As if unconsciously, users of Vero City have blossomed everywhere, and many businesses have begun to change their thinking and try to "capture" this emerging market. So, what are the unique advantages of Vero City that users like so much? What is its profitability? How far can such a new marketing model go?
Phenomenon: Nearly 65,438+million new users are added every month.
Chen Cheng (pseudonym), who works near Xujiahui, bought a VELO card in 20 yuan last month. Almost every day when he enters the subway station after work, he can't help coming to the intelligent terminal equipment of "VELO City", swiping the VELO card on it, then selecting the desired discount coupon, and finally pressing the "OK" key. After 2 seconds, the latest discount coupons of nearby businesses and restaurants will be printed out immediately, and the discount range is average.
"I heard that VELO cards were distributed free of charge at the beginning, and now they are charged, but they will be eaten immediately after they are used." Chen Cheng said.
At present, there are nearly 1000 service terminals in Shencheng subway stations, shopping centers, shopping malls, convenience stores and other places, and each service terminal lists 15 merchants, all within a radius of 2 kilometers nearby. "If you need to print more merchants' coupons, you can store their electronic coupons in the VELO card of Vero City website and print them on any terminal service device." Zhang Yibin, founder of Luowei and CEO of Peng Wei Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., told reporters that nearly 1,000 merchants and brands have joined Luowei in Shencheng.
As the main R&D personnel of the first generation MP3 in China, Zhang Yibin said that his character is always challenging new things. Sensitive to the wireless broadband network market, in 2004, he and his team began to develop a "city site awareness system", which can extend Internet services to the real environment. In Zhang Yibin's view, realizing the landing of the Internet is an important qualitative change in the development of the Internet, which will open a new world for this field.
After three years of technical development, market research and environmental analysis, Luowei City was born in early 2007. In the same year, after receiving tens of millions of dollars of capital injection from Northern Lights and KPCB (Peng Kaihua Ying), Luowei City began to expand wildly. Now, the so-called "VELO family" fashionistas have exceeded 6,543.8+0.3 million, with an average monthly growth of nearly 6,543.8+million. In just one year, Vero City broke even in 2008 and began to make a profit. "It is estimated that the turnover in 2009 will be 4-5 times higher than that in 2008, and the number of users will exceed 2 million. With the full opening of 1 1 rail transit lines, service terminals are expected to exceed 1 10,000 units next year. " Zhang Yibin is full of confidence.
Profit model: business service fee is charged.
At present, collecting service fees from cooperative merchants is one of the most important profit channels in Vero City. According to reports, there are two kinds of charging standards. One is to charge according to the number of service terminals, with an average of 3,000 yuan per month for one terminal; The other is to collect according to the actual effect, that is, according to the printed number of discount coupons and the direct value brought to the merchants.
"Even if it is a new business, its income model is very traditional. It's just who pays the bill to see who needs this thing more. As far as coupon business is concerned, merchants need it more. " Zhang Yibin said, "But after the launch of several new businesses in the future, buyers may change."
In the eyes of Vero people, Vero City today is like a discount coupon "concentration camp". In fact, discount coupons are only a starting point to open the Rottweiler market. Now, users can not only print discount coupons for free, but also buy welfare lottery tickets, game cards, phone bills and so on. In Lowe city. The main target of these services is users, but the income of these services accounts for a small proportion of the overall performance.
Then, as a businessman, how much return will it bring to invest 1 yuan in Luowei? The person in charge of the marketing department of a well-known catering enterprise told the reporter that every investment of 1 yuan will bring 5 ~ 10 yuan's turnover. "Compared with other advertising media, Rottweiler's biggest advantage is precision marketing. The information of merchants can be accurately disseminated by flexibly choosing specific places, so it is both an advertising carrier and a direct driving force for sales. " The person in charge said.
Advantages: from "give it to me" to "I want it"
As a pioneer in a new field, it is not easy for Vero City to achieve such achievements in just two years. Gao Jianfeng, a partner of Boji Consulting, believes that Vero City has created another media platform and created new value, which cannot be created by the traditional distribution model.
