As we all know, it was through the "price war" that JD.com tore a hole in the encirclement of Gome and Suning in the early years, and with the help of the strategy of "maintaining zero gross profit for major appliances within three years, guaranteed to be at least 10% cheaper than Gome and Suning chain stores", it opened consumers' purchasing minds and won the success of the 3C home appliance business.
Today, JD.com has grown into a behemoth and made brand recognition of "fast" and "good", but has lost its "low price" label.
At the end of last year, Liu Qiangdong pointed out at the company's operation and management training meeting that JD.com has given some consumers the impression of becoming more and more expensive, and it is necessary to return to the low-price strategy.
In order to achieve the ultimate cost performance, since the beginning of the year, Jingdong has taken frequent actions, in addition to preparing to launch tens of billions of subsidies, it has also launched "double compensation for buying expensive".
Jingdong's new rules "buy expensive double compensation"
A few days ago, Jingdong Merchant Center announced the "Jingdong Open Platform "Buy Expensive Double Compensation" Service Rules", which took effect on February 28, 2023. The new regulations apply to JD.com's own online stores and third-party online stores opened on JD.com's platform, excluding JD.com's small stores.
The rules point out that the double compensation service means that after consumers purchase goods marked with the service logo, if the actual amount paid for the order is higher than the price of the same product on a specific platform, the consumer can apply for compensation for double the difference between the actual amount of the order and the actual payment amount of the order with a valid voucher on the day of the order.
JD.com said that the specific platform refers to Pinduoduo's tens of billions of subsidies and Tmall (including websites, apps, WeChat public accounts, WeChat malls and mini programs, etc.). In addition, "double compensation" has a certain pool of goods, and does not cover all categories of goods.
In fact, "buy expensive and pay" is also a standard rule for e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, Pinduoduo, and Taote.
As early as October 2017, Tmall issued the "Buy Expensive Must Pay" Service Specification" notice, which shows that if consumers buy goods with the "Buy expensive must pay" logo on Tmall, and find that the transaction price of the product is higher than that of JD.com's own operation on the same day, they can apply for compensation for the difference.
Pinduoduo's 10 billion subsidy channel has also launched the "Buy expensive must pay" service. If the actual payment amount of goods purchased in Pinduoduo's 10 billion subsidy is higher than that of JD.com, Vipshop, Tmall platform, etc., users can provide valid vouchers on the day of payment to apply for a refund of the difference.
It is worth mentioning that on the issue of "compensation", these platforms mostly use vague concepts to describe, as for how much they paid users in the end, no one knows. JD.com stipulates a clear compensation amount this time: double the compensation amount for buying expensive = (consumer order payment amount - the actual amount paid by consumers when purchasing the same product on a specific platform) X2.
Obviously, this is louder than the previous Pinduoduo tens of billions of subsidies emphasized "brand authorization, quality assurance, buy expensive must pay" and Tmall tens of billions of subsidies shouted "fake one pays ten, buy expensive must pay, after-sales worry-free" slogan.
From the development of China's e-commerce industry, it is not difficult to find that low price is not only a weapon for e-commerce platforms to win the siege, but also the most attractive label for users, and is one of the core elements that determine consumer purchasing behavior. However, the competition in the stock market is fierce, and it remains to be seen how effective the price counterattack launched by JD.com through "buying expensive double losses" will be.
JD.com needs a low price tag
In fact, the reason why JD.com has returned to the low-price strategy, in addition to Liu Qiangdong's emphasis that "JD.com should serve multi-level consumers, considering both rich people and ordinary people", the most important reason is that as one of the old domestic e-commerce platforms, JD.com has opened a big gap with its peers Taobao and Pinduoduo.
According to public data, Ali currently has more than 1 billion annual active users in China, Pinduoduo also has 880 million, and JD.com has only about 580 million annual active consumers.
That is to say, compared with the two, JD.com's annual active users still have a lot of room for improvement, and many of these users are from the sinking market. Last year's 618, JD.com released data at the media open day showed that during the 618 period, new users from the sinking market accounted for as much as 67%.
For Jingdong, if you want to continue to seek increments from this part of the population, first of all, you can't have too much difference with Pinduoduo and Tmall in terms of price. Therefore, JD.com needs a wave of "low prices across the network" to win this part of the users, and the launch of the "buy expensive double loss" service happens to be directly benchmarked against Pinduoduo and Tmall, which will help JD.com gain a firm foothold in the sinking market.
In addition, JD.com's advantages in e-commerce platforms are quality and logistics, but as new competitors such as Meituan and Douyin continue to deepen their instant retail business, JD.com's proud logistics advantages have begun to shrink. The needs of JD.com users, which originally had relatively high requirements for timeliness, may be intercepted in advance, and consumers have gone to Meituan flash sale to buy digital 3C products.
Finally, it is worth noting that after JD.com introduces the compensation rules, it needs to ensure the service experience as always. After all, for old users shopping on JD.com, it may be acceptable to be more expensive, but once the service cannot keep up after JD.com reduces the price, I am afraid that it will lose the high-quality service brand image created before.
Senior Brother Yi has something to say:
In Liu Qiangdong's view, low price is "1", quality and service are two "0", lose the low price advantage, all other so-called competitive advantages will return to zero.
Today, Jingdong has picked up the price weapon again by launching tens of billions of subsidies and buying expensive double losses, but Taobao Tmall and Pinduoduo continue to consolidate the market, and then there are Douyin and Kuaishou to catch up, Jingdong wants to rely on the low-price strategy to create another miracle, I am afraid it is also difficult.