Tencent Alpha Tests Community Group Buying Product
Chinese tech giant Tencent has recently alpha tested a community group buying (CGB) applet “Exiangtuan” (鹅享团 Èxiǎngtuán) on WeChat, Xinyan Finance reported last Friday. Exiangtuan is a service tool for small and micro businesses, aiming at serving private domain transactions on WeChat, which can improve efficiency and private traffic operation.
On the homepage of Exiangtuan, people who want to launch CGB need to create a “store” in which their goods are displayed. The head of the group-buying community can share the goods to a WeChat group or with friends on WeChat. When a user buys the goods, the head will receive the order information in the background, and will start delivering the goods.
Tencent‘s internal testing of the product, however, is only a CGB tool. After all, it needs a huge supply chain system to support CGB. Currently, Tencent uses its huge social resources in WeChat to help the people build a trading system within WeChat. At the same time, this also lets WeChat users enjoy the convenience of purchasing CGB goods in the app.
Since 2016, CGB has started developing. After the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, people’s consumption habits have changed, and CGB has seen explosive growth. Many internet companies have entered the field. Didi launched CGB platform Chengxin Youxuan, Meituan released Meituan Youxuan, Pinduoduo has Duo Duo Grocery and Alibaba has Hema Youxuan.
Although Tencent didn’t really start a new CGB business, it can still realize CGB in WeChat by relying on Exiangtuan, and even explore other group buying models. According to an individual close to Tencent, the company pays more attention to e-commerce products this year, which is a field with stronger liquidity after the game industry.
