Chapter 523 Crisis of Trust

During the entire National Day holiday, group shopping is developing steadily and healthily.

Hengtong Freight’s first supply chain was successfully established, which greatly reduced the subsidy cost for community group purchases. Alipay’s cooperation with group purchase also rewritten the tourism pattern of first-tier cities.

However, for the group buying market, the crisis is coming.

On the last night of the October vacation, Jiang Qin was shirtless with three guys in the dormitory, as well as Zhang Guangfa and Zuo Baiqiang from the next door dormitory, drinking beer and eating the side dishes delivered in a group tour.

The most wonderful time of college life is probably right now.

But before he got tipsy, Wei Lanlan's phone call suddenly came to Jiang Qin's cell phone and read him a news briefing.

[Tuanbao.com is suspected of having lost funds, no one answered the 400 customer service call, and the boss may have run away]

Hearing this title, Jiang Qin frowned and said to himself that indeed, after the last round of market competition, the group buying website that had not raised funds was beginning to be unable to survive.

"Lao Jiang, what are you doing?

"It's okay, you eat first, you don't have to wait for me."

Jiang Qin reached out and took away the only meat dish on the table, turned around and turned on the computer, completely ignoring the beautiful Chinese quintessence behind him.

Tuanbao.com entered the group buying market when it first emerged. It developed very quickly in the early stage, and they were the first to establish the group buying membership points system.

In August last year, before the major websites raised funds, the company's number of employees once reached 2,300, and the number of members exceeded 8 million.

During the advertising war in 2009, he hired Peter Ho and Qin Lan as spokespersons, earlier than Lashou.com hired Mr. Ge. The commercials he shot were seen on CCTV and satellite TV everywhere.

However, in the third round, capital did not continue to be optimistic about him, causing his development to slow down.

Unexpectedly, in just one year, this website's funds have been cut off.

However, it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of online news, and Jiang Qin did not believe it all, and has been searching for early news on Tuanbao.com.

Then he discovered that Tuanbao.com had announced a layoff plan at the beginning of this year, and directly laid off 50% of its employees in the first round.

This incident caused quite an uproar at the time, but was quickly suppressed.

Leading websites such as Tuan Tuan, Dianping, LaShou, Nuomi, and Wowo Tuan only look forward when doing business in the market, not backward, so it is normal to miss some news from behind.

I just didn’t expect Tuanbao.com to be so miserable and go bankrupt.

But what surprised Jiang Qin was that they didn't just go bankrupt suddenly, because just three days before Tuanbao.com left the building empty, they also held a large discount event.

In other words, they once sold discount coupons on their own website, and then exchanged the money for it, and it was gone immediately.

When this incident was exposed, the matter suddenly became a big deal.

Group buying has always been the hottest emerging industry, especially the combination of Alipay and group buying, which has even been dubbed "changing the times".

As soon as the scandal broke, many mainstream media outlets across the country began to follow up.

The merchants that cooperated with Tuanbao.com saw the news and immediately announced that they would unilaterally terminate their cooperation and no longer recognize their coupons.

The coupons in the hands of consumers are not even waste paper, because they have lost their own value and are nothing more than a string of codes and a text message.

As a result, Baidu Tieba was instantly filled with angry consumers.

"I saved 30 supermarket shopping coupons, are they useless?"

"Damn it, I've already said that group buying is a scam. How can it be so cheap? Now I'm really being tricked!"

"Call the police, call the police quickly!"

"Brothers, do you have WeChat? I created a rights protection group and the group number is posted below."

"The government must give us an explanation for this matter!"

"What does it have to do with the government?"

"The government allows this kind of website to operate, shouldn't it strengthen control? How can it just run away?"

"The police have been called. The police said they would file a case. Let us go back and wait for news."

"I am not a consumer, I am the owner of Zhenguo Supermarket. It has been three months since Tuanbao.com has not settled the payment for me!"

"I'm also a merchant, and they took over 800,000 yuan from me!"

"It's over. We haven't even paid the merchants. This website has definitely run away!"

Jiang Qin clicked into the post forum and silently looked at the comments, his expression becoming serious little by little.

Just like what he talked with the old professor during class, group buying websites are developing rapidly and fiercely, but at this stage, the market will definitely slowly cool down.

Websites like Tuan Tuan have a strong ability to withstand risks and may not be greatly affected, but some websites that are already struggling will definitely lose their funds.

But Tuanbao.com’s operation really surprised Jiang Qin.

He actually sold coupons directly before going bankrupt and ran away with the money. In this way, the credibility of the entire group buying industry may be affected.

Because when everyone buys coupons from other group buying websites, they will definitely worry about whether it will be the next group buying website.

"Lao Jiang, do you still want to drink?"

"Stop drinking and start your career."

Jiang Qin raised a finger and said, "Did you see it? If I press this finger, there will be a few million with a swish sound."

After hearing this, Cao Guangyu crushed the can in his hand: "Fuck, you're so cool."

Zhang Guangfa looked at Jiang Qin, and had an illusory feeling that the classmate sitting next to me was a billionaire, so he burped: "I think what Mr. Jiang said may be true."

"You don't have to say it, of course it's true!" Cao Guangyu slapped the table.

"Then you still say Mr. Jiang is showing off?"

"I'm just so fucking angry because it's true. It's fake and it doesn't bother me!"

Jiang Qin laughed twice, then copied the WeChat group account in the post and joined it.

Many rights defenders have already joined the group and are talking in Chinese quintessence. Their voices to defend their rights are extremely loud. Even if you suddenly send a pornographic picture into the group, you may not be able to interrupt their curses.

Then the major media began to follow up, and news about the sudden disappearance of the group buying website began to spread throughout the entire network.

Some experts even jumped out and commented on this phenomenon.

"The popularity of the group buying market itself is abnormal. It is not surprising that this situation occurs..."

"In a money-burning industry, if you can't upgrade services and do a good job in operations, it will only be a matter of time before the funds are cut off."

"Perhaps this will happen to more websites in the future. Consumers need to choose carefully and not be blindly greedy for cheap."

The expert’s words are not just aimed at Tuanbao.com, but at the entire group buying industry, and these words will inevitably arouse the vigilance of consumers.

So in the following days, several leading group buying websites issued statements one after another, claiming that funds were sufficient and there would be absolutely no accidents.

But the seeds of doubt have been planted, and sometimes it cannot be solved with just a few words. The scammer will not tell you directly and clearly that he is a liar from the beginning.

As a result, many people who like to hoard coupons began to refund their coupons. Even the website business of Pintuan, which has been constantly promoting the image of integrity, was affected and received a large number of coupon refund applications.

The amount of these chargebacks is huge, and the total amount is enough to even make a website of the size of Lashou.com go bankrupt. As a result, all group buying websites have become a little nervous.

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Chapter completed!