text/Wang Xinxi
Cai Chongxin's "large-scale" reflection on the entire network believes that Alibaba has "forgot who its real customers are." In an internal letter, Jack Ma expressed Alibaba's determination to correct its mistakes.
Tsai Chongxin said that it is human nature not to like to admit mistakes. To admit a mistake is to fight against this "nature". But for Ali, it is easy to admit mistakes, but difficult to correct them. What mistakes did Ali make? What needs urgent change? What was the fundamental mistake Ali made?
pursues a huge ecosystem and believes that e-commerce will be eliminated. It has not deeply cultivated the basic market of e-commerce.
financial report numbers do not lie. Ali has a bigger market, but it does not make as much money as Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo’s per capita revenue of 12.22 million is 4 times that of Ali and 7 times that of JD.com. What's the problem?
We look back at Alibaba’s most glorious year in 2016. In that year, Alibaba’s single-day transaction volume reached 120.7 billion yuan, breaking the world record for single-day transaction volume at that time. That year, Alibaba's market capitalization reached US$266.4 billion, ranking first in Asia.
At this time, in the eyes of most people, Pinduoduo is an inconspicuous e-commerce company that may even go bankrupt at any time.
At that time, Alibaba and Tencent were the only two super giants in the domestic Internet. The two sides launched an investment war and included more and more companies in their own investment territories. The competition between the two giants for the investment territory was the whole of China. The Internet is the focus of attention, and both are constantly investing in expanding their business scope.
At this time, Ali could not see his opponent with binoculars, and believed that the e-commerce battle had been settled, and would no longer mention e-commerce.
Jack Ma proposed five new trends in social development in the next 30 years: new retail, new manufacturing, new finance, new technology, and new resources. He believes that "the era of pure e-commerce will soon end, and e-commerce will be eliminated. In the next ten or twenty years, there will be no e-commerce, only new retail."
From that time on, Alibaba tried its best to avoid When talking about e-commerce, we focus on new retail and new ecology. The new retail that Alibaba focuses on is to integrate online and offline, but the problem later is that it stretches its hand too far offline, and the operating costs are getting higher and higher. The unprofitable offline business is a drag on the main business of e-commerce.
In addition, when we no longer talk about e-commerce, Alibaba actually thinks less about user experience and consumer needs and interests in the basic e-commerce market. For example, we have seen that the product shopping page of Taobao app has been criticized so far. On the main page of , consumers can't find the shopping category column. When Pinduoduo pursued low-price orientation, Taobao did not realize that its price competitiveness was losing.
did not follow up on the tens of billions of subsidies, and did not regard Meituan and Pinduoduo as rivals
When Alibaba and Tencent were collaborating and investing in expanding the ecosystem, the businesses of Pinduoduo and Meituan were invading Alibaba's hinterland.
However, Pinduoduo has only had e-commerce in its sights from beginning to end. It has continuously lowered the threshold for merchants to enter and purchase, and continued to increase GMV and consumer shopping stickiness through tens of billions of subsidies. For novice users and small and medium-sized businesses, Pinduoduo’s simple and crude price-oriented approach lowers the threshold and operating costs, and constantly seizes the low-price mentality.
However, Alibaba has never regarded Pinduoduo as a rival. Pinduoduo has been subsidying tens of billions of dollars for many years, but Alibaba has never followed up. When JD.com used tens of billions of subsidies to "harden" Pinduoduo, Taobao took the Juhuasuan on the homepage to tens of billions. The subsidy entrance has been quietly moved to the second screen. Snow Leopard Finance and Economics once pointed out sharply: In the tens of billions of subsidy wars, Taobao is watching from the other side. On Alibaba’s intranet, there have been many posts in the past complaining about the tens of billions of subsidy activities: it is not user-friendly enough, has many routines, and is not as simple and direct as competing products. Today these discussions have largely fallen silent.
Because Alibaba’s big brands carry too much burden, many brand merchants want to make enough profits on the Tmall platform. If tens of billions of subsidies are followed, the price system of these big brands will be disrupted. The lack of sufficient profits will in turn affect a large number of businesses. Brand merchants invest in Alibaba’s marketing. Therefore, based on the original interest pattern, neither the platform itself nor the big brands have enough motivation to follow up on the tens of billions of subsidies.
Perhaps Alibaba was consistent with the prediction of most people in the industry at the time. When Pinduoduo stopped or was unable to subsidize, consumers would return to Taobao and Tmall, but as of today, this has not happened. In Q3 of 2023, after the release of Pinduoduo's financial report, its market value once surpassed Alibaba. Alibaba finally realized: "That despised chopping knife is about to become a big brother."
has not yet supported WeChat payment
As mentioned above, Alibaba regards Tencent as a rival too much and has always been defensive towards WeChat payment. Taobao has not fully supported WeChat payment until today. In February this year, some netizens discovered that some Taobao orders You can jump directly to WeChat payment. Customer service responded that it is gradually opening up. WeChat payment is currently only gradually opening up for some users, and only supports the selection when purchasing some goods.
