This year, 618 has come to an end.
Although the topic of "low price" runs throughout 618, the industry understands that at any time, price wars can neither bring new commercial value nor solve the real anxiety of the industry. If you focus only on the price war, this can be a rather boring 618.
The closing report may reflect the changes and real ideas of the platform.
For example, JD.com released a war report that did not clearly write about the transaction volume and growth, but focused on recommending various functions that JD.com wanted to reflect, especially "one-click price protection", in which JD.com proudly announced that this button was clicked more than 600 million times during 618.
Of course, the new CEO of JD.com also proudly announced that 618 has a large number of offline merchants involved, especially small and medium-sized businesses. This makes JD 618 add more than 1,200 new trend categories this year, providing consumers with more diversified choices.
And Taotian Group's war report is more interesting, although like the previous 618, Double 11, transaction volume is no longer the focus of Taotian's attention, but from live broadcast, consumer retention time and other data, it can be seen that Taotian is still the leading domestic e-commerce shopping platform.
What's more interesting is that for the importance of small and medium-sized businesses, Taotian Group is more thorough, not only launched the Taobao Good Price Festival for small and medium-sized merchants during the 618 period, but also launched the homepage on the eve of 618.
Data show that as of 0:00 on June 18, more than 2.56 million small and medium-sized businesses have a turnover of 618 this year, exceeding the same period last year. Another 1.18 million small and medium-sized merchants achieved a small breakthrough of "10,000 yuan transaction", of which 68,000 merchants joined Taobao less than three months ago.
The participation of small and medium-sized businesses has also made this year's 618 the richest and most diversified edition of goods. As of 0:00 on June 18, Taobao Tmall had a total of 2,227 categories of products, a year-on-year increase of more than 100%.
In fact, such data also shows that the characteristics of major platforms are that they pay more attention to small and medium-sized businesses, and they have begun to increase their support.
So, why do e-commerce platforms have to make such a big transformation in the highly competitive e-commerce market?
1 "gimmick" abandoned,
The e-commerce industry has changed
This year's 618 major e-commerce platforms are different from the previous performance, indicating a particularly simple truth, that is, consumers' consumption trends have undergone fundamental changes.
At present, China's economy is now in an ever-changing cycle, and for e-commerce platforms, the best way to traverse the cycle is to find certainty from uncertainty. And the consumer trend is precisely the current e-commerce platform, looking for the main certainty of uncertainty.
Starting from Pinduoduo's sudden sinking market to the integration of Taobao Tmall, it undoubtedly shows that consumer trends have changed drastically from a few years ago.
Today's consumers are becoming more and more rational, their needs are becoming more and more segmented, and they are more and more aware of what they need, they are not concerned about the consumption process, nor the absolute low price that some people think, but hope to find a balance between price and quality, so that consumption can bring them more pleasure.
High-end "new brands" for no reason and low-quality and low prices regardless of quality, the two most common "gimmicks" in the consumer field, are gradually being abandoned by the market.
For consumers, things that were particularly expensive in the past, they hope that the platform will lower the price, at least to a more reasonable range, so that they can enjoy the pleasure of enjoying high-quality prices in shopping; For many small things that were cheap before, they instead hope that the platform will put the quality up and increase the guarantee of quality and service.
Such changes in consumption trends are actually an important reason why the relevant policies of this year's 618 major platforms are different from the past.
Because only by finding ways to provide more choices and putting better quality merchants, regardless of size, on the plate of key support, can it be possible to cater to changes in consumer consumption trends and consumer psychology.
This may also explain why, overnight, e-commerce platforms, especially leading platforms, began to focus on the support of small and medium-sized businesses and cultivate a more prosperous ecology - in order to meet the new changes in consumer trends, these forces must be re-exerted.
Especially after the peak of new Internet traffic, e-commerce platforms must look inward and tap the potential of internal to cope with changes in consumer trends.
2 Why small and medium-sized businesses
Is it the breaking point?
But solving this problem is not easy. For a long time, small and medium-sized merchants who have been insisting on operating on Taobao have not had a particularly smooth upward development path. So much so that many promotions before, some small and medium-sized businesses simply choose to lie flat and have a "out of sight, out of mind".
For example, a small business engaged in mobile phone case business told "Interface News Bullet Finance" that the cost of buying traffic locations such as through trains every month should account for at least about 1% of the turnover, but this industry itself is a relatively thin profit industry, the profit margin does not exceed 8%, the traffic fee accounts for 1%, plus the cost of returning from time to time, the profit margin is very thin. If you participate in a big promotion such as Double 11 and 618, it is unrealistic to press the price to death.
The fragile cash flow determines that small and medium-sized businesses are the ones who cannot afford to fight price wars. No price advantage means not being seen. Over the years, in the highly competitive retail system, the strong Hengqiang has become an operating logic that is difficult to completely circumvent.
