The so-called O2O (Online To Offline), although the name is "combining offline business opportunities with the Internet, making the Internet the foreground of offline transactions", in fact, O2O is just a virtual to reality landing of the Internet. process.
With the development of the mobile Internet, the Internet has changed its independent development status from social reality and has gradually begun to integrate into the whole social life. From the analysis of the long-term trend of social development, O2O is just a stage in the human process in which the Internet is gradually becoming a tool.
However, O2O is still a huge change to the Internet business model and industry structure. In this process, only Internet companies that firmly grasp the connection effect of O2O and actively integrate their business into the physical society can develop and grow. Otherwise, it is difficult for the big giants to continue to dominate the martial arts.
Therefore, we have seen that the Internet tyrants who used to not invade each other have begun to abandon the concept of borders and fight in almost all fields, and the core of these competitions is offline resources and online and offline link tools. These two links have become a life-or-death strategy that cannot be avoided in the industry.
This phenomenon exists in the Internet industry all over the world, and it is more prominent in China. This is mainly because the previous Chinese Internet has developed into a more illusory aerial industry due to its special national conditions. , and those companies that want to get down to business struggle to survive.
Today, feng shui has changed, and Internet companies with established traditions have become popular in the market, such as the group buying industry. Group buying companies went from the war between thousands of groups and ten thousand groups to the rapid cooling down almost a flash in the pan, but the few companies that survived have become the focus of the industry relying on their original accumulation. Therefore, Alibaba invested 10% of the shares of the industry leader Meituan, Dianping received 20% of the real money of Internet giant Tencent, and Baidu bought Nuomi. Identity battles arena again.
From the perspective of the development status of the mobile Internet, the core factors that really determine the business scale and business success are "finding" and "connecting". "Find" actually includes two parts: "find people" and "find information (resources)", and "connection" includes "connection between people", "connection between people and the network" and "connection between people and business resources".
Tencent relies on the "people-to-people connection" between QQ and WeChat, and has transformed the advantages of the Internet into the ticket of the mobile Internet. There is a natural disadvantage in "connection", so the thunder is heavy and the rain is small, and the commercial value is difficult to realize. In part, investing in Dianping is equivalent to making up the gap in this regard.
Alibaba owns B2B, B2C and C2C e-commerce resources, and it has unique conditions for "connecting people and business resources". It also relies on Alipay's "connection" function to continuously attack cities and loot territory. With a sad face, he acquired Weibo, won AutoNavi, and invested in Meituan, but still did not fill in the "find" shortcomings. Alibaba is a typical strong and weak point.
Baidu's Internet dominance relying on search is far ahead in the advantage of "finding", whether it is "finding people" or "finding information", it has sufficient capabilities. Although both “connection” and “connection between people and business resources” have strengths, they are not as prominent as Tencent and Alibaba. Therefore, Baidu has balanced resources and capabilities in the O2O layout of the mobile Internet, and does not have the conditions for rapid advancement, but it has the endurance and momentum. Therefore, Baidu's wholly-owned holding of Nuomi, which ranks third in the group buying industry, and then injecting abundant resources to start a long-distance race with its opponents, it seems logical.
As a result, China's O2O industry has ushered in another decisive battle between O2O giants using group buying as a platform. This battle will definitely not be a short-term assault like a taxi battle, nor will it be like Internet finance. The O2O battle will be a protracted battle to compete for internal strength. Perhaps, there will be no real losers in this O2O competition headed by the Big Three. When the market opens and matures, all relevant parties, including consumers, will become winners.
