Double 11 has just begun, and millions of small and medium-sized businesses have exploded

Millions of small and medium-sized businesses have achieved explosive orders on Double 11

This year's Double 11 may be the one with the largest number of small and medium-sized businesses participating and the best results.

As the first phase of the Double 11 promotion comes to an end, various e-commerce platforms have released good start reports. In addition to the growth of various categories and brands, they also invariably mention one group - small and medium-sized businesses.

On November 3, Tmall Double 11 announced a set of data: since the official opening of Double 11, nearly 2 million small and medium-sized merchants have increased their transactions by more than 100% year-on-year. In particular, Taobao's new merchants, 372 new stores have exceeded one million in sales, and 1.3 million post-00 merchants participated in Double 11 for the first time, ushering in the opening of the business.

Tmall Double 11 Battle Report Source: Taotian Group

On the other hand, JD.com also announced on November 1 that the number of individual and self-employed stores participating in this year's JD.com 11.11 and achieving business growth increased by more than 11 times over the same period last year.

Behind this amazing achievement is the full support of Taobao Tmall and JD.com for small and medium-sized businesses during the Double 11 period.

For example, this year's Tmall Double 11 has added the "Million New Merchants Star Creation Plan", which comprehensively upgrades the rights and interests of small and medium-sized merchants and service providers. During the Double 11 period, a single merchant can receive up to 19,500 yuan of traffic coupons, up to 30% search traffic boost, as well as interest-free installment discounts, fast returns, credit loan subsidies, etc.

At the previous Tmall Double 11 press conference, the relevant person in charge revealed that the number of merchants who settled in Taobao and Tmall on the eve of Double 11 reached a new high. Among them, the number of brands settled in Tmall in the third quarter increased by 105% year-on-year, and the merchants who settled in Taobao in September increased by 20% year-on-year, and the post-00s surpassed the post-90s for the first time.

The gradually enriching and younger group of small and medium-sized businesses has undoubtedly become an important "combat force" of this year's Tmall Double 11, giving the platform new vitality.

In addition, Jingdong also upgraded the "Chunxiao Plan" as early as August and September, and continued to increase its support. At the 2023 JD Retail Ecological Partner Conference at that time, JD said that the platform would provide merchants with subsidies of more than 2 billion, and would also provide new product traffic support and more than 10 million advertising incentives.

JD.com 11.11 launched three major ecological upgrade measures Source: JD.com

JD.com's financial report shows that the number of new merchants in the first quarter of this year increased by 240% year-on-year. In the second quarter, the number of new merchants on JD.com increased by 417% year-on-year. During the Double 11 period, JD.com hopes to help the total number of transactions of new merchants settled this year increase by more than 5 times month-on-month.

At present, with the number of small and medium-sized businesses that have achieved business growth increasing by more than 11 times, JD.com's goal is likely to be realized.

In addition, content e-commerce platforms such as Douyin Kuaishou have also increased their attention to small and medium-sized businesses on Double 11 this year.

For example, from January to June this year, the number of new Kuaishou e-commerce merchants has increased by 38% year-on-year, the GMV of small and medium-sized merchants has increased by 32% year-on-year, and the sales order volume of small and medium-sized merchants has increased by 43% year-on-year. During the Double 11 period, Kuaishou continued to provide policy support to small and medium-sized businesses, giving them rights and interests such as cold start investment, sales rebates, and additional support for key merchants.

Wei Wenwen, president of Douyin e-commerce, also disclosed a set of data before: in the past year, Douyin e-commerce GMV increased by 80% year-on-year, of which the GMV of shelf scenes increased by more than 140% year-on-year. In order to ensure the abundant supply of shelf yards, a large group of small and medium-sized businesses is obviously indispensable.

Under a series of policy support, traffic tilting, and subsidy increases on major platforms, it is difficult for many small and medium-sized businesses not to "explode" during the Double 11 period.

So, in this year's Double 11, e-commerce platforms have spared no effort to invest resources in small and medium-sized businesses, what is it for?

Small and medium-sized businesses have become the "sweet and sweet" of e-commerce promotions

At this year's Tmall Double 11 kick-off meeting, Taotian Group set the "lowest price on the whole network" as the core goal, including the three major industry development centers and horizontal departments such as users, platforms, and live broadcasts, all of which made it clear that "the lowest price on the whole network" was the core KPI.

Dai Shan, CEO of Taotian Group Source: Taotian Group

Earlier, Liu Qiangdong picked up the "low-cost weapon" again, and Jingdong launched the "10 billion subsidy" to declare war on Pinduoduo, and fully returned to low prices.

