The honey buds shut down, and the fate of vertical e -commerce cannot be escaped

Source | Bohufn

Author | Lingling

Another vertical e -commerce player fell.

On July 1, the official website of Mi Na issued an announcement saying that it would stop the Honey Bud APP service on September 10, 2022.

The announcement states that before the platform is closed, consumer transaction orders continue to perform; after the APP shutdown, the company will concentrate the collection of user information that has been collected and cancel personal accounts, and stop collecting or using consumers and the information and data of the merchants.

The announcement stated that it was the honey bud app that stopped service. In the future, Honey Bud will continue to serve users on Mi Na WeChat, and Mi Nu members can still enjoy the shopping experience.

As the head player of the mother and baby e -commerce, why did the honey bud suddenly shut down?

Zeng scenery

In 2011, Liu Nan, a master's degree in the Department of News of Peking University, and full -time mother Liu Nan. After the birth of her daughter, she devoted himself to studying maternal and infant products and founding the honey bud Taobao shop. After that, the Honey Baby set a performance of more than 30 million sales in two years.

In February 2014, the honey bud baby officially transformed into a limited time special sale mall of imported maternal and infant brands, and the official website was online. On July 8, 2015, the Honey bud baby announced the renamed "Honey Bud" and developed from mother and child consumption to parent -child family consumption.

(Picture source network)

By 2015, Honey Bud continued to expand its business and became a infant industry company, developing four major business segments: online retail, offline experience and joining (honey bud park), its own brand (selection of rabbit head mothers) and infant infants Investment of children's industry.

During the period, Honey buds made many excellent results. Honey buds have been selected for the Chinese unicorn enterprise rankings for 3 consecutive years, with a valuation of 10 billion yuan; the "2019 Hurun Global Unicorn List" released by the Hurun Research Institute shows that Mi Na ranked 224th.

In the capital market, Honey buds have also become darlings. In December 2013, Miya ushered in the first round of financing, and the investors were Zhenge Fund and Dangerous Peak Huaxing. In 2014, he received $ 20 million in financing led by Sequoia Capital, and a $ 60 million Series C financing led by H Capital.

In 2015, the $ 150 million round D financing led by Baidu was completed, and the cash financing of the mother and baby industry, including online and offline, at that time.

Later, some industry observers reviewed this process and concluded that both the founders and investors are gambling.

But obviously, they lost.

The wind has passed, the honey bud self -rescue is invalid

The outlet of maternal and infant e -commerce has passed. As one of the leading players of maternal and baby e -commerce companies, the honey buds are the first.

According to the "2020 China Internet Mother and Infant Market Research Report" released by Bida Consultation, in 2014, the growth rate of the mother -to -child e -commerce market reached 111.4%. Subsequently, from 2015 to 2020, the value decreased year by year, from 98.5%, 38.9%, 27.3%, 17.2%to 8.6%in 2020.

At the end of 2016, some netizens said anonymously that the funds of Mi Na were very tight, and something would happen if they couldn't fade. Below, there are honey bud employees that the company's capital chain does have problems.

Since then, Honey bud has tried to make hematopoietic self -rescue, but it has not recovered the situation. Even some self -rescue measures make the honey buds deeper and deeper.

In September 2017, honey bud launched the honey bud PLUS member service. If users want to be a member, they must scan into and buy 399 yuan products through the QR code scan from the introducer. Among them, the "entry fee", "pulling the head" of 399 yuan of goods obtained rewards and commissions, and invites can get the "classification" of the invited person's sales profits. These behaviors are very consistent with the characteristics of MLM.

To this end, Honey buds are deeply suspected of MLM, and the blow to the brand is self -evident.

(Picture source network)

In addition, in order to help himself and find an increase, in September 2020, Liu Nan officially entered the game to bring the goods live broadcast. The results are also good. Many times on the top of the Douyin Day, the top of the list of goods, and frequently appeared on the first sales of the mother and infant category.

Last year, Liu Nan said in an interview that the honey buds and honey buds have split on the board of directors and became two completely independent companies at the board level. Essence Liu Nan believes that this is equivalent to "second entrepreneurship" for her.

However, the former employees of Honey bud revealed that "there are no many people left at all, many people are 'graduation', instead of continuing to spend money to maintain a APP that does not live without many days, it is better to cut off." " Now Liu Nan's energy is not on the honey bud. "

It can be seen that the honey buds of the breakthrough are actually "shelved". The mother of the rabbit head is the next direction of Liu Nan's main attack. In Liu Nan's expectations, the mother of the rabbit head will become a respectable company in formula components and basic research, and she will become a maternal and child expert who "knows more brand".

Another vertical e -commerce company is going to make its own brand.

Can't escape the fate of vertical e -commerce

Honey buds are not the first to turn their own brand from vertical e -commerce.

In 2011, Beibei.com was established, and it was originally mainly based on maternal and infant e -commerce. However, with the development of the development, Babe.com transformed social e -commerce in 2017 and adopted the "Social Fission+distribution" model of "La Ren" model to launch Beidian. The report released by QuestMobile in 2019 shows that the growth rate of Beidian's active user growth in 2018 was as high as 1837%, and the order volume in the single quarter exceeded 100 million. Beidian was once regarded as an industry unicorn. At the beginning of August last year, many media reported that Hangzhou Beibei Group was suspected of breaking the capital chain, and its baodian merchant's accounts were arrears for several months. A large number of merchants gathered in the Beibei headquarters building for debt.

In the same year, the founder Zhang Lianglun announced that Best in 2021 will be ALL In Himi. According to the official website of Beibei Group, Himei is a brand -co -creation platform that focuses on women's lifestyles. In other words, Beibei Group will start to launch its own brand.

From the perspective of Bohu Finance, the so -called "self -owned brand" is just a way for enterprises to find another way, and their common difficulties are: the original vertical e -commerce road has not been able to walk.

In most people in the industry, vertical e -commerce has no future.

On the one hand, there is no traffic. Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of Ai Media Consultation, believes that "vertical e -commerce and integrated e -commerce and Internet giants to grab traffic are definitely weak. Unless they are on a large platform, it is difficult to come out in the market of giants."

On the other hand, from the perspective of "basic conditions such as supply chain and logistics, vertical e -commerce has no advantage.

Analyst Cheng Yu believes that the significance of e -commerce is to save users' transaction costs, but if this model increases the user's transaction cost, then vertical e -commerce is equivalent to violating the market law. It has become your own sales cost, and naturally can't do it. For example, the cost of logistics, the self -built logistics system requires a high investment. If the transaction volume of the platform is limited, the cost will be high. Whether it is operating or outsourcing, the logistics cost will not come down, and it will finally fall on the user.

Some people in the industry mentioned that for e -commerce platforms with insufficient traffic, helping others sell goods, sell cheap goods, and earn a meager commission, not a good business model. Even if it is powerful, it is mainly to make money by self -employment.

Data show that in 2019, the market share of China's e -commerce markets, Tao, JD, and Pinduoduo accounted for more than 90%.

Falling the vertical e -commerce family one after another, they may gradually block the path of vertical e -commerce.

Reference source:

1. Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine: Liu Nan, the founder of Honey Bud: The colder the more you can cast it

2. Pencil channel: shutting down, this track has a risk of group destroying

3. Reading: Ten billion market value unicorns shut down apps, why are the maternal and baby tracks difficult to find?

4. Lian Shang.com: Honey buds have defeated

5. Technology Fox: This once -bursting online shopping app is going to be cold this time ...

6. Voice of the Securities Daily: How can the honey bud app shut down to the end of the past?

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