Rumor: Several Chinese Group Buy Sites Way Behind Paying Merchants
The group buy business in China has gotten so rough that I don’t need to link to specific cases anymore. No, all I need to do is say group buy, tag link it, and let you browse for yourself through what has become a grotesque gallery of layoffs, closings, late payments, dissatisfied clients, and shattered dreams. It’s pretty grim, and it’s only getting grimmer — today China’s major tech sites are reporting on rumors that group buy sites like Groupon.cn (not associated with the real Groupon, although its official China JV Gaopeng isn’t doing well either), 58tuan, and Fantong are all significantly behind on their payments to merchants.
中国での共同購入サイトはかなり荒れているが、もはや具体的に紹介する必要はないかもしれないが、ただ私はレイオフ、閉鎖、支払い遅延、満足しない顧客、そして崩壊した夢といった起きている醜い状況を伝え、あなた方自身で見てほしいだけである。
かなり悲惨な状況であり、より酷くなっている。
今日、中国の大手技術サイトはうわさについて述べている。58tuan, Fantong、そしてグルーポン（（本当にグルーポンについて言っているのではないが、グルーポンの公式の中国のジョイントベンチャーであるGaopengもうまく行っていないが。）などのすべて共同購入サイトは、かなり支払いが遅れている。
中国のグループ購入ビジネスは非常にお粗末なところが多いので、もうこういったサイトにリンクする必要は私にはない。いや、グループ購入のことを言ったりタグリンクしたりするだけで十分だ。臨時休業、閉店、支払の延滞、不満足な顧客、購入意欲が減退するといった異様なお店を自分一人で見て回ると分かる。かなりひどいもので、今以上に見通しが暗くなるところばかりである。中国大手のテック系サイトが本日、うわさについて伝えたところによると、Groupon.cn（実在のGrouponとは無関係だが、中国での正式なジョイントベンチャーであるGaopengもうまくはいっていない）、58tuan、Fantongなどはすべて小売店への支払いがかなり遅れているとのことだ。
Some are apparently so behind, in fact, that merchants can’t expect to see payments before next year. Beijing Business Today spoke with one Beijing restauranteur who had tried several group buy sites, and said that most of them paid her back on time or after a minor delay, but that Fantong had delayed her payment for a full month — so far. They still haven’t paid, and she says if they don’t get the money soon, they’ll stop accepting coupons users bought from Fantong.
And that’s not a unique case. Ms. Xu, a representative for a merchant that worked with Groupon.cn, told the paper that because the Groupon.cn employee originally responsible for their case had quit (or perhaps been laid off), their repayment had been continually pushed back to the point that Groupon.cn now owes them nearly 200,000 RMB ($31,000). Another merchant told a similar story about 58tuan, saying he was owed hundreds of thousands of RMB and that the payment had been delayed for over a month.
Not everyone is taking the accusations lying down. Yao Jinbo, the CEO of 58tuan’s parent company, took to his Weibo account to address the reports:
誰もがこういった非難を受け入れるわけではない。58tuanの親会社のCEOであるYao Jinbo氏はこの件の釈明のためにWeiboとしての説明をしている。
" “Over the last week a media outlet has been publishing totally baseless so-called negative articles daily: [our] group buy business is closing, employees are resigning en masse, merchant repayments are late…the next report will probably be that the CEO has an illegitimate child! Is this meaningful? Can’t you pay less attention to us? Cooperators and colleagues, let’s put our effort into doing things that are meaningful for the customer. Even if the entire industry collapses, we’ll definitely be the last ones with the resources and willpower to keep exploring! "
It’s very difficult to assess who is telling the truth here. On the one hand, China’s mainstream media is not exactly free of corruption and in highly competitive industries there is certainly a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff going on between competitors. That said, ‘our competitors are printing mean, made-up things about us in the news’ is something we hear pretty much constantly from every Chinese company we talk to. Everyone wants to cast their own company as the lone knight in a den of thieves, besieged from all sides but soldiering on honorably.
Give me a break.
あまりいい加減なことは言わないでほしい。
Anyway, at this point these reports are merely rumors and allegations. But it’s getting very difficult to believe that all these stories about group buy sites in trouble have been somehow drummed up by competitors, in large part because that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Yes, spreading rumors that 58tuan doesn’t pay their debts harms 58tuan, but if you’re a group buy company, it harms you too. Less than it hurts 58tuan, for sure, but every one of these stories is going to be seen by a bunch of retailers and merchants who decide the group buy model is just too risky for them to bother with. And that makes the group buy market more competitive.
If these stories are all just plants, the eventual winner of this mud-slinging competition may well find themselves a king upon a throne of skeletons, the ruler of a marketplace its own tactics have left barren by continually sending consumers and merchants the message that group buy sites are not to be trusted.
