团购网站LivingSocial验证行业寒冬

    团购网站LivingSocial将裁员400人的消息时至今日已不是令人惊讶的新闻了。所谓的在线团购行业从来就站不住脚——至少对不起那些夸张的宣传吹捧，也对不起投资人给LivingSocial和Groupon等团购网站投入的大把资金。

    但是人们花了很长时间才认识到这一点。如果穿越互联网时代的迷雾，回溯到2009年和2010年，你会发现，许多科技媒体对团购这个领域极为热衷，而它们其中一些根本就不关心新闻报道背后的真相。2010年，在最受欢迎的团购网站Groupon还没有成为替罪羊之前，Groupon还获得了一个“最佳社交商务应用”的头衔。科技博客TechCrunch以及其它一些博客每年都会给几家科技公司颁发这类奖项。Groupon的CEO安德鲁•梅森还赢得了“年度CEO”的美誉。

    从幸灾乐祸的角度看，颁发这些奖项的时机可谓再好不过了。几乎就在同一时期，团购的大衰退开始了，尽管当时Groupon已经宣布公司即将上市。2011年，Groupon的几位高管突然离职，而梅森本人也因为违返了IPO的“缄默期”规定，以及在IPO前后批准了一些恶心的会计流程而饱受批评。2011年11月，Groupon的IPO进行得非常成功，公司估值达到127亿美元。一年后，它的市值就缩水至29亿美元，股价狂跌80%。据说Groupon的董事会正考虑换掉梅森。

    与Groupon相比，LivingSocial的处境也好不到哪去。这次裁员幅度相当于该公司4,500名员工的9%，而且被裁的主要是销售和客服人员。上个月，LivingSocial的亏损达到5.66亿美元，而收入只有1.24亿美元（这已经是去年同期的一倍）。其中有4.96亿美元的亏损是由于并购市值的缩水，而这主要是由于公司的核心业务——即团购业务十分惨不忍睹。与此同时，作为拥有LivingSocial公司30%股份的股东亚马逊公司（Amazon），它对LivingSocial的投资也亏损了1.67亿美元。（2010年亚马逊向LivingSocial投资了1.75亿美元。）

    彭博社（Bloomberg News）近日获得了一份LivingSocial的CEO蒂姆•奥肖尼斯写给员工的备忘录，看来奥肖尼斯上个月为了找正面报道花了不少工夫。他在备忘录中写道，9月份的现金流呈正数，这还是公司有史以来头一遭。“上季度最后一个月的月末，我们在银行里的现金超过了当月月初的数字，这在我们通向盈利和长期成功的路上是一个重要的里程碑。”

    两三年前“团购热”方兴未艾的时候，扑天盖地的宣传全都忽略了一个铁的事实，那就是所谓的在线团购并不是一个非常出色的业务。首先使用团购的人正在迅速减少，其次团购用户在本地商家那里获得了很大的折扣后，往往再也不会到同一家商铺付全款消费了，而这恰恰与商家参与团购的初衷背道而驰。更糟糕的是，团购行业的门坎很低，人人都能参与，因而没过多久，团购业就呈现出“百团大战”的局面。它意味着没有一家公司有真正的市场支配力，而网络效应（即人们看见其他人使用某个服务，就去跟风使用某个服务）也会因此降到最低。

    The news that LivingSocial will lay off about 400 employees shouldn't come as much of a surprise at this point. The online-coupon business has never made much sense -- at least, not enough sense to justify the incredible hype and vast piles of investor cash companies like LivingSocial, Groupon (GRPN), and others once drew.

    But it took a long time for people to realize this. If you look back through the foggy mists of Internet time -- to 2009 and 2010 -- you'll find that that the tech media, particularly the outlets that tend to be the least discerning about what gets covered and how, couldn't resist thetemptation to enthuse over the sector. In 2010, Groupon -- the darling of the sector before it became the whipping boy -- won a Crunchie for "Best Social Commerce App." The Crunchies are awards given out each year by TechCrunch and other tech blogs to the companies they cover. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason also won as "CEO of the Year."

    From a cynic's perspective, the timing of the awards couldn't have been more perfect. Almost immediately, the backlash ensued, even as Groupon announced that it would go public. In 2011, several top executives bolted, and Mason came in for some heavy criticism when it was allegedhe violated the IPO "quiet period" rule and, later, that he had approved some skeevy accounting procedures both before and after the IPO. The November 2011 IPO went gangbusters, valuing the company at $12.7 billion. A year later, its market cap is about $2.9 billion. The stock has lost about 80% of its value. Groupon's board is reported to be considering replacing him.

    LivingSocial hasn't fared much better. The layoffs represent about 9% of the company's 4,500-strong workforce, and are mainly made up of sales and customer-service personnel. The company last month reported a $566 million loss on revenues of $124 million (which was double the year-earlier period's sales, if that matters). It took a $496 million charge on the loss of value of acquisitions, many of which were made because the company's core business -- online coupons -- is so terrible. Meanwhile, Amazon (AMZN), which owns 30% of LivingSocial, took a $167 million charge on losses on that investment, which it made in 2010 when it laid out $175 million.

    In a memo to employees obtained by Bloomberg News, CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy last month seemed to be digging hard for positive news when he wrote that cash flow in September was postive for the first time in the company's history. "We ended the last month of the quarter with more money in the bank than we had at the beginning of the month, marking an important milestone on our path to profitability and long-term success," he wrote.

    What was missing from all the hype a couple of years ago was the bedrock fact that online coupons don't make for very good business. People who use them (and whose numbers are fast-declining) get often-huge discounts from local businesses, but too often don't ever go back to those businesses to pay full price, which is supposed to be the whole idea for offering them. Even worse, there are few barriers to entry -- anybody could do it, and for awhile there, it seemed as if everyone did, as companies packed into the space. That means that no company can have any real market power, and network effects -- people using a service because other people are using the service -- are minimal.