Executives Leaving China’s Group Buy Industry
It's no secret that group buy is more or less in shambles in China for everyone but a few of the top players. But it seems even some of those top players aren't immune to the industry's problems, as analysts have pointed out what seems to be a sort of exodus of high-level management from Chinese group buy companies.For example, 55tuan lost its vice-chairman Chen Yongjun despite its status as second place in the contentious market; Mr. Chen left the company to join Lafaso, a more traditional e-commerce site. ...
Meituan Pads its Lead in Chinese Group Buy Space
Here is another insightful monthly report on China’s group buy space from the good folks over at Dataotuan. As we noted last month, market leaders have emerged and are beginning to stand out from the crowd.The figures for March show that Meituan has further solidified its top position, moving up to hold 17 percent of the market from the 15 percent it held the month before (see interactive chart below, Meituan in blue). 55tuan, Dianping , and Lashou remain just behind as the other big players. You can see ...
Rumor: Tuanbao on Verge of Bankruptcy, CEO Already Planning New Startup
We have had fun watching the rollercoaster ride of Chinese group buy clone Tuanbao -- also known as Groupon.cn -- but it appears that rollercoaster may finally be chugging into the platform and expelling its dazed passengers back onto the fairgrounds. That's right, rumor has it Tuanbao is bankrupt. And although CEO Ren Chunlei still owes significant debts, he's apparently planning a second startup.This is just a rumor, but it's not exactly hard to believe. Ren recently re-launched TuanBao as a group buy site with exclusively free offers, so the ...
Rumor: Groupon in China to be Acquired by FTuan, Sold Out by Its Joint-Venture Partner
Groupon’s (NASDAQ:GRPN) daily deals site for China, Gaopeng, which is run as a joint-venture with Tencent (HKG:0700), looks like it is a pawn in the upcoming restructuring of Tencent’s group buy operations. New rumors say an internal email from Gaopeng has told staffers that Tencent’s deals site, QQTuan, will stop being an aggregator and instead feature only offerings from Gaopeng and its outsourcing partner FTuan. Further to that, a Gaopeng executive is believed to have said that the Groupon subsidiary will be acquired by FTuan, with an assist from Tencent ...
In Chinese E-Commerce and Daily Deals Industry, Outsourcing Makes Enemies into Frenemies
There’s a new trend in the e-commerce and group buying - aka: daily deals - space in China for former rivals to work together, outsourcing a part of their business to another site that has great expertise in that area. It’s complementary, efficient - and quite unexpected; a tacit admission that the industry is both vicious and exorbitantly expensive, with intense pressure to cover every product area in a manner that most sites cannot realistically maintain.An insider in the business, who’d like to remain anonymous, has told us that consolidation ...
Rumor: 360Buy Wants to Outsource Its Daily Deals Portal
There’s a rumor in China’s online retailing industry that 360Buy, the country’s second-biggest B2C e-commerce site, is seeking to outsource its daily deals business, perhaps to 55Tuan or Lashou.The rumor suggests that 360Buy is not looking to get out of daily deals per se (which is but a small part of its overall offerings), but might instead be wanting to outsource the localised elements of the labour-intensive business. Apparently the company has approached a number of group buy sites who might make good outsourcing partners, though only 55Tuan and Lashou ...
Market Leaders Emerging in China’s Group Buy Space
We’ve seen a lot happen in China’s group buy space over the past few months. What was a much tighter pack six months ago, has seen a number of competitors drop off and others jump to the fore.According to reports from Dataotuan.com, a group buy aggregator and analyst, as of February the market leader is Meituan holding 15 percent of the market. It’s followed by the trio of 55tuan (11.8 percent), Dianping (10.7 percent), and Lashou (10 percent). The rest of the crowded field is packed together around or ...
Chinese Ministry of Industry and Commerce Wants to Regulate Group Buy Industry
Group buy sites haven't been doing super-well in China over the past six months. In fact, what with all the bankruptcy and fraud, it almost seems like it would be easier just to let them die a natural death. But yesterday the Ministry of Industry and Commerce released an opinion suggesting that the group buy industry be regulated.Specifically, the opinion suggests the implementation of an auditing system for both service and product quality, using contracts to define the rights and responsibilities of operators and consumers, enforcing privacy systems to protect ...
Customer Service Fail: More Than 40% of Group Buy Complaints Unresolved
In the spirit of the upcoming Consumer Rights Day (March 15), group buy tracking site Tuan 800 has published a report about customer complaints in the group buy sector during 2011. Tuan 800 is also a platform for customers to submit complaints to group buy operators, and it reports that over 2011 it received 11,812 complaints but that only 6,703 were ever resolved, meaning that more than 43 percent of group buy customer complaints from 2011 are still unresolved.Perhaps not surprisingly, the top ten group buy sites performed the ...
Renren’s Group Buy Site Nuomi Lost $9.6 Million Last Quarter
Group buy sites, group buy sites everywhere, yet not a drop of profit! Yesterday, we were talking about Tuanbao, but today, it's Renren's (NASDAQ:RENN) group buy company Nuomi, which lost over $9.6 million in Q4 2011 according to Renren's quarterly filings. That brings Nuomi's total yearly losses to more than $24 million. Yikes.During the quarter, Nuomi took in over $2 million in revenue, but that wasn't enough to match more than $11 million in operating costs. Renren itself came out of 2011 with a net profit of more than $40 ...
Chinese Women-Oriented Deals Site Attracts $5 Million in US VC Funding
While most of the far-too-numerous daily deals sites in China are going through a rough time, the woman-oriented group buying website MaiHao has today announced that it has secured some major investment funding.The VC backing amounts to US$5 million, coming mainly from the Washington-based ICI an unidentified US investment firm. MaiHao’s CEO and co-founder, Hong Miaolong, hasn’t explained to the media how the funding might best be spent or invested..The MaiHao site - at 17mh.com - sells discounted deals on products such as make-up, skincare products, and clothing. The company ...
Tuanbao CEO Ren Chunlei: ‘Investment is Poison’
Tuanbao (aka Groupon.cn) CEO Ren Chunlei is quickly becoming my new favorite internet crazy person. Hot on the heels of his decision to stop accepting money from customers -- all deals on Tuanbao are now free -- he's given another interview in which he suggests his investors are poisonous and blamed them for Tuanbao's downfall.Speaking to China Business News, Ren seemed to blame investors for the company's massive layoffs, saying that they had pushed him to expand rapidly during the first half of 2011, and then forced him to ...
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