The era belonging to the 58 empire has gone...
On the eve of the delisting of 58.com, what secrets are hidden behind the rename of 58 Daojia, its key brand?
And by changing the name, can the 58 series Feng Shui luck be changed? Save yourself?
The old technique was repeated, 58 was renamed and staged again
Last week, 58.com announced the completion of its privatization and delisting. The era belonging to 58.com is quietly retreating from the New York Stock Exchange. In the 7 years of listing in 58 same city, it is not without a highlight moment.
However, 58.com, the overlord in the age of classified information, failed to keep up with the times. Now he is delivering his unfulfilled "wish" to future generations.
On the eve of the privatization of 58.com, the group's "58 Daojia" officially changed its name to "Swan Daojia". This has also been interpreted by the market as 58 Daojia is to prepare for listing in the United States. And this kind of "renaming" method can actually be regarded as a repeat of the trick. As early as 2018, Daojia Group renamed its "58 Express" to "Quaigou Taxi".
So, behind the repeated name change, what does 58.com intend to do?
I saw the newcomer laugh, whoever heard the old cry
In 2005, 58.com was established. Yao Jinbo's dream back then was to create a Chinese version of Craigslist. He did it. Through the improvement of the "localization" of 58.com, the company's business model was adjusted from the C2C model to the coexistence of C2C and B2C, and it moved towards a large-scale expansion route.
Slowly, in the field of global classified information, 58.com also surpassed Craigslist and ranked first in the world.
After successfully winning multiple rounds of financing and Yao Jinbo's own investment, 58.com was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2013, and in the second quarter of 2013, 58.com achieved its first profit.
After becoming the darling of capital, 58.com has completed the mergers and acquisitions of Anjuke and ChinaHR.com through "buy, buy and buy" around 2015. After the acquisition of its largest rival, Ganji.com, its market share surged to 81.6%. After that, 58.com successfully built its own "traffic empire" covering many aspects such as recruitment, real estate, cars, second-hand goods, and local services.
However, with the advent of mobile Internet, the huge volume of 58.com has become a revenue drag. According to the 58 City Financial Report, from 2015 to 2019, revenue growth rates were 185.11%, 69.54%, 32.62%, 30.48% and 18.56%. In addition, many vertical business fields are also ushering in novice benchmarking, such as Lianjia and Shell on real estate, Worry-free Recruitment, Zhaopin Recruitment and so on.
Gradually, the "high light" of the 58 empire faded away and was forgotten by everyone. In addition, the last financial report before delisting last week showed that the company was not profitable either.
The era of 58 same city has become a thing of the past. After the company encountered a profit ceiling, the main business was still a bottle of oil, and the platform continued to burst into chaos, changing from "a magical website" to "a collection of scammers." It also smelled something wrong, and began to seek incremental market acquisitions of vertical information platforms, split the business, and attempted to find new unicorns to start again.
58 Daojia is the unicorn excavated by 58.com. It was established in 2014. With 58.com’s traffic and capital advantages, it successfully took the first place in the field of domestic service.
So, from the above, it can be known that this 15-year-old man in the same city of 58 wanted to cry but no one had any mercy. It started to split its business to dig new unicorns, so why are unicorns keen to change their names?
Behind the name change, to wash off the 58 label?
For 58.com, there are four unicorn brands that have been successfully dug out: Kuaigou Taxi, Chehaoduo Group, Zhuanzhuan and 58 Daojia.
Why change the name?
Let’s take 58 as an example, the name change is an essential thing, but not the most important thing.
As early as September 2019, 58 Daojia CEO Chen Xiaohua said, "The name 58 Daojia must be changed."
After that, Chen Xiaohua said in an interview: “The name change has been in our plan and we were preparing two or three years ago. At this stage, we have to make our brand more personalized and recognizable. The premise of the name change is You must have the ability to become a strong brand, which means that you have confidence in the company's business and want to become an independent first-class brand before you can change your name."
Yes, the name change is to wash away the "58 tags", which include "recruitment", "rental" or "liar" tags. This makes the business split from 58.com more developmental and can become an independent first-class brand. But it also means that 58 Daojia will need to invest more in advertising or marketing to build brand awareness when it "brings new" in the future.
On the other hand, 58 Daojia is not easy to get rid of the dependence of the 58 label. It also needs to divert the huge traffic through 58 same city and spend money on 58 same city to buy advertising, which is the "non-milk" development route.
