24Quan, Once China’s 5th-Biggest Daily Deals Site, Suspends Operations
The troubled Chinese daily deals site 24Quan.com has announced that it is suspending its business for a few weeks – and that it “hopes to resume” in a few weeks’ time. We’ve reported on turmoil at the company as far back as November of last year when we heard the site was withholding wages and closing sales offices.
The 24Quan site is now offline, replaced with a statement that says, in both Chinese and (for some reason) English:
24Quan's homepage, before it suspended operations today. Click to enlarge.
Due to misalignment of interest and ideology differences between previous shareholders and management team of 24Quan, as producer of 24Quan’s service, and taking into account of the interests of all those whom we loved and cared, our website will enter into a period of “temporary excursion”. As a result, regrettably we will not be able to offer your service in the upcoming few weeks. We hope to resume our service after we resolve our matters with our shareholders.
本日の運営一時停止以前の24Quan のホームページ、クリックで拡大。
24Quanの以前の株主と管理チームの間に、24Quanが提供するサービスのプロデューサーとしての関心と価値体系のずれが生じ、私どもが敬愛し大事にしたいすべての皆様の関心を考慮に入れた結果、私どものウェブサイトは「一時停止」期間に入ることになりました。結果、残念ではございますが、この先数週間はサービスを提供することができません。株主との問題を解決し、サービスを再開することを望んでおります。
声明文が掲載されている。
本日休止する前の24Quanのホームページ。クリックして拡大。
「以前の株主と24Quanの経営陣との間の関心事のずれやイデオロギーの違いを理由に、また、その諸問題に絡み、我々が大事にしている皆様への影響を考慮して、我々は、24Quanのサービス提供者として、同社のウェブサイトを“一時的に休止”致します。その結果、残念ながら今後数週間、皆様にはサービスの提供を行うことができません。株主との諸問題を解決した後、サービスを再開する所存です。」
本日サービスを停止する以前の24Quanのホームページ。クリックで拡大。
24Quanの以前の株主や経営陣との利益や方針の不一致により、24Quanのサービスとしては私どものウェブサイトを愛しご支持くださった全ての方々の利益を考慮して、当ウェブサイトは「一時的な休暇」の期間とすることにしました。つきましては遺憾ながら今後二、三週間の間はサービスをご提供できません。株主との問題が解決し次第、サービスを再開することを希望しております。
The site then offers a customer service telephone hotline. The wording of the statement doesn’t mention financial difficulties directly, but it’s likely that cashflow issues – or even crippling debt – are at the heart of the apparent tension between the unnamed “previous shareholders” and the deal site’s management.
Things once looked rosy for 24Quan. In market share stats for October 2011, it rose to become China’s fifth-biggest daily deals site, with six percent of the industry’s revenue for that month. But, in this fierce sector characterized by tiny profit margins and huge marketing spending, it’s likely that 24Quan was burning through cash – or piling up debts – in order to grab share in the market. But by the time of figures (from the same source) for 2012 Q2, 24Quan had crashed to 19th place with a meagre 0.6 percent market share.
In late November, 24Quan CEO Du Yinan responded to our afore-mentioned article about layoffs and debt, and told my colleague that he was, even back then, struggling to make “transformative changes” to the site. It’s not clear what those were, since it continued to plough on as a fairly conventional deals site long after the first reports of its business being in turmoil. He said the site was seeing “in excess of [US]$12,000,000 of cash turnover – every month” at that time.
Groupon-clone deals sites have been pulverized in huge numbers, like so many mosquitoes in the night, in the past couple of years. Indeed, in just the first six months of this year, 2,859 such sites have closed. Perhaps 24Quan can be added to that deadpool, if it doesn’t reappear online as promised within a few weeks.
