"Double 11" platforms "do subtraction" to seek breakthroughs

Every year, "Double 11" will become a topic
of people's attention.
This year's "Double 11" is coming, and as the epidemic prevention and control has entered the normal, consumers' online shopping habits have been formed
.
After more than 10 years of ups and downs, major e-commerce platforms have joined hands to push the concept of "Double 11" to the extreme
.
While promoting the quality and expansion of consumption, it also once again confirms the huge potential of
China's consumer market from one side.

Although platform sales have increased several times and consumers' choices are richer, hidden dangers that cannot be ignored are also increasing, the traffic market is increasingly depleted, the promotion model loses its freshness, small and medium-sized businesses are becoming more and more difficult to do business, and emerging e-commerce platforms such as short videos are rising.
.
.
The platform is still actively building, but users are beginning to calm down, and the attitude of merchants is polarized
.
Some changes are already happening
.
Nowadays, the weight of consumer rights and interests protection has risen, and the core of the "Double 11" concept has begun to change
with any situation.
With the rise of live streaming e-commerce, the shortening of the reach paths of new and old e-commerce, and the emergence of internal and external factors, all platforms are "doing subtraction" this year, streamlining the activity mechanism, returning to the original intention of consumption, and striving to make consumers get a more affordable, relaxed and enjoyable carnival-style shopping experience
.

Simple and rough turned to intensive farming

One of the important reasons why "Double 11" has received so much attention in the past is that major platforms and merchants use crazy subsidies to attract and convert users
.
As the growth rate of Internet users slows down, e-commerce platforms fall into traffic anxiety, and the development model of relying only on simple and crude ways to acquire and convert users begins to lose its effectiveness
.

On the one hand, major platforms and merchants have difficulty in paying for consistently high subsidies; On the other hand, compared with small profits in the simple sense, consumers are more willing to enjoy better services and buy more satisfactory products
.

This year's "Double 11", a number of platforms have announced the rules of the event, and on the basis of giving full play to their own characteristics, they have introduced better discounts than in previous years to attract consumers
.
The "brain-burning game" that tested consumers in previous years has disappeared this year, and more emphasis is placed on "full reduction" and "discount"
.

This year's Tmall "Double 11" pre-sale will start at 20:00 on October 24, shortening the pre-sale time compared with before, so that consumers do not have to stay up late
.
The discount is 50 yuan minus every 300 yuan across stores, which is the largest discount in
recent years.
Jingdong continues the tradition of previous years, starting from October 20, it is still divided into 6 stages: pre-sale period, spot warm-up, opening popularity, scene period, climax period and return period, until the end of November 13, and the activity cycle is longer
than Tmall.

The momentum of emerging e-commerce platforms is not lost in
the slightest.
The most representative are TikTok and Kuaishou
.
Douyin entered the "Double 11" on October 24, opened the pre-sale deposit for the first time, gave away mall consumption coupons, and held activities
such as value-added shopping on Douyin mall and low-price flash sales on TikTok mall.
Douyin also takes advantage of its advantages in short videos and live broadcasts to open activities such as short video task competitions and live broadcast rooms for good things; For brands and top anchors, hold brand carnivals and live broadcast rooms for big coffee, and provide hundreds of millions of traffic support
.

This year, in terms of improving the consumer experience, various platforms have also launched some consumer-friendly initiatives
.
For example, Taobao, Tmall, Suning.
com and other e-commerce platforms announced upgrades to price protection services
.
Taobao Tmall said that the price protection service rules during the "Double 11" event have been upgraded, from the previous price protection within 15 days after payment, to the full price protection after payment/final payment to November 11, that is, from 15 days to 27 days
after the end of the event, that is, from payment to November 26.
Consumers who purchase goods with price guarantee labels, during the price guarantee period, if the same product from the same merchant is reduced in price, they can initiate a price guarantee application and apply for a refund of the price difference, so as to dispel the concern
of "buying early and suffering losses".

Taobao has also launched a multi-address combined order function, when settling the shopping cart, you can directly add different addresses to different products, and then merge them into one order to place orders
.
This means that consumers will be more free
to make orders during this year's "Double 11" period.

Traffic dominance shifts to "retention" first

In the past, "Double 11" was dominated
by traffic.
How to get as much traffic as possible and how to convert as much traffic as possible has become an important topic
that every e-commerce platform must think about.

Ms.
Chen, a citizen, said that in recent years, the form of "pre-sale + final payment" has stretched the front too long, and the enthusiasm for consumption is not as high as before.

Mr.
Zhang, a citizen, also said that consumption is becoming more and more rational, "Now many people around me are buying things in the live broadcast room, which is very cheap, and will not wait for 'Double 11' to buy
.
" "Relevant surveys show that the domestic consumer market shows two characteristics
: a more stable consumer spending tendency and a higher enthusiasm for new products pursued by the main force of the younger generation.

Wait until the traffic dividend peaks, especially when the cost of obtaining traffic continues to increase, and the traffic-led development model begins to enter a
dead end.
As a result, more and more platforms are beginning to shift from traffic-led to retention-led
.
The traffic dividend of Tmall, Jingdong and other platforms is gradually declining, from the pursuit of expansion to focusing on the stock market
.
Tmall gives more support to merchants in logistics, traffic and other aspects to reduce the pressure on old merchants on the
platform.

In terms of live streaming goods, Tmall gives various merchants and influencer anchors certain traffic incentives; In terms of logistics, it provides Tmall Youchang, gives additional subsidies for express delivery fees, and provides free door-to-door delivery services to maximize the convenience of users and merchants
.

JD.
com has also launched business support measures
.
By establishing a "factory store" model to support workers, self-employed, farmers and college students to open stores, we will help micro, small and medium-sized businesses to grow
.
At the same time, Jingdong gives merchants traffic support, and also reduces merchants' advertising and operating costs by reducing security deposits, platform usage fees, etc.
, so that existing merchants can maximize benefits
.

Traditional e-commerce platforms have invariably tried "contentization", that is, strengthening short videos, graphics and other content in the app to attract users to stay more to increase "endogenous traffic", and at the same time strengthening cooperation with platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu to supplement traffic
.

In the "Double 11", we can see the emergence of many new technologies, such as big data technology, artificial intelligence technology, cloud computing technology, etc.
, the application of these new technologies not only solves the pain points and problems often encountered in the past "Double 11", but also enriches the connotation and significance
of "Double 11" to a certain extent.

From the user side to the merchant side, the anchor of the positive circulation of traffic falls on the minimalist "Double 11" ecology
.
Especially under the trend of increasing consumption uncertainty, the ultimate cost performance and simple profit concession model have become the premise
of traffic aggregation.

(Gao Na comprehensive arrangement)

China Food News (October 21, 2022 Version 07)

(Editor: Gao Na)