As the two main platforms with the heaviest impact on Double 11, the "lowest price" dispute between Taotian and JD.com soon spread to the entire industry.

However, judging from several public opinion controversies in the early days of this year's Double 11, it is not easy for the platform to control the "lowest price". Platforms, merchants, and anchors are all desperately competing for pricing power to ensure their own interests.

Especially for many brands, during the promotion period, they can only achieve "a bowl of water in all channels" at most, and they can no longer continue to explore the price. Otherwise, not to mention damaging the long-term price system, it is also easy to cause dissatisfaction with other channels in the short term.

Therefore, this year's Double 11 can flexibly adjust prices, mainly small and medium-sized businesses such as C stores and factory sellers. In order to have an advantage in the price comparison process, the platform naturally needs these small and medium-sized businesses to provide sufficient "ammunition". The adjustment of the rules made by the platform in order to return to the "low price" is in line with the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

For example, in the past, when small and medium-sized businesses wanted to participate in various activities within the platform and get more traffic recommendations, they were easily "dissuaded" by the platform's strict review. Especially in terms of customer service, product quality, delivery timeliness, etc., the scores of small and medium-sized merchants are difficult to compare with the top brand merchants.

However, since the beginning of this year, the threshold for participation in the activities of various e-commerce platforms has been lowered. Small and medium-sized businesses have also changed from "outsiders" to the "C position" of various activities on the platform.

At the same time, due to the platform's pursuit of "low price", "price power" has also become an important indicator for merchants to obtain traffic.

For example, Taobao's "five-star price power" rule, as long as the price of the product on the merchant's shelves reaches the lowest price of the same paragraph, you can get the platform's "five-star price power" recommendation, and quickly enter the field of vision of platform users.

Taobao's "five-star price power" standard Source: Taobao

The same goes for JD.com on the other side. On the one hand, it continued to promote traffic parity between self-operated stores and third-party stores this year, giving more opportunities to small and medium-sized businesses; On the other hand, under the general policy of "low price" strategy, JD.com has also adjusted the traffic distribution mechanism, and the lower the unit price, the more traffic can be obtained.

For e-commerce merchants, the most needed thing in the business process may be traffic. Therefore, after the platforms adjust the traffic allocation mechanism around the "low price", the effect is also immediate:

Official data shows that during the Double 11 period, more and more "price power merchants" traffic soared, and new business opportunities were obtained: on the evening of October 31, only 4 hours after the official launch of Tmall Double 11, the "Double 11 Daily Low Price" event brought nearly 8 million orders of incremental business to merchants.

The competition for stock has intensified, and the era of "supply is king" has arrived

According to the latest "2023 China Mobile Internet Autumn Report" released by QuestMobile, the overall growth rate of monthly active users in the mobile shopping app industry has slowed down, entering the stock era, and the active penetration rate of the mobile shopping app industry remained at about 84% in the first three quarters.

E-commerce App monthly active trend Source: QuestMobile

Among them, Taobao's user scale remained the first in September this year, but the total duration penetration rate was 39.1%, slightly lower than Pinduoduo's 40%.

In the era of stock competition in the e-commerce industry, in the face of the slowdown in traffic growth, the leading e-commerce platforms urgently need to strengthen the operation of traffic, as well as the in-depth cultivation of user stickiness, and absorb and squeeze the attention of users on the waist/tail platforms of the industry.

Therefore, at this stage, even from a longer-term perspective, the growth of the scale of small and medium-sized businesses can inject new vitality into the supply side of various platforms - the e-commerce industry has officially entered the era of "supply is king".

The so-called "supply" not only tests the price, quality and richness of the platform's goods, but also tests whether the platform can retain users with content and other means.

For example, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research Report shows that Taobao Tmall's market share has dropped from 66% in 2019 to about 44% in 2022.

However, as Taobao realized the pressure of competition, accelerated its content-based layout and continued to introduce new merchants, it soon regained its former active users.

According to the statistics of Xingtu, a third-party organization, as of 24 o'clock on November 1, 2023, on the first day of Double 11, the sales of comprehensive e-commerce platforms were nearly 196.3 billion. Among them, 59% are from Taobao and Tmall, and the market share has further expanded compared with last year.

This is enough to prove that a series of changes made by platforms such as Taobao and Tmall on Double 11 are valuable. As long as we can ensure high-quality supply, we can still attract a steady stream of consumers. The active performance and rapid growth of small and medium-sized businesses are also destined to become an important driving force for e-commerce platforms to achieve new growth.

Author | Li Songyue