Reporter | Luffy
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Now walk into UNIQLO's store and you will find that whether it is a product label, a poster, or a fitting room, a checkout desk, and a shopping guide are guiding you to pay attention to UNIQLO's WeChat Mini Program. If a size in the store is out of stock, or simply do not want to spend time queuing up to try on clothes, you can also use the WeChat Mini Program to scan the barcode on the clothing tag to place an order online.
With the consumer's scanning action, Uniqlo has another "friend" on WeChat. This was something that retail brands would not have dared to imagine five years ago. With the advent of the trend of digital transformation in the apparel industry, the above scenario has become an ideal case in private domain operation.
Recently, Tencent released the first T+ brand private domain value list. By comprehensively measuring the private domain operation status of multiple brands in the retail industry, Tencent Smart Retail selected three categories of "Annual Industry Benchmark", "Annual Leap Benchmark" and "Annual Four Force Benchmark" from more than 70 shortlisted enterprises.
Among them, the "annual industry benchmark" is divided into ten major industries such as clothing accessories, beauty daily chemicals, shoes and bags sports, and commercial supermarket fresh food for selection. Based on the private domain experience accumulated over the past many years, Tencent Smart Retail put forward a set of "four force growth models" as a criterion for judging - taking the overall private domain operation status of the brand as the core basis, Tencent Smart Retail quantitatively calculates the private domain value of the brand from the four dimensions of organizational strength, commodity power, operation force and product force.
Looking closely, a total of 16 leading companies in the apparel accessories industry have been selected, namely Uniqlo, Yilian Group, MJstyle, Hongdou Men's Wear, I.T. Barabala, Shadow, Aiju Rabbit, Aime, Cabbeen, PEACEBIRD Women's Wear, Semir, COS, UR, Bosideng and Jiangnan Cloth. The shoe and bag sports industry has 5 head representative companies such as Li Ning, Hot Wind, Belle, ANTA, and Sikatu on the list.
There are more than 20 companies on the list that also show that the private domain operation of the footwear industry has become white-hot. Especially after the repeated blows of the epidemic on the traditional offline retail model, almost no brand will deny the importance of digital development of layout.
What can be seen in recent years is that from offline stores to online e-commerce, from relying on the distribution system to the increased direct operation model, the two traditional industries of clothing accessories and footwear sports are actively seeking transformation in the digital wave. How to mobilize the advantages of the original offline store assets and integrate digital tools to further strengthen brand building, so as to achieve long-term and steady growth, has become the target consensus of the industry's top brands.
Among them, private domain operation is undoubtedly one of the most hotly discussed digital transformation directions. In contrast to undifferentiated public domain traffic to all consumers, private domain operation means that brands are repeatedly waking up potential consumers with minimal cost by minimizing the distance between them and consumers.
Based on the natural social sharing environment of WeChat ecology, coupled with the blessing of digital tools such as mini programs, enterprise WeChat, and public accounts, many brands have long used WeChat as a second official website base. In 2018, the birth of Tencent's smart retail department further accelerated the construction of retail brands in the private domain operation of the WeChat ecosystem.
Although the overall development of private domain operations is still short, it has played a significant role in the footwear industry. According to the above list, through the integration of online and offline operations, UNIQLO's private domain scale has exceeded 1 billion yuan; Li Ning's mini program users have exceeded 20 million; and Anta's private domain flow has achieved 2-3 times growth in 2021 alone.
Why can these companies achieve the rapid development of private domain operations, and what is the significance of this for other companies in the industry?
Cloud shopping guide helps the growth of private domain volume
Before the digital direction has not yet become the goal of the transformation of the footwear industry, offline stores are often the criteria for judging the size and performance of a brand. However, as online platforms gradually become important new retail formats, how to achieve online and offline linkage, further retain offline store customers, and convert into members has become an important part of private domain operations.
This is also the judging dimension of "operational power" in the "four-force growth model" proposed by the T+ brand private domain value list, that is, the brand's traffic acquisition and operational conversion capabilities at different touchpoints, including different aspects such as shopping guide, public account, live broadcast, community operation, and advertising delivery.
As a "veteran" of the domestic fashion industry, The Film Fashion Group, founded in 1996, currently owns six major brands: Music, Grace, Poetry, Song in Song, Origado, and Twelve Baskets. Around the "boutique women's life circle", each brand of Shadow Group has a clear and unique image and positioning for different market segments, and is one of the representative enterprises in the high-end dislocation competition in the domestic women's wear field. At present, Shadow has more than 1,500 directly operated stores across the country, realizing the integrated operation of online and offline omni-channel members.
Unlike many companies that build and operate Mini Program malls according to the traditional e-commerce logic, Shadow Group has built and operated "Shadow Mall" around the logic of physical store operation from the beginning. With the help of the WeChat Mini Program Mall, shopping guides and customers can connect anytime and anywhere, breaking the previous restrictions on the radius of shopping guide services.
