Better Life was founded in 1995, is a strong and very typical offline retail enterprise, with years of deep retail model accumulation in offline physical stores, coupled with Tencent’s online flow and technical resources supply, attention is also natural. And from the perspective of Tencent on the other side, a stake in BBK quietly beat the drums, Tencent further strengthen the fight with Ali in the new retail field, the new retail war between the AT has become more and more interesting.
In February alone, In addition to reaching strategic cooperation with BETTER Life, Tencent also contacted China Resources Group one after another and invested 2.5 billion yuan in heilan Home, a clothing retail group. So far, Tencent camp has yonghui Supermarket Holdings, Carrefour China’s largest shareholder, investment in Wanda, pinduoduo, Meituan, Vipshop and other corporate shares in hand. This new retail war, Tencent has begun to battle with Ali.
On the other hand, Unlike Tencent, which concentrated on the end of 17 and the beginning of 18, Ali’s retail sector construction road is obviously more stable and earlier. At present, Alibaba has strategic investment to privatize Intime in 2014, became the second largest shareholder of Suning in 2015, became a shareholder of offline retail company Sanjiang Shopping, and joined hands with Unexpectedly Home… Alibaba not only has its presence in many traditional retail segments, but also in emerging businesses such as Hema Xiansheng and Retail Link tmall Store.
So what’s the difference between Alibaba and Tencent’s crazy new retail layouts? Who will really be the real enabler of the offline entity? We can see it from the following angles.
First, the depth of cooperation
The degree of digital transformation of traditional offline retailers depends on the breadth and depth of enabling parties. In other words, the business fit between the enabling party and its partners will directly affect the enabling effect.
For example, on February 11, Alibaba and Taikang jointly invested in Beijing Unexpectedly Home Investment Holding Group Co., LTD. Alibaba and related investors finally invested 5.453 billion yuan and held 15% of the shares, becoming its second largest shareholder. The capital injection is only the first step, unexpectedly home and Ali cooperation depth degree lies in, both sides jointly set up a team to build new home new retail mall and transform the existing shopping mall. Ali uses practice to promote the construction process of new retail models in each segment. Its comprehensive and diversified retail ecosystem helps Ali to achieve empowerment and play the role of a large platform partner supporting countless small front ends.
Tencent, on the other hand, because it has no business in retail, participates in it through acquisition or equity, contributes its social traffic of hundreds of millions of yuan and cutting-edge technology, and provides solid infrastructure services for its partners. However, it is not familiar with retail business operation. The so-called separation industry is like separation of mountains. Even before JINGdong, a complete retail ecology has not yet emerged, so that retail enterprises are unable to give full play to the maximum value of resources such as flow. A complete retail industry chain ecology cannot be pieced together only by the circulation of technology and flow. Tencent’s cooperation with retail partners is only superficial.
In this regard, Alibaba, which has been deeply cultivated in the retail field for a long time, can build a bridge with retail enterprises to explore the river. This form of cooperation depth is incomparable to Tencent.
Ii. Differences in investment methods
Another significant difference between Alibaba and Tencent in enabling new retail enterprises lies in the difference in investment methods. The so-called industrial investment and equity investment, namely the former is to expand or improve their industry competitiveness, the latter is to discover new industries to achieve capital appreciation. That is to say, industrial investment is more inclined to investors for the doer of the line, because of its own business attributes, and have enough power to drive the enterprise forward. This distinction is particularly evident in the dynamic performance of Ali and Tencent’s entry into the new retail market.
For example, Tencent has clearly proposed decentralization to play a good role as a platform in its global partner conference last year, in order to “let merchants have the ability to independently operate traffic and fans”, or from another perspective, not to participate in the industrial process of its retail business operation. It remains to be seen whether it does not participate, or whether its genetic incompatibility with retail prevents it from participating.
Alibaba, by contrast, has the experience to find its own way into new retail, which is Ali’s specialty, and is strong enough to be a teacher. Emerging businesses such as Hema Fresh Born from its own retail experience have made waves in the industry, not to mention the subversive transformation and innovation after cooperating with RT-Mart, Intime and other enterprises, which actually reflects the different position and purpose of Ali as an investor.
As alibaba’s core business circle, retail naturally gives it a more absolute voice in this line, and the different investment methods of Alibaba and Tencent reflect the difference in their positions. There is no superior investment position, the ability to empower can be seen in it.
