A few days ago, Gaoxin Retail released the first financial report since Ali's arrival. The data shows that in 2017, the sales revenue of Gaoxin totaled RMB 1,023.20 billion, an increase of 1.9% year-on-year; net profit was RMB 3.020 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.9%. .
As the first non-executive director and chairman of Xinxin Retail, Alibaba Group CEO Zhang Yong also published the first shareholder open letter.
The open letter is relatively brief, but mentioning two points is worth pondering:
The first is to adhere to the three core strategies of the new retail: digital transformation of stores, multi-business development, and redefinition of hypermarkets.
The second is that Alibaba empowers its partners. It has never been half-hearted and half-hearted. It is all about doing its best.
The first point is better understood. Ali entered Gaoxin Retail. What he saw was Gaoxin’s Auchan Group, RT-Mart’s offline retail assets. As of 2017, the company had 461 stores in 226 cities and 29 provinces. , Autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government. These retail outlets will directly become Alibaba's new retail frontline battlefield.
Ali's transformation of Gao Xin's Internet first focused on digitizing online and offline business supercomputers. For example, the traditional way of classifying children in the mother-infant area and children's area was reversed and reunited into different smart plates. , These offline stores also carry the heavy responsibility of the Lynx landing line - Tmall supermarket million items have been put in 20 cities in Eastern China 167 RT-Mart.
The second point is obviously directed at Tencent: In the past year, Tencent had a lot of layouts in the retail sector, and shot quickly: First, Yonghui was handed, and then Yongfei took shares in Carrefour China. Less than a week later, they joined hands with Jingdong, Suning, 5. Sunac became a shareholder in Wanda Commercial and it has invested in Haishu Home.
Tencent put forward two 'iron laws' in the new retail, which can be seen as Tencent's attitude towards the retail industry: First, insist on the principle of empowerment, and be a entrant in the retail industry, Ma Huateng said more directly: We're not doing retail, we don't even do business, we only connect it, and then it's a decentralized smart retail solution. This is obviously coming to Ali's centralised retail terminal idea. The meeting mentioned that the center of the new retail revolution led by Ali is 'user-centered' and 'partner-centered'.
The two giants, in their respective fields, have finally reached the new retail area and they have collided.
Then what is the difference between Tencent's treatment of new retail and Ali's treatment of new retail sales? There are many articles on online analysis. I simply put my point of view on my own.
Tencent is eating dinner, Ali is leading the charge
The biggest difference between Tencent and Ali in the new retail is the treatment of partners, Tencent is to give half of the life to the partners, and Ali is to wholeheartedly go all out.
It is difficult to say who is right or wrong, but this difference in concept is also reflected in the investment style.
The above chart shows Tencent's investment in the past few years. It can be seen that Tencent’s investment amount and quantity have been increasing year by year. In other words, Tencent has become the largest PE institution in China.
Tencent's investment department is mainly composed of two departments. The industry win-win fund and the investment and acquisition department are actually two brand teams. They are mainly divided into strategic investment and early investment. Strategic investment is similar to investing in Jingdong, and early stage is more concerned about some early-stage businesses. The project, the entire investment style runs through the entire enterprise development cycle.
Alibaba's investment is more business-oriented. In other words, it is based on cooperation and communication between upstream and downstream businesses. For example, Alibaba.com had invested in and purchased Chensen and a two-dimensional code, and two companies have participated in SaaS services. The general manager of the division also serves as CEO of Chensen.
The reason behind Ali's generous layout of food and beverage is that Ali is a global business infrastructure platform. He wants to open up all links from retail, data, transaction, logistics, credit, and other nodes. His ultimate goal is to enhance the entire business. The efficiency of operation in the society. Therefore, it is incorporated into the territory of Alibaba's retail industry, and it is strongly promoted by the Internet. Ultimately, it forms a linkage and concatenation with upstream and downstream services and becomes an effective service system. This is Ali to do.
Food and beverage are an important part of new retail sales. For example, the boxfish freshly hatched by Ali and the super species made by Tencent and Yonghui Supermarkets are both retail and catering. In the past, shopping could not be eaten in the store and the accounts were closed. OK. Now that you can not only eat while you are shopping, you can not only eat the world's food, but also get your order online in half an hour. This will undoubtedly greatly enhance the efficiency and experience of shopping.