Therefore, this means that Taobao does not fully support WeChat payment so far, so how does Pinduoduo do it? Some netizens summarized that Pinduoduo can support QQ payment, bank card payment, WeChat payment, Union Quick Pass payment, and use first and pay later. As long as it allows consumers to shop, it will be as convenient as possible.
In the past, many middle-aged and elderly people experienced mobile shopping for the first time. They all had WeChat and knew how to pay with WeChat, but many did not have Alipay accounts and did not know how to open Alipay. In this way, a large number of users were cut off by Pinduoduo.
But we have seen that Taobao and Tmall have not fully supported WeChat payment until today, because they are worried that once WeChat payment is introduced, it will break the closed loop of its own business ecology and have an impact on Alipay. Therefore, does not follow the tens of billions of subsidies and does not support WeChat. Payment, this kind of decision-making that is contrary to the interests of users is essentially a difficulty in breaking the inherent interests and business model.
This is why it is easy for Ali to admit his mistakes but difficult to correct them.
Jack Ma made a hiring mistake: Misappointed Zhang Yong and drove away Sun Tongyu?
Behind Cai Chongxin’s reflection, the industry believes that this is a complete denial of Zhang Yong. Zhang Yong's merits and demerits as CEO in the past few years have always been very controversial.
When Zhang Yong took over Alibaba in 2019, Alibaba's market value was as high as US$600 billion. When Alibaba is handed over in 2023, its market value will only be US$200 billion.
The industry believes that there are no strategists in the accounting room. Managers with a financial background generally like to focus on financial statements and do not have a comprehensive view of the overall control of the company. This view cannot be said to be completely wrong.
Of course, whether Zhang Yong is used incorrectly needs to be looked at more comprehensively and objectively. On the one hand, in the past few years under Zhang Yong, Alibaba Cloud has become the undisputed number one cloud service in China. DingTalk has become China’s No. 1 enterprise office software, and Hema Xiansheng, China’s No. 1 Internet fresh food supermarket!
But Zhang Yong’s biggest problem is that he failed to hold on to the basics of e-commerce, allowed Tmall to absorb Taobao’s traffic, and failed to follow up on tens of billions of subsidies. This may also be due to the inertia of a financial background that pursues profit maximization.
The last financial report handed over by Zhang Yong before leaving office was still a highlight. At that time, Alibaba’s profits surged by more than 40%. However, the market value continues to shrink, and is now less than 180 billion US dollars. It has been surpassed by Pinduoduo many times before, and Alibaba’s e-commerce share has fallen to 48%.
In addition, there are also opinions that Sun Tongyu left Alibaba and finally went to Pinduoduo, which was also a big mistake of Jack Ma, because Sun Tongyu was a technical genius who was once known as the father of Taobao and one of the founders of Alipay. It was Sun Tongyu who turned Alibaba into Baba was rescued from the quagmire of losses. In 2015, Sun Tongyu went to Pinduoduo, and Pinduoduo achieved today's achievements.
Of course, this statement is too false. It is still difficult to determine whether Sun Tongyu has a dominant say in Pinduoduo. The rise of Pinduoduo is due to its business model and comprehensive openness strategy, while Alibaba is in the investment war with Tencent. In the process, more and more attention is paid to the closed ecology and the profit pursuit of brand merchants and platforms.
Conclusion:
Alibaba’s current situation, the source of may go back to Jack Ma’s “no more mention of e-commerce”. This is essentially despising the basics of e-commerce, believing that e-commerce business has peaked, and we must increase Alibaba’s market value and Due to the scale of its business, Alibaba cannot limit itself to e-commerce and must pursue a larger sea of stars.
Since then, Alibaba has begun to focus more on the grand ecology, new retail, new manufacturing, and new finance. It has supported Li Jiaqi and Viya, and launched a live-streaming campaign to bring goods. It is a prosperous scene, while Pinduoduo has fully focused on e-commerce and provided tens of billions of subsidies. Take the value for money card to the extreme.
Jack Ma no longer mentions e-commerce. Behind the scenes, he may think that Alibaba’s e-commerce moat has become a barrier. The mistake in this idea is that e-commerce platforms are not social platforms. Social platforms have migration costs, but e-commerce platforms do not. When the goods are extremely After Dafushi solves the problem of genuine products and Alipay no longer has a monopoly effect, the e-commerce platform actually has no moat. Wherever it is cheaper, consumers will go.
Therefore, from the moment when no longer mentions e-commerce, despises e-commerce, and pursues grand strategic territory and ecology, Alibaba’s crisis has already been buried in . For a long time, it has not supported WeChat payment, has not engaged in tens of billions of subsidies, and app shopping The experience has been criticized, and the excessive pursuit of profits and neglect of changes in market share all confirm that Alibaba has lost its sensitivity to consumer needs and industry changes. If there are no consumers, businesses will choose to close their stores and run away. What is the value of the ecosystem? This may be Jack Ma's fundamental mistake. Never look down on your own livelihood, and always have a sense of crisis and awe for your core fundamentals. This may be a very profound lesson that Ali has left to people.
Author: Wang Xinxi tmt senior commentator Reprinting of this article without permission is prohibited
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