Through the strong connection ability of the Mini Program, Shadow Group has solved a series of pain points such as the lack of contact between the shopping guide and the departing customers, the inability to identify whether the customer enters the store, the failure to understand the change of customer shopping behavior, and the inability of the store goods to meet the needs of customers, so that the customers can be connected, recognized, reachable and operated.
At the same time, Shadow Group has established a complete labeling and grouping system for members. From the front-end customer connection, to the data co-construction and identification of the daily behavior of the guests, to the final transformation into sales, the group shopping guide realized the activation of the whole process to consumers. After the transformation of the goods supply chain, it can achieve omni-channel rapid transfer, automatic replenishment, and delivery, so that the needs of customers can be fully met. In the end, the shopping guide was able to push exclusive one-on-one personalized fashion recommendations and services to customers, evolved into the role of personality consultants, realized the relationship management and maintenance with consumers, and triggered the fission between different brands of Shadow.
Through the promotion of private domain collectivization, the performance of Shadow Mall has risen rapidly. In 2020, its Mini Program GMV has exceeded 2.8 billion, covering more than 10 million fans.
The domestic head sports brand ANTA Group also pays attention to the ability to give shopping guides the ability to operate private domains. The management team of anta group headquarters will unify the marketing words and guidance plan and send them to all shopping guides to ensure the consistency of online promotion information.
In addition to allowing all shopping guides to use weChat to unify the external output of product content and brand image, which is convenient for ANTA to systematically manage customer assets, ANTA has also established platform tools such as digital shopping guide assistants to refine the content and methods of online operation of shopping guides.
According to Wang Mo, general manager of Tencent's smart retail vertical industry ecology, ANTA will also regularly invite shopping guides to feedback the use of these digital tools, so as to achieve the optimization and improvement of digital products.
To some extent, in this case, the shopping guide has become an "end user" of ANTA. Empowering shopping guides means that ANTA can optimize consumer services in a more targeted manner, after all, shopping guides are the first line of the brand's most direct consumer-facing.
For example, in the beginning, ANTA will put all the product materials, words and copywriting in a commodity pool, but this is very complicated for shopping guides in different regions to find the product information that is suitable for their own region. After improvement, ANTA has made refined circle selection and labeling for different product information, so as to facilitate the screening of shopping guides.
Overall, the integrated digital shopping guide platform made by ANTA can empower various retail terminals. It also plays a central role in managing and motivating shopping guides. In order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of shopping guides, ANTA also set up different forms of PK competitions such as one-to-one, many-to-many, and different areas of the same temperature band on the platform to compete, forming a catfish effect.
Through the flexible use of platform tools such as enterprise WeChat and Mini Programs, ANTA Group's WeChat private domain has created a GMV with an average daily income of tens of millions of yuan.
Explosive goods drive the mining of private domain value
Judging from the dimension of "commodity force" in the aforementioned "four-force growth model", brands that do a good job in mini programs can often do a wide and complete job in terms of product width and cover all channels; the price and rights of goods on brand mini programs are not worse than other channels; in addition, brand owners can also create more distinctive products according to the characteristics of online channels, such as new product sales, sharp goods sales and explosive product creation.
In the view of Ying'er, a sufficiently rich product line is one of the key elements to improve the volume of private domain and the repurchase rate of consumers. If the category is not rich enough, it is difficult to improve customer stickiness and cannot meet the diversified needs of consumers.
Therefore, based on the hierarchical insight of member portraits, Shadow has launched a product system of blue label and gold label matching in the Mini Program Mall. At the same time, the blue label as the main and the gold label as the supplement can not only increase the increment, but also effectively cultivate the customers of offline stores and feed the stores.
The exclusive commodity system combining breadth and precision has effectively undertaken the product line of Shadow Group, which not only helps to radiate more customer groups in the private domain, but also can dig deep into the personalized needs of customers.
With the continuous strengthening of Mini Program shopping cognition and the increase of brand investment, the top goods with exclusive characteristics on the shelves of Mini Programs have begun to become a breakthrough for brands to tap the value of private domains.
Click on anTA's mini program mall and you will find that unlike the home page of the mall with the general brand shelf display, "member exclusive" occupies the most central position of the first-level page. Compared with the logic of traditional retail "people looking for goods", ANTA puts members in the core position to promote the business logic of "goods looking for people". In other words, putting the consumer at the heart of all process design.
ANTA will also sell sharp goods through public accounts and mini programs from time to time. "Sharp goods" here refers to limited-edition goods that embody brand value and trend orientation, such as ANTA's KT series is a limited-edition sneaker series cooperated by ANTA and NBA star Klay Thompson. In 2018, as an ANTA's first global limited edition of 350 pairs of sneakers, KT3-Rocco boots were sold in a limited edition of 200 pairs in the United States, and thousands of people outside the NiceKicks shoe store in San Francisco rushed to grab it.
In addition to the vertical field of basketball, ANTA has recently sold a series of overbearing monologues with "Chinese style" as the core element in the Mini Program.
The limited sale of sharp goods generally adopts a lottery system, and consumers can participate in the lottery through mini programs, and then purchase and pick up goods through online or offline stores. It is worth noting that ANTA tends to choose flagship stores that can convey the brand image on the stores that are sold offline in the sharp goods series.