Since Ali proposed the concept of new retail, Ali has now begun to develop a large-scale layout line, combined with RT-Mart, Intime, Brilliance, Suning, reputation, hungry and so on and other partners to promote new retail, formed a pattern of eight columns.
Ali is leading the charge, Tencent is dinning for dinner
We can make a comparative metaphor. Tencent treats the new retail as a dinner and dinner. Everyone gets together and chats regularly. No matter how they gather together for a meal, it is good for everyone to share benefits. It does not matter if they do not want to participate. It's always good to you. It's always good to you. It doesn't require you to be jealous. It's enjoyable. It's loose and harmonious.
Ali's new retail is a big brother with a younger assault, a glorious and glorious defeat.
Why is this metaphor? Because Tencent’s idea is essentially to invite guests to dinner, first to get everyone to get a quick, regardless of knowledge, or do not know, there is no holiday festival, in short, the family in Tencent Under the system, we first become familiar with it. Therefore, it appears to be more 'moderate' on the surface. However, Tencent’s ability to integrate among the invested companies will be relatively weak. For example, the United States and the Group that has recently fought in the field of taxis, And in the field of e-commerce competitors Pinto and JD.
Ali, on the other hand, has dominated Ali’s investment in the past year, with 38% of independent investment and 40% of lead investment. The two together amounted to 78%. Ali’s investment projects are mostly lead investment projects. Or independent investment, control is not in the minority. In the outside world it will appear more 'hegemony'.
However, to truly achieve business transformation, for Alibaba, for retail partners, it is a full-scale, full-depth transformation of the link, which inevitably requires stronger will and more resolute execution. This is why Alibaba appears to be a 'dominant' reason in the new retail ecosystem. Conversely, if the target is not a business change but traffic is realized, then it is only necessary to seize the flow, and the specific operations of the company that has acquired the shares There is no need for access at all. This is Tencent's "open" kernel among its partners.
Here we will talk about Tencent’s logic for investment. Essentially, Tencent pursues open communication in all areas. Tencent has made various attacks in various fields such as transportation, retail, entertainment, smart hardware, and internet finance, but in fact, we carefully study it. It can be found that Tencent's investment is mainly concentrated in the field of entertainment and entertainment, which has a lot to do with Tencent's genes. However, Tencent's two core areas, gaming and social networking, Tencent haven't invested much. The reason is simple. Tencent These two pieces are almost monopoly, WeChat users now have 1 billion, and games occupy half of the entire game industry.
The logic of Tencent's investment is essentially flow-for-resource. Liu Qiangdong said in the book that before Yi Xun also relied on Tencent's diversion, but how to sell it is not good. Now it has access to Tencent's traffic, and its efficiency is twice that of the past. This is the reason. Tencent’s advantages in traffic and capital have enabled it to rapidly enter every track to support existing dominant companies, promote its rapid growth, and obtain superior investment returns. In the Tencent Annual Report we have seen this The value brought by investment - Tencent released its annual report, disclosed that a large part of Tencent's revenue was obtained by Yi Xin, Sogou, and South East Asia e-commerce company listed on the sea, said that Tencent is an income tax investment company, a little Not too much.
What exactly is the new retail dispute? Actually the traffic entrance
Since Tencent can rely on its own investment to obtain such a super-high yield, why does Tencent have to lay out new retail outlets and Ali's tigers eat it?
The most important reason is that the retail industry is one of the sources of future data and traffic.
There are two more important reasons. First, in the coming years, a large number of offline businesses will become Internet-based. From the non-Internet to the Internet, there is still a lot of room for growth. This is a major trend. User information, traffic, transactions, social and other traditional online products will gradually merge with the offline.
Second, although Ali is already a retail empire, it is still very small compared to the total retail volume. What's more, online accounts for only one-third of total retail sales. In other words, there are still two-thirds of the market that is not digested. .
Traditional retail +X (fresh, dining, entertainment, parent-child)' and other new forms of retail have taken shape. Secondly, Alibaba and Tencent have begun to lay out around the reconstruction of payment flow data and offline scenes. To be honest, there is still no substantial correlation between WeChat payment and offline merchants. Alibaba's boxma freshman is a great threat to WeChat payment tools. Once Alibaba retail has fully completed the payment portal's exclusive , WeChat payment will face the dilemma of no local landing. The retail industry still looks at the scale effect. Once the scale is formed, it is really difficult to come back.