[The Epoch Times, October 17, 2022]Affected by factors such as the epidemic, transactions in China’s real estate industry are bleak. Many real estate agencies have recently started cross-border e-commerce businesses, but the benefits are not ideal.
Recently, the agent of 21st Century Real Estate sold Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs through posters and live broadcasts in the circle of friends. On the evening of October 13, in the live broadcast room of “21 Life Choice”, a female anchor was talking about the “big and fat” hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake, and launched 5 models of hairy crabs at the same time.
“21 Life Choice” is an online e-commerce platform launched by 21st Century Real Estate, a large real estate agency, in the first half of this year. In addition to hairy crabs, the platform also currently lists products such as liquor, coffee, beauty makeup, and pre-made dishes.
According to Jiemian News, the scale of the real estate agency industry has shrunk in the past two years, and agency brands have begun to seek new growth points across borders.
For example, according to the second quarter financial report of Shell Search, as of the first half of this year, the number of real estate brokerage stores under Shell has decreased by 19.0% compared with the previous year, and the total number of brokers has decreased by 24.4% compared with the previous year. At the same time, Shell House is also adding home improvement and leasing businesses to the original second-hand and new house businesses.
In August this year, 21st Century Real Estate incorporated the sauce wine brand “Si Shi Jiu Fang” into its sales platform, officially launching the community ecological strategy. 21st Century Real Estate has also set a three-year goal, and the resumption of business will involve liquor, hairy crabs, coffee, prepared dishes and other fields. In addition to online e-commerce platforms, offline community group buying is also one of its marketing channels.
21st Century Real Estate is not the first real estate agency to get involved in the community ecological economy. In recent years, the real estate agency Lianjia has launched the “Lianjia Community Life” applet, which includes the integration of community announcements, cloud printing and other services. At the same time, Lianjia has also opened a number of community convenience stores, placing daily necessities such as rice, oil, custard, beverages and snacks on the shelves.
As early as many years ago, property management companies started community e-commerce business, such as Country Garden launched the “Biyou” community group purchase e-commerce, Poly Property launched the “Heyuan Youpin” community group purchase e-commerce, and Midea Property launched the “Yunduohui” micro-commerce platform. Mall etc.
However, the effect of community e-commerce business of property management enterprises is not obvious. Xiong Xin (pseudonym), a staff member of Poly Property, said that the owner’s willingness to actively buy on the platform is not strong.
In addition, the e-commerce industry itself is also highly competitive. According to data previously released by the China E-Commerce Research Center, among the more than 4,000 fresh food e-commerce companies in China, 88% lost money, 7% suffered huge losses, and only 1% realized profits.
The reason why Chinese real estate agencies have crossed borders and entered the fiercely competitive e-commerce industry has been accused of being related to the bleak real estate market.
According to the statistics of the Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China, from January to July this year, the sales area of commercial housing across the country fell by 23.1% year-on-year; the sales of commercial housing fell by 28.8% year-on-year. In addition, according to the statistics of Lu Media in July, there are about 150 real estates that have been cut off nationwide, covering about 20 provinces and nearly 70 cities (districts).
Responsible editor: Li Bing#