"Coupons issued in the traditional mode are often used when they are not needed, and they are not used when they are needed. The advantage of the discount coupon business in Vero City is that it is very interactive and solves the problem that people who want it choose what they want. This is a very important change, which has changed the traditional and passive discount coupon distribution mode. " Gao Jianfeng said, "and the value it brings is to directly drive the sales of merchants. In addition, Vero City adopts membership management mode. Once a huge membership database is formed, many profit models can be extended, such as selling database information to upstream enterprises, providing important information to different businesses and selling its products to members. This is impossible in the traditional mode. "
In addition, Vero City mode solves the employment problem of traditional distribution mode and greatly reduces the labor cost.
Shortboard: the profit structure is slightly single.
Like all emerging formats, the shortcomings of Vero City are clear at a glance. The most obvious is the profit structure. At present, Luowei's income source mainly stays in charging service fees from merchants, and its structure is too simple. From this perspective, enterprises need to explore further.
In addition, the coverage of service terminals is not very dense, and it has not been seen everywhere. Zhang Yibin said frankly that the landing of the Internet is only the first step, and only 1 0,000 single service terminals are far from enough. The company's medium-and long-term concept is to infiltrate the intelligent induction terminals of Vero City into various places on a large scale, including cinemas, brand stores, tourist places and cultural exhibition places, which may be 2-3 times as many as now, or even tens of thousands of contacts, so as to form a network and truly realize the offline Internet.
In addition to further exploring the Shanghai market, Zhang Yibin plans to enter the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing and other cities next year, and now the company has started to recruit.
However, Gao Jianfeng believes that the rapid expansion of Vero City must be based on a central city with developed commerce, otherwise it will be difficult to succeed. "Commercially developed cities have a commercial atmosphere, merchants have a strong sense of discount and membership, and local consumer groups have a strong sense of price and quality." Gao Jianfeng believes that the next copy of Rottweiler City must meet such conditions to succeed.
Prospect: Opportunities and risks coexist.
From the outside world, there is probably another important reason why Vero is eager to go out. The World Expo has given Zhang Yibin a rare opportunity. However, the reporter learned that according to the relevant regulations on urban management of the World Expo, advertising carriers that will cause crowds to gather are not allowed in the area (gate area) after the subway station swipes the card into the station. This is obviously a bad signal for Luowei City, which takes the subway station as the main channel, which means that its service terminals in the gate area are likely to face adjustment or even withdrawal, which will inevitably affect the development of enterprises.
Although Zhang Yibin emphasized that most of the subway service terminals in Luowei City are outside the gate area, there are very few in the gate area, but the reporter learned that such policy risks are becoming a heart disease for enterprise expansion. "The next development of Vero City must be to get out of the Shanghai market quickly, otherwise the subsequent development will be greatly limited." A marketing expert thinks.
In addition, as a venture capital project, Vero City is under the pressure of investors to pursue high returns, which determines that it must have rapid growth, and the shortcut to rapid growth is replication. However, whether it can be successfully replicated in the future and whether the management in different places can keep up with it are all problems that enterprises must solve.
In addition, the main means of Vero City now is offline, but the combination with online is not very good, which may bring hidden dangers. One is the risk of rising and falling channel rents, and the other is the investment and maintenance cost of machinery and equipment. "Moving the membership-based profit model online will help enterprises reduce future risks." Gao Jianfeng suggested.
The reporter noted that although it has developed for two years, unlike other emerging formats, there are almost no imitators in Luowei City. "First of all, its current profit is not particularly good, mainly because the investment in hardware equipment and advertising space in the early stage is relatively large, and imitators are still waiting to see. Only when this market matures and the company's profitability goes up will someone follow up. " The above marketing experts believe, "However, due to limited resources, imitators may not succeed after entering, and it is impossible for two or three companies to coexist in this industry for a long time, just like people-oriented, and people gather together."
However, Zhang Yibin always believed that the future of Luowei City, which he personally built, was bright. "The reserve of Vero City is not only the application of discount coupons, otherwise both investors and enterprises will find out that this model is wrong." Zhang Yibin revealed that in the second half of this year, the company will launch several follow-up applications.