Generally speaking, it is often the most core fan group of the brand that will always pay attention to the sale of the sharp goods series. The consumer group should also be the core member asset that ANTA needs to strive to retain in its private domain operation.
In fact, the sharp goods series is only one of the means by which ANTA reaches its core members. It is worth mentioning that for six years, ANTA has also been operating the basketball tournament IP it founded. It not only gives ordinary basketball fans a stage to show, but also becomes a source of inspiration for ANTA to develop basketball-related products.
Obviously, similar to the logic of brand characteristics and scarcity represented by the sharp goods series, consumers who can participate in the brand's self-created events are also fans of the ANTA brand in a sense. According to Wang Mo, in terms of private domain operation, ANTA is also trying to further interact and resonate with core members around the self-created event IP.
Generally speaking, Mini Programs are the core carrier of WeChat's private domain ecology, and functions such as public accounts and searches are windows to help brands and consumers have direct dialogues.
It is worth mentioning that since weChat launched the video number function in 2020, shoe and apparel companies such as ANTA and Shadow Group are also laying out the development of video numbers to increase the contact points in the private domain ecology. The content format of the video number and the live shopping service help brands attract more public domain traffic to feed back private domain traffic.
The video number can improve the construction of the current WeChat private domain ecology of The Shadow Group, there is a lot of room for development, and in only half a year, the turnover of the Shadow Group has increased by more than 4 times. How to fully link the video number with other modules of the WeChat ecosystem and introduce new traffic to the private domain to undertake is still the direction that Shadow Group is striving to improve.
Private domain operations bring long-term value to brands
It can be seen that most of the shortlisted companies on the T+ brand private domain value list are head companies that have accumulated considerable voice in the industry. The size and infrastructure capabilities of these companies themselves are the initial capital they can invest in the private domain and quickly obtain to transform.
Wang Mo told Interface Fashion that in the first two years of Tencent's smart retail establishment, the first to reach cooperation was the head enterprise represented by UNIQLO, which has built a certain private domain foundation because of its brand appeal and product characteristics. After experiencing the impact of the epidemic on offline formats in early 2020, many large-scale footwear and apparel merchants have begun to pay attention to cultivating private domains.
In Wang Mo's view, to really do a good job in private domain operation is actually a "CEO project", which requires enterprise managers to have awareness and determination.
This also involves the ability to ensure the efficient operation of private domain operations and the achievement of goals, as emphasized by "organizational force" in the "four-force growth model". This means that the strategic positioning, provisioning, and team building of private domains are all important.
From the perspective of the growth of the private domain of the footwear industry, the development of technology and collaborative business teams are indispensable. Among them, the business structure includes many aspects of responsibility functions such as market publicity, traffic guidance, store and e-commerce operations. In order to build a private domain ecology, brand enterprises must clarify their own organizational structure and goal settings.
According to Wang Mo's recollection, ANTA built its own Mini Program very early, but before the formal establishment of the private domain operation team in 2021, the Mini Program was only one of the brand's many third-party platforms. This means that the right to operate Mini Programs may only be generalized in the e-commerce sector. In order to improve the establishment of the entire WeChat private domain ecology, ANTA officially has an independent private domain operation team after a considerable period of internal discussion and planning, and has reached a more in-depth cooperation with Tencent's smart retail team.
On the other hand, "product power" is also a key link that determines the effectiveness of the brand's private domain operation in the WeChat ecosystem. As a trading platform, the Mini Program is the core digital product, and the fluency of its operation, the creation of the mall interface and other details can easily affect the consumer's shopping and service experience in the private domain.
In order to enhance the overall experience of WeChat's private domain ecosystem, Tencent has also launched a series of cloud product and service provider resources to help brands continuously strengthen their technical capabilities to flexibly use digital products.
Although it seems that private domain operation requires brand enterprises to use a lot of manpower, material resources and energy, this does not mean that as long as everything is ready, it can be achieved in the construction of private domain. For different brands, it is necessary to constantly explore different ways of playing in the private domain according to their actual situation.
Taking online and offline linkage as an example, UNIQLO stores can already achieve an omni-channel shopping experience of "scanning code purchase anytime and anywhere" and "picking up goods in online order stores". However, this involves the construction of a back-end system for the unified allocation of inventory information in different stores, and there is not enough energy for some brands whose development is still early.
In this regard, Wang Mo believes that these brands can start from some early private domain means, such as placing a two-dimensional code of a public account next to the cash register, so that consumers can scan the code to obtain the latest information of the brand when settling goods. In this way, offline consumers have the opportunity to become omni-channel consumers. Subsequent brands can also continue to refine some private domain-related link designs.
All respondents agreed that the core of private domain operations is consumer-centric. The users in the private domain traffic pool are already a group of brand loyal users who have crossed the cognitive threshold.
Therefore, for all brands that want to specialize in the private domain, the deep management of this group of consumers with core values is also constantly strengthening the brand power, bringing a steady stream of performance increments and innovation momentum to themselves. This is something of long-term value.