When new platforms such as Pinduoduo, Douyin e-commerce, Xiaohongshu, and Meituan rose, many people naturally believed that their emergence had seized Taobao's market share. Taobao's last publicly available data shows that the number of annual active users reached 890 million. The glory Alibaba of the past is in stark contrast to the current booming Pinduoduo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu and Meituan. Therefore, many people are trapped in the "information cocoon", thinking, "Is there anyone still shopping for Taobao?" ”
Is there really no one shopping on Taobao now? Those who hold this view are clearly alarmist.
Data show that in 2022, the national online retail sales will 137853 billion yuan, an increase of 4.0% over the previous year. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods 119642 billion yuan, an increase of 6.2%, accounting for 27.2% of the total retail sales of consumer goods. In other words, although the total retail sales of consumer goods in 2022 will decline by 0.2% year-on-year, the proportion of consumption in online retail sales is increasing, that is, the overall market of the entire market is also increasing.
Emerging platforms such as Pinduoduo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Meituan seize the market of the entire retail industry, for example, third- and fourth-tier cities and rural markets, and many people in remote areas may not shop online at all, but with the promotion of platforms such as Pinduoduo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Meituan, they have also learned to shop online.
As the overall market expands, emerging platforms are not only seizing Taobao's market share, but also a wider range of markets. In fact, no single company can eat the same large retail market space as the country, and as the overall market expands, each platform can profit. Just like the early e-commerce industry, Taobao once became the absolute No.1 in the industry, but the annual GMV and active users of Taobao at that time were definitely much less than now, including JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin e-commerce, Xiaohongshu, Meituan and other platforms, all expanding the overall e-commerce market. Vertical e-commerce, which was once popular but has almost disappeared now, has also contributed to the popularity of e-commerce.
While seeing the rise of emerging platforms, we should also see room for e-commerce to continue to grow. When individuals understand information, it is easy to fall into the so-called "information cocoon", that is, seeing that a few people around them use Taobao less often, or the number of times they go to Taobao becomes less, they come to the conclusion that "no one visits Taobao now".
In fact, user habits and data can also show some lag. For example, users think that emerging platforms such as Pinduoduo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Meituan are so popular and cheap that users will jump to new platforms at once, but the reality is that under the scale of China's 841 million online shopping users, user habits will not suddenly have a large number of user transfers.
The most common practice of users is to try to shop online on emerging platforms such as Pinduoduo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Meituan, and only after their purchase frequency and user habits have developed, they will fix their shopping on a certain platform. And user habits and personal habits, not so easy to change, some users with Taobao may have used more than ten years or more, it is difficult to change the user habits of this group of people, just like let you suddenly change a personal habit, such as brushing your teeth at night, tidying up the home, regular, years of habits can not be changed overnight.
A very common application scenario of online shopping is people looking for goods, the goods are very important, the goods involve SKUs, Jingdong's advantage lies in electronic digital 3C, home appliances and other common standard products, and Taobao's advantage lies in long-tail goods. Many netizens call Taobao "the almighty Taobao", largely because there are more long-tail goods on Taobao, after nearly 20 years of accumulation, the number of merchants accumulated on Taobao exceeds 10 million, merchants cover a variety of commodity categories required by consumers, from large to small, as long as consumers want to buy, Taobao is likely to be found.
Therefore, many people say that "no one visits Taobao" is a false proposition, in the long-tail effect, there is currently no domestic e-commerce platform comparable to Taobao, such as, bathroom door connectors, door handles, book covers, screws, hardware accessories, etc., Taobao has accumulated a large number of SKUs of these small pieces, when consumers have demand, or can only return to Taobao, unless other platforms can attract these sellers to the past, otherwise, users will not lose.
Of course, Jingdong, Duoduo, Douyin e-commerce, Xiaohongshu, Meituan and other platforms have not had an impact on Taobao, but as I mentioned in the past, consumers will not become a dedicated user of a certain platform, in the case of large-scale e-commerce rollout, consumers will only jump between various platforms, users before going to a certain platform to shop, their hearts already have a certain impression, such as, how is the previous shopping experience, logistics experience, after-sales service experience, price advantage, etc.
Then there is the scarcity of goods on the platform, some platforms do not have the goods/merchants they want, naturally they can only change to other platforms.
Of course, consumers like to be able to buy "cheap" goods, but cheap is bottomless, just like Apple mobile phones, the price of each platform is completely different, for consumers, how will they measure the "cheap" iPhone 14? For example, if a merchant is 50 yuan/100 yuan more expensive than another, how consumers will choose, consumers will also measure.
Of course, Taobao cannot underestimate the competitive pressure of platforms such as JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin e-commerce, Xiaohongshu, and Meituan, but there is no need to underestimate Taobao's position in the e-commerce field. No big company can fall suddenly, and it will naturally be known in a few years.