager Yang is here."
"Please ask him to come in."
Chen Jiaxin went to Shanghai to attend a discussion on the food delivery industry at the Internet Conference. Currently, the only person who can give him suggestions on operations is Yang Xueyu, who came from Dianping.com.
After all, Yang Xueyu had participated in group buying wars, had several experiences of competing against group buying, and also understood Jiang Qin's style.
Soon, Yang Xueyu came to the office with a bitter expression.
Damn, as expected, he was going to get beaten again. He was really afraid of competing against the group.
"Mr. Yang, please take a seat."
"Mr. Zhang, you are looking for me to discuss group food delivery entering the college student market, right?"
Zhang Xuhao nodded. "The group buying had no signs of failure this time, but the attack was very powerful. The managers in charge of the university town market were a little overwhelmed, so I would like to learn from you."
Yang Xueyu was silent for a while: "Burn the money."
"But... we only have the last operating fund left in our account."
"If Mr. Zhang believes in me, then invest all your money while ensuring the normal operation of the company."
Zhang Xuhao was silent for a while: "Can you tell me the reason?"
Yang Xueyu organized his words and said, "Based on my understanding of Jiang Qin, he will never rush to the battlefield. He must be fully prepared. When he strikes, it must be a combination of punches. He will not give anyone a chance to breathe. We can't rely on luck and must go all out."
After hearing Yang Xueyu's words, Zhang Xuhao fell into deep thought.
To be honest, as a boss, he not only has to seek new business growth points, but also has to consider the overall situation and steer the ship steadily.
Now some people suggest that he should put all his money into operating expenses, which will be difficult for him.
Yang Xueyu saw his dilemma and spoke again: "Mr. Zhang, I was an employee of Lashou before I joined Volkswagen. When group buying entered the national market, its marketing was extremely aggressive. Everyone planned to wait until his marketing was tired and then spend money to kill him. But the result was..."
"What was the result?"
"As a result, his ground promotion was indeed exhausted, but a bunch of chain partner brands suddenly emerged, and he directly broke through the blockade of his competitors by using the stores of those chain brands. Therefore, when facing group buying, he cannot take any chances."
Zhang Xuhao thought about it for a long time, and finally made up his mind to spend money to fight.
Therefore, in the university town market across the country, Ele.Buy’s violent subsidy campaign was officially launched, preparing to deal with Jiang Qin’s oncoming combination punch.
After the event was launched, Fandian’s users began to leave rapidly, and the order volume hit a historical low.
"Boss, it's just like you said, if you're hungry, you won't start burning money."
"Yang Xueyu went to Ele.bu a while ago, and Chen Jiaxin was there too. They know my style, so they are afraid that I have a backup plan. Seeing my end, they will definitely have a stress reaction. It is normal for them to burn money to defend their title. Moreover, Ele.bu is currently raising funds, and they absolutely dare not lose the college student market."
Ye Ziqing thought about it thoughtfully: "What's next?"
Jiang Qin narrowed his eyes: "Hold on, wait till you're hungry and don't burn yourself to death at mealtime."
“But if we don’t participate, it’s unlikely that Hungry will take up most of the market share of mealtime.”
"I don't care. We can get back the market share later, but this time, as long as the meal time is gone, it's fine."
Ye Ziqing pursed her lips and said, "But what if I'm hungry and don't cook before dinner time?"
Jiang Qin smacked his lips and said, "Then we will go down and shoot him ourselves, so that he won't suffer."
It is an absolute truth that when the eldest and the second oldest fight, the third oldest is often the one who dies.
There are a large number of brand merchants in the group-buying food delivery business, and those merchants have also produced exclusive limited packages for group-buying, so even if they don’t burn money, they will not be driven out of the market in a short period of time.
But what about Fandian? The group food delivery business has just caused Fandian to lose a large number of top users. Now that Hungry People are reacting to the stress again and burning money rapidly, how will Fandian survive?
There is no other way, it is only more cruel than not burning when hungry.
Jiang Qin wanted to use the stress response of being hungry to waste the investment of Hurricane Capital.
At this time, everyone at Fandian headquarters was in a state of panic. First, the merchants were snatched away by group buying, and then they encountered the situation where Ele.me was burning money crazily. They had no choice but to burn the funds they had just obtained.
But they underestimated college students. College students are a group that dares to eat anything! After the subsidy war was fully launched, this market was like a bottomless black hole, and funds began to flow out crazily.
The college students were all very happy, thinking that after living for so many years, they finally saw a living Buddha. So they ate whatever had the highest subsidy or was the cheapest.
Three meals a day? Nonsense, five meals a day is not enough! The University Town Operations Department of the group-buying takeaway branch also received a request from the superiors that if you don’t eat, you will be hungry and you can change the meal time.
Duan Wenzhao was going crazy: "What happened? How could this happen?"
"Master Duan, many of our high-quality merchants have been snatched away by group buying. We can't afford to burn this money, so why not just forget it."
"Forget it? If you forget it, we'll be gone. Ele.me doesn't have crazy discounts, and group takeout has exclusive packages. What do we have? Users will definitely abandon us quickly!"
"But Mr. Duan, it's only been one day and we've already burned through half of the money we just got. This is the money we use to expand the national market."
Duan Wenzhao sat on the chair and panted for a long time: "Is it always so fragile at mealtime?"
While Duan Wenzhao was puzzled, Zhang Xuhao, who was very hungry, was also confused.
Where's the combo? Where's the promised group buying combo? Could it be that... the group buying is not aimed at me? However, it seems that Hungry is going to unify the university town market! Zhang Xuhao knew that he could not hesitate this time, so he immediately continued to move forward.
In three days, most of the investment that Fandian had obtained was burned through, but what really made matters worse came from Sang Jingbo.
"Mr. Duan, the merchant requires us to settle the payment in advance and provide a deposit."
"Why?"
"We've burned too much money in the past three days. They're afraid we'll get carried away and burn their share as well, so they're unwilling to continue unless we pay them."
Duan Wenzhao was so angry: "Nonsense, we obviously still have money."
Sang Jingbo pursed his lips and said, "But... there was a post on Zhihu saying that we are going to be out of money soon, and those who want to get some free stuff should hurry up and get on board. This post was very popular and was forwarded to merchant groups in various university towns at about the same time."
"Do they believe this kind of rumor?"
"There have been many cases of group buying websites going bankrupt before. They were all burned through by mistake and then ran away with the merchants' money. Now these businesses are afraid."
(End of this chapter)
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