Idol-World, for its part, announced on Monday that it will begin testing its group buying service in five cities, including Seoul, Incheon and Busan, in order to start competing with companies such as Groupon after entering the group buying market, and the company said it hopes to use the advantages of social networks to provide services that are more attractive than those of its competitors.

In this regard, Gu Yongjia, head of Shinhan Group Headquarters, said that 'Idol-World' users can receive information about group purchase transactions provided by 'Idol-World' via email, and it is also easy to share group purchase transactions with friends. ’

Halfway through August, the news appeared on the second page of the Yahoo Finance section that went unnoticed, but no one expected it to make headlines on major portals just three days later, with a mediocre response to the group buying test that began on August 16, but the coverage that followed began to attract attention.

According to market research firm BIA/Kelisy, the Korean group buying market will reach $800 million by 2012, up from $300 million in 2010, and Groupon Korea will post a net loss of $10 million in the first quarter of the next year, due to increased marketing expenses due to increased competition.

In addition, 'Idol-World' has introduced a Groupon-like feature that allows merchants to offer discounts to nearby customers, but its setting that allows users to operate anonymously is tantamount to giving up its own social advantages, and the cumbersome design of separate payments and the accompanying increase in transaction fees of 3% are likely to greatly affect users' enthusiasm for trading. ’

August 18 was the day when Shinhan made headlines in the financial sector again.

''Idol-World' has made a big push into the field of online commerce in Korea, and Korea's largest online shopping site 'Silla' may become a part of Shinhan'

The long headline still doesn't reflect the full content. As the only influential social networking site in Korea, 'Idol-World' is influencing the Korean Internet landscape with every move. The rise of the Internet will bring new business opportunities, which is the consensus of investors in the world. Due to the recent reports that foreign investors are not optimistic about Shinhan's entry into the group buying field, for Korean investors, Shinhan's series of seemingly cumbersome group purchase payment designs are full of gold.

First of all, the group buying program is only for famous products.

Secondly, each participating franchise store cannot use the same product.

Except for the anonymous group purchase payment step that seems to be a waste of its social advantages, the group purchase design of 'Idol-World' is exactly the same as that of Groupon.

However, it takes care of the face of Koreans...... In time, Groupon, which dominates most of the world's group buying market, will be driven out of Shinhan. The global market forecasters always give the Korean group buying market a low rating, precisely because they ignore the face of Koreans.

No one likes to post on 'Idol-World' that they have bought a famous product at a low discount, and the simple anonymous design satisfies the vanity of users.

Shinhan's stock price rose slightly on the same day, and the head of the headquarters, Gu Yongjia, did not respond directly to the media report about whether Silla would join the Shinhan Group, but announced that the second group buying test would be held in a week.

On August 25, 1,400 group buying places were sold out in the second group buying test of 'Idol-World', and the transaction amount reached a terrifying 15 billion yuan, accounting for 5% of the 2010 Korean group buying market forecast given by BIA/Kelisy. Shinhan also announced that the group buying event will be officially launched on 'Idol-World' and Silla on a weekly basis, and will expand its scale to officially join the group buying field.

At this point, Groupon is faced with a simple math problem. According to Shinhan's weekly group buying frequency, if it always maintains users' enthusiasm for trading, the Korean group buying market will be doubled by Shinhan. Maybe $700 million in '11, which is something they've been trying to do but can't do since they landed in South Korea in May '09.

In fact. Even though Groupon Korea also launched an anonymous service in January '11, it still couldn't maintain a profit under the joint strangulation of 'Idol-World' and Silla.com. In the end, due to the high cost of competition, he withdrew from the Korean group buying market in May of the same year, and handed over a piece of cake that had been cultivated for two years.

Back now, the news of Shinhan's entry into the field of online commerce is well known, but some people still can't understand the huge benefits it brings, so they make a lot of nonsense.

"What business is humanities, he Lin Weiran is not Korean, he knows what Korean humanities."

In the noisy barbecue restaurant, four or five men in suits gathered together to talk loudly, and a young man who looked like a junior had just read an interview with Gu Yongjia, the head of the Shinhan headquarters, in the JoongAng Ilbo, and everyone scoffed at some of the words.

"I think it's Minister Goo Hon's ass going to pat Chairman Lin at this time, and I don't know what President Do-Park is doing at this time, isn't 'Idol-World' a project of Shinhan IT?"

"The virtual idol concert has dragged on for so long, and it is estimated that President Park also knows that patting on the back cannot solve the problem, and now the showy scenes have fallen on the head of the group, I think Chairman Lin is beating President Park."

"So we're almost there?"

"I think it's pretty much there."

"Yes, Shinhan is a big group, there is no need to be a brokerage company like us artists in terms of a little acting fee, or in a few days, I think Park Jung-chang will be relieved......"

A bunch of idiots!

At the table, Hong Shengcheng was obviously outside the lively atmosphere, looking at the few people who were talking, he could only sneer in his heart, picked up the soju and took a sip, but it still couldn't relieve the depression in his heart.

