2024-09-14
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arts | lin jing
cover source | tuchong creative
while big internet companies are caught up in a frenzy of internal competition, in the past two years, a group of former internet star companies that have rarely appeared in the public eye have formed a sharp contrast with them. whether it is stable sources of income or employee benefits, they can be said to be winning without doing anything.
vipshop, letv and dangdang can be said to be typical representatives of this type of enterprise.
vipshop has become a "lucky guy" among vertical e-commerce companies. since its listing on the new york stock exchange in the united states in 2012, the company has achieved profitability for 46 consecutive quarters. at its peak in 2023, it made a net profit of 8.1 billion yuan a year.
letv has taken anti-involution to the extreme. as one of the earliest internet companies to bet on copyrights, letv probably did not expect that the exclusive online copyright of "the legend of zhen huan" it bought for 20 million 13 years ago is still the code of wealth today, and continues to "transfuse blood" for this company with a team of 350 people.
some of them were “pioneers” in internet companies in some aspects, but they did not become “tears of the times”; some of them grew up in the cracks between giants, and their main business maintained a stable cash flow. people are surprised that these companies are not only alive, but also doing well.
as the big internet companies are conquering territories and expanding without boundaries, in a sense, these small internet companies are "withdrawing their troops" early to avoid competing with the giants.
vipshop focuses on brand discount sales and is able to survive in the gap between giants. the reason behind this is that brands are unwilling to sell regular-priced goods and discounted goods in the same channel. on one end, it is connected to the tail goods of big brands, and on the other end, it is connected to the needs of users who want to wear big brands and get discounts. even when e-commerce platforms are selling at low prices, vipshop's cost-effective route allows it to continue to enjoy market dividends.
in the past few years, vipshop's performance has been relatively stable, with a group of loyal users. tian yu, an employee of vipshop, told tech planet that vipshop's target users are women around 30 years old and mothers, and it has always been focusing on the "her economy". it has certain advantages in this segment, especially the accumulation of super vip users.
according to vipshop's disclosed performance, nearly half of its consumption is contributed by paying members, and it is still growing. in the second quarter of this year, the number of vipshop's super vip active users increased by 11% year-on-year, contributing 47% of online consumption, compared with 45% in the previous quarter.
tian yu said that vipshop's core category has always been wearable products, which drive the overall gmv. before 2018, vipshop also wanted to become a comprehensive e-commerce platform, but it also struggled and tried many new businesses, but none of them made much of a splash, and it finally announced a return to the special sale strategy.
sticking to the main business and having stable cash income are also the common characteristics of these internet companies. after the management turmoil, dangdang.com has been focusing on the book business, and has also lowered its profile and entered jd.com to obtain more traffic, shaking hands with its old enemy for more than ten years.
in the view of zhang yuan, an employee of dangdang.com, the plight of the book industry has been obvious to all in the past two years, with growth stagnating, especially this year, and the industry is collectively facing the challenge of declining performance. brand awareness is one of dangdang.com's advantages. zhang yuan told tech planet that among the book e-commerce companies, only dangdang.com and jd books have created brands, and the others can only be called companies. in addition, dangdang.com has a number of book resources represented by special editions and new book launches, and maintains long-term cooperative relations with publishers.
in comparison, letv is a special case among internet companies. rather than saying "it's doing well", netizens on social platforms are more likely to lament that "this company is actually still alive."
at present, the entities that continue to operate using the letv brand are letv.com and leeco. the former, namely "letv video", involves businesses such as film and television copyright, ip operation, film and television membership and ott advertising operation, while the latter is the research and development, production and sales of tv hardware, and letv's smart ecological industry chain.
compared with letv, which is supported by letv tv users at home, the development of letv video has attracted more attention, especially the well-known "the legend of zhen huanhowever, regarding the various rumors that "the annual income from copyright distribution is still tens of millions of yuan", letv told tech planet that the data is not accurate. in fact, "the legend of zhen huan" brought less than 5% of letv's revenue, and including leeco's revenue, it accounted for less than 2%.
in the past two years, under the "secondary creation" craze of major bloggers, "the legend of zhen huan" has almost become the tv series with the highest long-tail effect. behind this, it is also due to letv's awareness of attaching importance to copyright in the early years. long before the rise of youku, iqiyi and tencent video, in addition to "the legend of zhen huan", letv also bought "golden wedding》、《bailuyuan》、《the rise of a crown princess》 and other tv series. among them, 50 million was spent on "new editor's story", setting a record for the copyright price at that time. according to the current market price, the prices of these popular dramas have already increased by hundreds of times.
compared with youku, iqiyi, tencent video and other long video websites that have invested heavily in expanding their content ecosystems and are troubled by the controversy over membership price increases, letv is now basically "living off its past successes." one of letv's biggest regrets is probably that in 2018, huaer films, the producer of "the legend of zhen huan," distributed the copyright of "the legend of zhen huan" to youku. letv video's official weibo account once said, "if it had not been sold, letv would have made more money now, and letv video can rest assured in its old age."
