When the industry was still debating whether a new round of Internet bubble would come, Chen Tianqiao, who leads Shanda, chose this time to fight desperately and entered the e-commerce group. Shanda announced its entry into the field of e-commerce, directly targeting Taobao. Ge Binbin, the former CEO of Shanda Jinku Game, announced that he would step back from the game and enter the field of e-commerce, serving as the CEO of Pinju.com to compete directly with Taobao. According to Ge Binbin's disclosure, the first round of investment for Pinju.com was about 200 million yuan, and in the first round of investment, investors included Ge Binbin himself and Shanda.
Regarding Ge Binbin's high-profile promotion, there were reports that Shanda was once quite dissatisfied. Even so, the growing interest of Chen Tianqiao in the e-commerce sector is an undeniable fact. Various signs indicate that a new layout by Chen Tianqiao is gradually unfolding, allowing Shanda Futo to play the role of a bridge. The various sectors under Shanda, such as games, literature, and music, are all moving towards e-commerce hunting. From traffic to monetization experiments, Chen Tianqiao has never stopped.
Mode "Evolution"
With Taobao dominating ahead and Baidu Youa facing setbacks behind, these seem not to have affected Shanda's "unlimited possibilities" in e-commerce. However, the focus of the industry's doubts undoubtedly lies in the mode selection that seems to be difficult to break through.
But the strategy of Ge Binbin, founder and CEO of Pinju.com, seems to be breaking out of the encirclement and opening up a new path. According to Ge Binbin's earlier announcement, Pinju will adopt the C2C model, competing directly with Taobao, and once made bold statements: "Divide the online shopping market within one year, surpass competitors within two years, and successfully list the company within three years."
Regarding the business model of e-commerce, industry insiders believe there is almost no room for imagination. Currently, the most concentrated ones are no more than three business models: C2C, B2C, and B2B. C2C refers to online transactions between individuals. According to relevant data from the China E-commerce Research Center, Taobao still dominates with approximately 83.5% of the market share. Another report by Analysys International shows that the C2C market size will see a gradual slowdown in growth rate starting from this year, reaching an estimated market size of 745 billion yuan by 2013, with a growth rate of less than double. Looking at the overall trend, due to the increased policy and regulatory risks of C2C, Taobao has also started to tilt towards Taobao Mall, which is similar to B2C. In the view of Chen Shousong, an analyst at Analysys, given the near saturation of C2C, it is unlikely that Shanda's entry into e-commerce will adopt a complete C2C model.
Ge Binbin later confirmed this speculation in an interview with China Business Journal, saying, "To some extent, it won't be pure C2C; there will be elements of B." By B, it refers to the corporate side. It is understood that this is where Pinju.com will truly engage in direct competition with Taobao. Ge Binbin described Pinju.com as more inclined to be a third-party platform, forming partnerships with large manufacturers and attracting groups similar to Taobao sellers for distribution. "The advantage of doing this is to eliminate counterfeit goods at the source," according to Ge Binbin's analysis. Taobao's low entry threshold and rampant fake goods are currently one of Taobao's weaknesses. Once Pinju.com goes online, it will put significant effort into combating counterfeits. "We will take full responsibility for after-sales service and have a mechanism for immediate compensation," Ge Binbin revealed. If users buy counterfeit goods, they can directly complain to Pinju.com. "The compensation guarantee will come from Pinju, ensuring users receive compensation in the shortest possible time."
On the other hand, nine ministries including the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued a notice urging websites like Taobao and EachNet to conduct self-inspections and strictly crack down on infringement and counterfeit activities in online shopping. Ge Binbin's adjustments in the business model clearly also serve as one of the key strategies against Taobao, considering the policy implications.
Additionally, Pinju.com is currently accelerating its highly anticipated "Ju Partner" plan, emulating the national joint operation method of online games. Pinju will provide online marketing resources and recruit e-commerce joint operation partners. In the "Ju Partner" project, Pinju.com is defined as a "professional e-commerce service platform." Ge Binbin even stated that as long as "Ju Partner" members meet the corresponding qualifications and standards, they could receive a reward of 1 million yuan from Pinju.com.
Shanda's "Ambition"
Ge Binbin's high-profile declaration of war against Taobao is actually closely related to the support of his former employer, Shanda.
In the previously announced first round of investment plans, the initial 2 billion yuan investment came from both Shanda and Ge Binbin himself. Pinju.com will also strategically cooperate with Shanda Futo, Shanda's payment enterprise. On the other hand, Shanda's current user base of over 100 million will become the customer acquisition source for Pinju.com.
Previously, Shanda had announced having over 1.3 billion registered accounts and over 120 million active accounts. How to activate the over 100 million user resources and find suitable entry points is a question Chen Tianqiao has been pondering. He has also repeatedly emphasized within the company the need to achieve synergy among the various sectors such as gaming, literature, and music. According to industry insiders' analysis, Shanda Futo, which had already obtained a third-party payment license, is a subtle chess piece playing an indispensable role. Since Shanda Futo initially launched its top-up services, Shanda had placed high hopes on it, not just for its own platforms. As the universal cash voucher for Shanda Pass, Shanda has also been striving to activate it.
Starting from the end of 2010, the Shanda platform, which had traditionally been open only to the gaming industry, introduced non-gaming business cooperation solutions called "Shanda Connect." According to the concept of Shanda Connect, third-party websites only need to add a few lines of simple code on their pages to connect with a series of services provided by Shanda. Shanda Pass users do not need to register separately to directly use the services provided by these websites. Regarding payment, the webpage introduction states, "Shanda has over 5 billion yuan in capital reserves. After connecting to the payment service, users will be able to use 'Shanda Points' to pay for products on cooperating third-party websites, and Shanda will share the income with them."
Regarding the scope of application for virtual currency, according to the requirements of the Notice on Strengthening the Management of Virtual Currency in Online Games jointly issued by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce, "the scope of application for virtual currency in online games is limited to exchanging for virtual services provided by the issuing enterprise itself, and cannot be used for payments, purchasing physical products, or exchanging for any products and services from other enterprises." Therefore, industry insiders believe that expanding the business scope of Shanda Points still carries the risk of crossing legal boundaries.
What is likely to play a pivotal role in linking the synergistic effects Chen Tianqiao has repeatedly emphasized is probably Shanda Futo, which has already obtained a license. Last year, Chen Tianqiao announced Shanda's entry into the social networking and mobile internet fields, finding efficient conversion channels for the content of each sector in the entertainment empire. In this process, e-commerce is obviously an indispensable link. As Ge Binbin described, "in the future, besides gaming and reading, Shanda users will also be able to shop." Registered Shanda users may be able to directly log in to Pinju.com for shopping and make purchases through Shanda Futo.
Generating synergistic effects by integrating resources under its umbrella is naturally what Chen Tianqiao is most willing to see. Once the Shanda chain is connected, Shanda's registered users can carry out a series of consumption behaviors on Shanda's platform, from gaming, reading, video watching, to shopping. On the other hand, those hoping to leverage the platform effect are not limited to Chen Tianqiao alone. Tencent is also leveraging its platform advantages to pave the way for its C2C website Paipai.com. On August 8th, Tencent announced that it would initially invest marketing resources worth 500 million yuan to support Paipai.com. Wu Xiaoguang, Tencent's senior executive vice president, stated that Tencent's e-commerce platform would cooperate with products and community platforms such as QQ, QQ Mail, QQ Space, and Tencent Weibo, providing brand display, shopping sharing, SNS stores, and microblog stores as cooperative services for merchants.
This platform co-operation battle among internet giants has just begun.