However, these small and medium-sized businesses, their weapons should not only have a price. Many small and medium-sized businesses with their own "unique skills" are precisely the most powerful "weapons" for platforms to cope with new consumer trends.
As a result, small and medium-sized businesses began to gradually receive attention from the management of Taotian due to their diversity and timely response to the market, and this year's 618 completely became an important symbol.
Liu Bo, Alimama and marketing public relations president of Taotian Group, said at the 618 media conference, "The first goal of 618 this year is not GMV, but focuses on how to help larger businesses." In his view, the growth of top merchants, especially flagship stores, is still strong, and increasing the participation and transaction scale of small and medium-sized merchants is a more urgent and important goal of Taobao Tmall this year.
Some small and medium-sized businesses that respond quickly and with good quality, and prices that guarantee a certain level, have also emerged during this year's 618.
For example, Cheng Hongning, the founder of Taobao store "Cosmic Electric", is an outdoor and cycling enthusiast who has cycled to the base camp of Mount Everest. With more time to think at home during the epidemic, coupled with investment experience in the new energy and manufacturing sectors, I decided to create an E-Bike brand that is infinitely easy to ride. In order to become a "pick one in a million" brand, Cosmos Electric's products have realized the industry's top equipped dedicated line production, and even the torque of each screw is more real, just so that consumers can achieve the pleasant unboxing experience of "putting on the front wheel and pedaling for a long time".
Another example is the well-known national tide buyer card card in the circle, he began to work as a national tide buyer in micro-business when he was in college, and when he graduated from college, he had a monthly income of more than 10,000 and accumulated his own private domain traffic. Later, he launched his own national fashion brand on Taobao, and in the first year, he sold two popular products with an average monthly sales of thousands of products.
There are many elite small and medium-sized businesses like this, and they have become the "last building block" of Taotian's overall consumption closed loop. And this is also an important reason why Taotian management attaches importance to small and medium-sized businesses, and even opened a special area for them this year 618.
In fact, the meaning of ecology is to provide sufficient reserve troops for front-line large businesses, that is, the logic of "more small fish, more big fish".
What Taobao is doing now is providing an upward path from small fish to big fish. Dai Shan, CEO of Taotian Group, pointed out in a previous speech, "I believe that in the next five years, Taobao will have a richer ecosystem than it is now, such as tens of millions of merchants, hundreds of millions of creators, and various service providers." ”
To this end, Taotian Group has established a brand business development center and a small and medium-sized enterprise development center, focusing on the development of more small and medium-sized businesses with products and capabilities through support and support, and ultimately realizing the dream of small fish becoming big fish.
The two centers perform their respective duties and are interconnected, jointly opening up a complete channel for small and medium-sized businesses from the entrepreneurial stage to the brand.
This may also be the strength of this year's 618 talk about small and medium-sized businesses. In the eyes of the outside world, the change of Taobao Tmall's organizational "baton" has greatly increased the feasibility of supporting small and medium-sized businesses.
3 The more small fish, the more big fish
By supporting small and medium-sized businesses to achieve a prosperous ecosystem, Taotian will not be the last.
For major e-commerce platforms, business considerations must be taken into account, and their emphasis on small and medium-sized businesses is one of the key points of strategic transformation. What they really want to do is to find certainty through the cycle through this event.
For example, Taotian Group, the earliest Taobao started by the efforts and support of small and medium-sized businesses, Taobao's growth history is the process of countless grassroots entrepreneurs finding business opportunities in Taobao and making countless niche needs into big business.
Therefore, now to find the certainty of crossing the cycle, various platforms have begun to increase the code, for small and medium-sized businesses' policy tilt and traffic support, the idea is to consolidate the cornerstone of long-term development in the future.
Moreover, on a healthy ecological platform, the interests of merchants and consumers are not opposites. Consumers buy affordably, merchants can earn money, is the long-term way, and can also make the platform stable and long-term development.
Internet competition has entered an era of competitive structure market, and more and more Internet platforms compete under the market, often focusing on too much short-term commercial value. Although Internet companies are the creators of market demand, the unlimited expansion of demand for short-term interests will inevitably show many drawbacks.
Focusing only on brand development is one of the detours. After all, in any ecology, it is not a good thing for big fish to eat too many small fish.
When the Internet ends the competition of the previous period and enters a new stage of inability to grow rapidly, returning to the fundamental problem of "meeting customer needs" may be the root and core of all problems.
Only by solving this problem can enterprises usher in long-term development in the next stage.
From this point of view, the e-commerce platform represented by Taotian Group began to support the behavior of small and medium-sized merchants running out, which may be a solution that can be tried.
Companies need to be long-term. Although e-commerce platforms may sacrifice short-term profits, in a better ecology, big fish can run out more and extend the cycle, and ecological play may be the best way to maximize the benefits of e-commerce platforms.
This article is from Bullet Finance