Third, the partial and specialized business layout
Tencent is known for its social and gaming prowess and Alibaba for its e-commerce fortunes. Now the two meet in the new retail battlefield, inevitably a fight, Tencent accumulated in the layman’s flow and resource advantages can play their value in the retail field, it remains to be debated.
On the one hand, Tencent, a heavy game, two heavy social. From the game field and netease neck and neck to gradually show beyond the trend, have to say, Tencent game influence in the industry no one comparable. In the third quarter of last year, nearly 41.17 percent of Tencent’s total revenue came from online games and 23.43 percent from social networks, pulling the Tencent wagon neck and neck. Besides, Tencent has long fought with Ali in the field of mobile payment, and the two sides are locked in a tight fight. The data resources accumulated in the payment business are also a great wealth.
Of course, with billions of social traffic and payment data nowhere to go, retail is the first outlet, but it is questionable whether the business channels that deviate from retail can be connected and whether users are willing to pay. For this is still in the initial retail groping stage of the fledgling new, business map deviation makes it difficult to achieve efficient empowerment, even the lack of substantive empowerment. In fact, Outwardly Tencent says it is empowering, but in fact it is more inclined to rely on the role of the platform to “occupy the pit” and gather the strength of partners to build their own retail moat to resist the offensive of Ali retail.
On the other hand, the professional steadiness and maturity of its retail business enable Alibaba to have sufficient strength to empower its partners. Compared with Tencent in terms of data, technology and traffic resources, alibaba is an Internet giant, and there is no need to say that Alibaba and its partners are highly compatible in retail business, which is enough to use 1+1>2 to fight against lax and lightly connected cooperative relationship between competitors.
4. The immaturity and maturity of enabling mode
Due to the different forms of maturity of industrial chain and the differences in the construction of retail ecosystem, alibaba and Tencent have different enabling modes. For example, Tencent mostly cooperates with retail giants such as BETTER Life and Carrefour, which have been deeply engaged in the retail field for a long time. It does not need to participate in the exploration of specific retail models, but only needs to be responsible for its own traffic and technical resources supply. Behind the frequent investment, Tencent has drawn out its own retail camp, enabling mode is much the same, are stopped at the surface of infrastructure construction.
In terms of the advantages that Ali can provide for partners, first, it has years of experience in retail industry development; second, Ali’s natural retail gene makes both sides more compatible with each other; third, it builds finished products with mature and robust retail model; fourth, it has a complete and highly inclusive retail ecosystem… Compared with foreign players, Ali’s mode of empowerment is more in-depth, and the mode of empowerment is more mature and reliable.
Tencent camp of yong hui supermarket, carrefour, wanda commercial, home of backgammon, sea rings, China resources group are independent of the characteristics of the system, and ali Yintai, suning, sanjiang shopping around, bailian group, lianhua supermarket, new huadu, sun art retail level unexpectedly the enterprise such as the home, contrast of the visible ali’s partner is more like some partners. In the field of To B, Alibaba is a form of in-depth contact and empowerment, while Tencent is more like a service provider of infrastructure construction.
Five, the large and small effect of empowerment
To be honest, it may be more convincing to consider the difference between the two powers in terms of effect alone. The main difference between Tencent and Ali empowerment can be seen in the empowered and the consumer.
On the one hand, compared with Tencent’s core and largest social flow advantage, Alibaba’s deep development in e-commerce field has enabled it to have a more effective and valuable consumer flow cluster from the b-end, which is the receiving side of empowerment. On the other hand, starting from the C-end experience, Better Life Group chairman Wang Tian once compared Apple and Android systems to Alibaba and Tencent, reflecting the difference between specialization and generalization in the increasingly high-threshold field of retail.
Therefore, in terms of enabling effect, data and technical resources that do not fit the retail business are difficult to achieve significant results in the short term. As the undoubted giant of the domestic retail industry, Ali has mastered the retail business model and industrial chain construction form, as well as a complete retail ecosystem, which enable it to have a better enabling effect in the field of retail empowerment.
Overall, traffic resources on social and content platforms are important, but more important than that are more professional retail coaching and better aligned enterprise resources. In the anxious retail battlefield between Alibaba and Tencent, the former is mobilizing the complete retail ecosystem to empower partners to jointly explore cutting-edge retail models and maintain a professional atmosphere; The latter, in addition to the huge flow inlet, presents a relatively loose form of empowerment in a patchwork state.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110