So, is the name change effective?
The name change is indeed somewhat effective, at least in terms of recognition and downloads. Here we can take Kuaigou Taxi. According to the App Store ranking data, after "58 Express" was renamed "Quaigou Taxi", its download ranking increased rapidly, adding 3 times more customers.
This also means that platform awareness is indeed stronger. For this reason, Kuaigou Taxi also said, "Quaigou Taxi is a successful name change."
However, the renaming is essentially a speculative method of changing the soup without changing the medicine, and it cannot change the actual problems of the company. As mentioned above, 58 Daojia still relies heavily on the benefits brought by 58.com, but 58 Daojia has been in a state of loss. According to the financial report data, in 2018, 58home had a revenue of 950 million yuan and a net loss of 1.423 billion yuan.
A large part of 58 Daojia's loss is due to the company's huge sales market and expenses. In 2018, its sales expenses were 1.126 billion yuan and labor costs were 511 million yuan, more than double the total revenue. This is also understandable. In order to establish a new brand and enhance brand awareness, 58 Daojia spends a high price to invite celebrities to endorse and promote.
However, money can be spent, but it is difficult for people who spend money to not operate. According to iiMedia Consulting's data, the market size of China's national government service industry in 2018 was 554 billion yuan. 58 Daojia's vigorous marketing efforts again and again, but failed to get much cake in the 100 billion market.
Therefore, the name change itself is a good thing to get rid of the 58 label, but it should be placed on the right people who can use it.
58 Can you save your own destiny after you change your name to Diaxin?
At present, the author believes that 58.com wants to create a unicorn that goes public in the United States on its own, and the demolition of the business is to dig new, and this can save its own destiny?
Everyone knows that the era of the information flow empire has died out. It is very simple that 58.com, the classified information hegemon, will end when the flow disappears.
Behind the change of the name of the unicorn to survive is actually another means of life extension of 58.com. This makes the author think of another question, 58 Daojia changed its name to "Swan Daojia", can it create a "Swan Empire"?
In fact, 58 Daojia has been aiming to become a “super player in the field of local life services”. The establishment of brand uniqueness through the rename measure this time is also for the ultimate goal of "super player", but this does not completely get rid of the shadow of 58.com.
First of all, it was mentioned above that renaming is just an opportunistic method. In the end, the construction of the "Swan Empire" relied on the strength of Swan Home.
It is really difficult for 58 Daojia to get a share of the local service sector. 58 Daojia is said to be the first in the field of housekeeping services, but this field itself belongs to the field of local life services, but the number one player is Ali Hungry, Meituan and so on. Affected by the epidemic, the last link of local life services has also been opened up. The competition among giants is extremely fierce. Retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Ali Hema Fresh and JD.com have all targeted Dajia business.
In terms of strength, 58 home is lacking. 58 Daojia faces the problem of diversified business and unobvious core. Its competitors are all vertical in the field of life services. For example, JD specializes in fresh food delivery, e-JiaJie specializes in household cleaning, and Meituan specializes in food delivery.
However, 58 Daojia’s various businesses such as unlocking, confinement, decoration, etc., obviously have no core competitive advantages, and belong to one-time low-frequency consumption. This also leads to insufficient user stickiness, greatly increasing customer acquisition costs, and 58 Daojia’s losses become more and more serious. .
As mentioned above, 58 Daojia also adopted the old brand of burning money marketing, but in an era when traffic is no longer in the lead, a vigorous brand marketing is far from getting this company that has been losing money for years.
Faced with so many problems, 58 Daojia wants to become famous in the field of housekeeping services and build a "swan empire".
Secondly, there is a lot of room for imagination in the field of domestic service. Chen Xiaohua, CEO of 58 Daojia, once said, “So far, there are no national brands in China Daojia's service sector. Brand advertising is not just about wealth, but a kind of ability.”
If 58 Daojia can burn money to advertise and burn a "Swan Empire", this may also be a suicidal success.
Finally, if 58 Daojia really wants to build a "swan empire", it is to continue to focus, continue to go deep into the industry, make every effort to build a closed loop of service, and build its own moat, so that the sign of "swan home" will also stand. Gotta live.
Author: Yexiao An
Article source: Songguo Finance, please indicate the copyright