rather than performance, the new label that makes these companies more popular is a group of happy "workers" that the internet envies. they have benefits that are not inferior to those of large companies, refuse to engage in internal competition, and focus on a relaxed feeling.
in terms of user and performance scale, these platforms are far behind other leading players in the same field. as of the second quarter of this year, vipshop had 43.1 million active users, which is one-tenth of the number of active users of other e-commerce platforms that have been calculated in "hundreds of millions". compared with youku, iqiyi and tencent video, letv video is even less likely to have a presence now.
maomao, an employee who recently resigned from vipshop, told tech planet that the salary income here is at a standard level, but the attraction is that the benefits far exceed those of its peers. the independent bookstore of over 2,000 square meters, as well as the gym, archery hall, sleeping cabins, etc. are not just for show. there are real stylists when you need a hair cut, and the infirmary really treats patients and prescribes medicine.
of course, the prerequisite is that you have extra time to experience it, maomao emphasized. compared with employees who can take out all the time to experience and enjoy, maomao said that her department is relatively competitive and she rarely has time to go there. "i thought the environment was great in the first week, but i ended up getting off work at 12 o'clock every night and i didn't dare to take time to go there. i often hid in the luxurious toilet and cried during work hours. it was really painful."
in addition, another thing that vipshop did that stood out was that it spent 120 million yuan to build apartments for its employees. the location is only 200 meters away from zhuhai wanda plaza. employees only need to pay 300 yuan per month to rent. based on the same location, employees can save tens of thousands of yuan in rent a year.
the common feature of these companies, represented by vipshop, is that although their business scale is far behind that of large companies, their various benefits have always been talked about by the outside world. letv, which once joked on its letv video app that it "owes 12.2 billion yuan", has gradually become a "dream company" for workers because of its flexible working hours, no 996, and no wolf culture.
currently, leeco has a total of 350 employees. according to leeco's past disclosures on social platforms, the ratio of employees aged 35 and above to employees aged 34 and below is 1.5:1. from "working four days and resting three days" to the fact that applicants do not need to fill in their age, marriage and childbearing status on their resumes, all of these have sparked heated discussions online. the more inward-looking the big companies become, the more leeco seems to want to carry out its relaxed marketing to the end.
a letv employee told tech planet that the four-and-a-half-day work week she started as an intern in january last year is still going on. now she can go home at 2 p.m. every wednesday. she doesn't agree with the term "lying flat" used by the outside world, and prefers to use optimism to describe it. in fact, everyone's mentality is "work hard to make money even if you are standing."
in the internal letter released by letv this year, which was provided by the above-mentioned employee, letv once again reiterated to employees that it does not advocate "internet jargon", insists on "no wrangling and no involution", and tries to use excel and other software with strong data display effects instead of ppt for internal meetings. in the internal letter, letv also stated that one of the company's future goals is: if there is a ranking for "no involution", letv will be ranked second, and other companies dare not claim to be first.
don’t blindly follow the trend, don’t be obsessed with “changing your fate”
but the "comfort zone" that was once built has also ushered in new challenges. in the current market environment, and against the backdrop of major e-commerce platforms offering low prices, vipshop is also facing more severe challenges. in the latest second-quarter financial report, vipshop's revenue was 26.875 billion yuan, down 3.6% year-on-year and 3% month-on-month; net profit attributable to shareholders was 1.9 billion yuan, down 8% year-on-year.
maintaining a stable cooperative relationship with major publishing houses is one of dangdang.com's trump cards, but zhang yuan said that with the development of platforms such as douyin, many publishing houses have now established new media business departments, and dangdang.com's advantages are no longer significant, and it may even face a situation of being "beaten up by a group". for example, on douyin, the douyin stores of boji tianjuan, xin jingdian, and motie have all achieved high sales, and on kuaishou, the sales of motie stores are also much higher than those of dangdang.com.
however, in the face of various trends, these internet companies are more cautious and seek stability, and are not obsessed with "changing fate". zhang yuan told tech planet that it is very risky to develop new businesses at present, and seeking growth in the main business is what dangdang needs to do now and in the future. this is also one of the key points proposed at the 2024 dangdang supplier conference.
regarding the ai big model trend driven by chatgpt, leeco said in an internal letter this year, "don't blindly follow the trend, investment is risky, and innovation needs to be cautious." as for its main business, leeco continued its usual self-deprecating style, telling its employees that some peers are destined to have "far ahead" products, while some peers are committed to "comprehensive leadership" in products. now leeco can only look up to "high-end players". for products other than tvs, leeco cannot become a "down jacket", but it can become a "military coat".
letv revealed to tech planet that in the second half of this year, letv will develop short dramas and live broadcast business. the company has also expanded its ip operation business mainly based on the ip licensing of "the legend of zhen huan". the company's innovation team is actively exploring various scenarios and applications of ip+ai.
no company is willing to stand still. staying "small and beautiful" is also a "siege", and these companies also face many difficulties in expanding new businesses. however, compared with the innovation and growth of the business, and the imagination space for the future of the company, they unexpectedly became the "fairy companies" in the minds of workers.
(note: all names in this article are pseudonyms.)
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