With a smile on his face, Hong Shengcheng, who got up and left the table, came outside, looked at the traffic on the street, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply.

It was a mistake to try to blackmail Shinhan with these people, and the total amount of transactions involved in online commerce is at least billions of dollars every year. It is several times the total output value of the entire music industry, and the profit brought to Shinhan by 'Idol-World' alone is more than that of the three major agencies in the music industry combined. Where would such a company be blackmailed by them? Not to mention that the group buying project organized by 'Idol-World' these days involves all the franchise stores of Silla Net, and the two companies wear a pair of pants. Who would say that virtual idols are the core industry of 'Idol-World'?

Sharp and dizzy.

Instead of blackmailing Shinhan, why don't you follow Shinhan and look at those idol groups under CJ, where will there be a threshold for virtual idols in front of them?

"Senior Hong."

When he turned around and saw someone coming, Hong Shengcheng had only smoked half of the cigarette in his hand.

"It's too stuffy inside, so I came out to breathe like Senior Hong."

Hong Shengcheng nodded, except for smiling, he really didn't want to talk about it, but the person who came obviously didn't want to just gossip with him. lit a cigarette and stood beside Hong Shengcheng: "Senior, 4Minute, Beast and GN.A have all developed well recently, so there should be no problem in coming to Global to inject CUBE into it, right?" ”

Hong Shengcheng shook his head, and he could only smile wryly when he talked about this, to say that the evaluation of the popularity of Korean stars has been the same over the years, public awareness, awards, sales, music sources and best-selling songs, but in the past year, there has been one more whether to land on a virtual idol.

He sighed lightly and threw away the cigarette butt: "The proportion has never been discussed, and you know the popularity of the artist." It's hard to define. ”

"Landing on a virtual idol and not landing on a virtual idol is not the same value, everyone knows this." The person who came took a puff of cigarette, "But senior, with Kim Hyun-ah's popularity." 4MINUTE landing shouldn't be a problem, right? ”

Hong Shengcheng continued to shake his head and smile bitterly: "Who knows what Lu Dao Shinhan thinks, saying that it is uneven popularity and easy to have uncontrollable image problems, so I won't let me land." ”

"It's ......"

The words are not finished. But the implication in it is that Hong Shengcheng can understand that virtual idols have now become a benchmark for the popularity of Korean idol groups. The image point is that those who can land are high-end and high-grade, and those who can't land are on the line. For idols' popularity competition, the high-end image symbolizes a kind of 'momentum', and it is precisely because Shinhan has such power that people can easily believe Shinhan's ambition to completely control the Korean entertainment industry, which was pointed out in a recent report.

CUBE has just been formed for two years, and although 4Minute and Beast are popular, they are not at all as good as 2NE1 and BigBang, which are also not logged in, and they can use not logging in as a selling point, but 4Minute and Beast in a relatively traditional style can't do so, if Shinhan asks CUBE to provide some private services to its executives on the condition of landing......

Heh, he doesn't seem to be able to say no right away.

"No, it won't." Hong Seung-sung shook his head, "In the past few years, I have never heard of Shinhan involved in this matter, and every senior executive of Shinhan, including Chairman Lim, has signed a 'ethics agreement', and there has even been news. ”

Ethics agreement, modern enterprises pay attention to the image of the degree is far more than ever before, such restrictions abound, fake public interests, bribery will violate the terms of the ethics agreement, if exposed, the most serious consequence is to resign.

The so-called unspoken rules are naturally included in the moral clauses, and since Shinhan was the first Korean company to introduce such a system, the Fair Trade Commission issued a special announcement to reward it and encourage all Korean companies to learn from it.

"Maybe it's just that I'm too careful, but seniors don't have to worry too much, 4Minute may not work, but Beast should have a good chance, wait a while, maybe Shinhan will take the initiative to come to the seniors. It's a pity that U-Kiss has just debuted, and I don't know when Lu Dao will have this opportunity......"

Since the cooperation between Wonder-Girls and Big-Bang, the cooperation between Girls' Generation and 2PM has pushed the cooperation model of 'male and female matching' in the entertainment industry to the peak, since a month ago, U-kiss wanted to have some scandals with Kim Hyun-ah, the most popular in 4Minute, but unfortunately Kim Hyun-ah, who has a sexy style herself, can't bear the image loss caused by such exposure.

As time went on, the small alliance of brokerage companies became more and more taboo about Shinhan's attitude, and because Shinhan controlled the channel, the large economic cooperatives that originally participated in the alliance became more and more ambiguous, and the powerful companies such as S.M and JYP became more and more ambiguous, while the other rabble became more and more obsessed with Shinhan's 'no action'.

Divide and co-opt and provoke civil strife.

Anyone sitting in the president's seat knows these methods.

It's just that they have been waiting for Shinhan to make conditions, and Shinhan has never put conditions on anyone.

Could it be that some people have already secretly Chen Cang?

This calm seemed to deepen the mutual suspicion between the alliances, and until the end of this meeting, Hong Seung-sung was still speculating about which of the people present had received Shinhan's terms.

The so-called rabble is talking about them. (To be continued......)