Who would have thought that this company, Beibei Group, which was once considered as a unicorn in the industry, has now encountered such a thing.
On August 9th, hundreds of merchants took printed banners to the headquarters of Beibei Group to defend their rights, only to see people leaving the building empty-handed. At present, the front desk of the building has been taken over by the park security. The entire conference area on the first and second floors was empty, and no Beibei employees appeared. The office area on the third floor has been closed, so the elevator can't go up.
Beibei Group was founded on 20 1 1, and Beidian is a social e-commerce platform launched by Beibei Group in August of 20 17. The founder is Zhang Lianglun, and the one who defaulted on the loan this time is Nortel.
A merchant who went to the headquarters of Beibei Group held the words "Beibei Electric defaulted on the loan, please explain it to us by Mr. Zhang Lianglun!" Defend rights on the spot. The reason for this is that many merchants found that payment should have been made on the original date, but the date has been postponed again and again, and no payment has been made until now.
Some merchants at the scene said that this problem had already appeared in April this year. The reason given by Nortel at that time was that "there was a problem in replacing the server system". In fact, there are not a few businesses that have this situation, and the amount owed ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions. Businesses with high debts say they are owed about 5 million.
Moreover, according to a real-name registration information form, there are more than 940 merchants in arrears in paying bills, and the list of on-site handwritten registration adds up to more than 1,000. At present, the total deposit plus payment exceeds 65.438+0.3 billion yuan.
However, after such a thing happened, Nortel did not want to solve the problem face to face. On the contrary, "no face, no communication, no voice" has chilled the hearts of many merchants. Even on the afternoon of 10, Zhang Longzhu, vice president of Beibei Group, was sent to negotiate. Because he did not give a substantive reply, he was called "invalid negotiation" by the merchants, but it also brought bad news-Beibei Electric did not rule out the possibility of filing for bankruptcy. Such news is tantamount to adding insult to injury, and what countless businesses are worried about may become a reality-that is, money will be wasted.
At present, the official reply is that this Friday, that is, on the morning of August 3, 10, Beibei Group negotiated with the merchants to solve the problem, and the result of waiting for the merchants is still unknown.
It is no exaggeration to say that "pigs can fly when standing in the air."
On 20 1 1 year, Zhang Lianglun founded Mi Zhe. Com, an e-commerce shopping guide platform, is mainly engaged in gold rush rebate business. However, in 20 14, with the innovative understanding of "mom economy" and the rise of mobile internet, Beibei.com, a subsidiary of Beibei Group, started to cut into vertical e-commerce from the maternal and child market, and began a bright moment all the way forward.
According to public information, it took Beibei.com only eight months from its establishment to a monthly sales of 200 million yuan and a valuation of 654.38 billion yuan. In less than four months, Beidian, which was launched in 20 17, won more than 1 10,000 orders in 20 17. At the end of the year, Nortel won the "fastest dark horse app"; In 20 18, the MAU of Nortel exceeded150,000. With these outstanding achievements, Beibei Group is also known as an e-commerce representative enterprise in the industry as "a turning point in three years and a milestone in one year".
In addition, Beibei Group has obtained several rounds of financing in history. From 20 13 to 20 19, the total financing is conservatively estimated to be 2.3 billion. If nothing else, it is said that Nortel, which was involved in this accident, just got 860 million yuan of financing from Gaochun Capital, Sequoia Capital, Gao Rong Capital and IDG Capital in 20 19, which is also the highest amount of financing that the company got. However, two years later, the arrears occurred, and it is hard not to make people think more-where did all the money go?
According to reports, an industry insider revealed that Nortel needs to burn 6,543.8 billion yuan every month during peak hours to subsidize Small B (distributor). The reality must be the same. After only 17 months, Nortel has entered the ranks of tens of millions of players with APP users and become the "dark horse" of social e-commerce, which requires a lot of investment.
In addition, because the regulatory authorities strengthened the control of social e-commerce last year, Netcom Nortel was fined 30 million for pyramid schemes. Not only that, the past multi-level distribution model was restricted, resulting in a large loss of Nortel small B. In the first half of last year, the GMV of Nortel plummeted, and the monthly GMV was only about 5 million yuan, less than one-third of the peak period. A lot of money was invested before, but now the development is limited, and Nortel is likely to be in a state of loss before it has earned it back.
In addition, in 20 19, Beibei Group successively launched Beicang and Beisheng APP. The former is the business of selling e-commerce discounts, while the latter is the business of shopping rebates and coupons. However, on March 17 this year, Beibei Group closed the largest "temporary warehouse store" in its shell warehouse business, while stores in other regions also closed one after another, and Beibei Province also disappeared from Beibei Group official website (now Beibei Group's official website page cannot be opened). From maternal and child e-commerce to social e-commerce to inventory e-commerce, the transformation of Beibei Group has not developed smoothly. The founder Zhang Lianglun was also analyzed by the industry and only wanted to make quick money. There was no specific development direction, which led to successive setbacks in new business.
It is also worth noting that when the merchants went to Beibei Group to defend their rights, they found that some employees of Macy's enterprises were still working in the offices on the third and fourth floors. Messi is a newly launched business of Beibei Group in April this year, mainly engaged in women's high-end cosmetics business. It is understood that in the early stage of platform construction, Messi relied on Nortel for drainage. Since then, in order to promote Messi, Zhang Lianglun invited celebrities to endorse and put advertisements in places such as Tik Tok in Xiaohongshu. Even appeared in Hunan Satellite TV's variety show, which was called "Beibei Group spent all its resources on Messi" by merchants, and even ridiculed by merchants that "it is estimated that our payment made Zhang Lianglun buy Messi's inventory."
The old business lost money and the development of new business was frustrated. Now, we are gambling all our wealth to start a business. Therefore, it is expected that Beibei Group can spend all the 2 billion it has raised, and Nortel will be in arrears again.
In fact, it is no stranger for many merchants to go to the headquarters to defend their rights. 20 19, 10 in June, businessmen from all over the country gathered in the office of Shanghai Tao Jiji to demand payment, but the bankruptcy and reorganization of the latter were not properly solved.
In recent years, social e-commerce has come and gone like a blowing wind.
In 20 19, you enjoy leisure products, but after a few months, there is no sound; In 20 19, the future market was suspected of engaging in pyramid selling activities, freezing products and bank accounts, and then slowly disappeared in the "pyramid selling" dispute; In 20 19, the social dark horse Amoy Group declared bankruptcy, which shocked the electric business community. In addition, there are zebra members, peanut diaries, honey buds, global catchers, and global good goods. After experiencing explosive growth, they are now living in poverty. Even Huanju Group, known as "the first e-commerce member in China", has suffered losses for five consecutive years since 20 17, and its share price has plummeted from 13.42 at the opening to 1.05 at present, with a drop of 92%!
According to a report in World Financial Weekly, according to incomplete statistics of industrial and commercial information, in Guangzhou and Yiwu alone, more than 500 social e-commerce platforms will close down or stop operating in 2020.
Over the years, social e-commerce has fallen one after another, and everyone wants to be the next "Pinduoduo", so they flock to it. As we all know, the development of social e-commerce under such circumstances is not necessarily a good thing. Survival of the fittest, survival of the fittest, those who survive social e-commerce may create new miracles in the next time.