Gree established an e-commerce company, and Dong Mingzhu personally took command
On November 7, according to public information, Gree Electric Appliance recently established an e-commerce company, which is not only wholly controlled, but also served as a legal person by its chairman Dong Mingzhu. Gree finally made up its mind and took a key step in developing e-commerce. As the strong enemies of Gree, Midea and oaks have vigorously developed online channels in recent years, which has a great impact on Gree relying on offline dealers. Experts believe that with the 'post-90s' and' post-00s' gradually becoming the main consumption force, the proportion of online channels will increase in the future. Gree must respond to the new market and channel changes in time.
Tianyancha shows that the enterprise named 'Gree e-commerce Co., Ltd. was established on November 5 with a registered capital of 100 million yuan. It is 100% controlled by Gree Electric Appliance and Dong Mingzhu as the legal person. In addition to Dong Mingzhu, senior executives of Gree Electric Appliances Hu Wenfeng, Li Peng and Liao Jianxiong served as directors, managers and supervisors.
However, what makes people confused is that in the amendment to the articles of Association announced on the evening of October 30, Gree Electric just deleted the e-commerce platform in its business scope, but established an e-commerce company a few days later. In this regard, according to the insiders of Gree Electric Appliance quoted by the relevant media, "the deletion of e-commerce related content in the company's business scope is only due to procedural problems, which should have nothing to do with the business. Gree e-commerce should always exist in the form of e-commerce management department internally, and the company was established externally due to some legal and other considerations."
Since this year, Gree Electric has acted frequently in online channels. Before and after the Spring Festival, Gree Electric started a round of "full sales" activities, requiring Gree employees to register and open stores online and sell Gree Electric products. Employees will be given corresponding Commission rewards for selling products.
Dong Mingzhu also mentioned her micro store many times in public activities. According to her, her personal online store has been open for less than a month, with sales exceeding 2 million yuan.
In addition, Gree has also reached a strategic partnership with JD home appliances, successively launched Jingyi, Jingmu and other high-end products, and jointly created a style and qingxiangfeng series of air conditioners with ALI intelligence.
For a long time, the dealers of Gree Electric Appliance have played a vital role in its whole system. According to the financial report of Gree Electric in 2018, by the end of 2018, Gree had 26 regional sales companies in China, with more than 40000 outlets, with a year-on-year increase of 12.5% over 2017.
"Gree Electric has serious regional protection policies. Even today, when the e-commerce economy has been very developed, Gree Electric still attaches the most importance to the physical, traditional and layer by layer dealer agency model." Home appliance analyst Liang Zhenpeng pointed out that four or five years ago, Dong Mingzhu also very excluded e-commerce channels and expressed this view in public.
However, with the 'post-80s',' post-90s' and 'post-00s' gradually becoming the main consumption force, the continuous growth of the online market is in sharp contrast to the continuous shrinkage of the offline market. According to the statistics of ovicloud.com, in 2018, the sales and sales of China's air conditioning online channels increased by 19.7% and 13.7% respectively year-on-year, while the offline channels decreased by 1.5% and 4.2% year-on-year.
Therefore, Gree Electric had to force the online market. In fact, as early as 2014, Gree mall, which was independently operated by Gree appliances, had been put into trial operation. At that time, Gree announced its goal to build 'Gree Mall' into the largest and most professional enterprise home appliance shopping platform in China.
However, Gree air conditioner has always been difficult to beat Midea and oaks online. According to the statistics of ovicloud, Midea ranked first with a market share of 30.59% in the first 22 weeks of this year, oaks ranked second with a market share of 28.29%, and Gree ranked third with a market share of 18.13%.
Liang Zhenpeng stressed that Midea and oaks made great efforts to lay out online channels earlier and grasped the outlet of e-commerce. In 2014, Midea took back the management right of the previously entrusted e-commerce platform to the group, hired talents from Internet companies and established a special e-commerce company for management. At the launch and new product launch of oaks 2019 tmall double 11 held last week, Leng Ling, President of oaks home appliance group, said that oaks' Internet direct sales strategy was unwavering, so it chose to sell new products on the e-commerce platform.
In addition, 'due to the difference between crowd positioning and price positioning, online consumption is mainly young groups, and price is the key factor of purchase. In these aspects, oaks and the United States have a comparative advantage '. Major general of chanjing observation said.
The establishment of e-commerce company is different from the past for Gree. A dealer who asked not to be named told the Beijing Business Daily that many of the benefits and brand benefits gained by Gree's cooperation with tmall and JD are actually obtained from third-party platforms. The establishment of e-commerce company is equivalent to removing middlemen and directly facing users. Gree can operate not only tmall, JD and other channels, but also wechat platforms, The end user is owned by Gree. He also revealed that a large e-commerce platform has paid for Gree for at least three months, and the establishment of an e-commerce company may avoid this situation.
Major general Ding of industry and economics observer also pointed out that the motivation for the establishment of e-commerce company is that Gree wants to better grasp online channels. In theory, it will help Gree establish a more perfect and healthy channel system and a more sound company structure.
The reporter of Beijing business daily interviewed Gree on the specific plan after the establishment of the e-commerce company. As of press time, the other party had not replied. Major general Ding believes that it is still difficult to judge whether the pattern of the air conditioning market will change in the future. " However, the impact of Gree force on oaks should be inevitable. To participate more deeply in the online market, Gree needs to adjust its relevant brand positioning, user positioning and product pricing according to the new rules. In this regard, the online competition will also be more attractive. "
Hong Shibin also said that Gree's efforts in e-commerce will certainly cause some pressure on other enterprises, because Gree has brand pull after all, and with the trend of consumption upgrading, consumers in e-commerce channels will pursue some high-performance, high-value and high-quality products like offline physical stores, and the low-cost advantages of other brands will be broken.
It should be emphasized that how to balance the interests between online channels and offline dealers is also a problem worth discussing. At present, Hebei Jinghai guarantee investment Co., Ltd. is the third largest shareholder of Gree Electric Appliance with a shareholding ratio of 8.91%. The company is a joint venture composed of Gree dealers all over the country.