Why is this Double 11 so bleak? I play routines every year, and now I am being eaten by routines
Text/Wang Xinxi
A few days ago, Double 11 has ended, and there is still no announcement of the total transaction volume. But judging from everyone's feelings, this Double 11 is very deserted.
However, JD Taotian claims that its user scale and merchant scale have grown. Jingdong said that as of 23:59 p.m. on November 11, the turnover, order volume, and number of users all reached a new high, and the total number of viewers of JD.com's live broadcast has exceeded 380 million.
Taotian Group said that the scale of users and merchants has increased significantly, and the cumulative number of users visiting the whole cycle has exceeded 800 million, hitting a historical peak.
According to the data of the comprehensive e-commerce platforms on Double 11 in 2023 disclosed by Xingtu data, it will be 498.2 billion in 2020, 600 billion in 2021, 557.1 billion in 2022, and 310.5 billion in 2023. Compared with the previous results, it has fallen too much, and from the perspective of consumers' feelings, this year's Double 11 is a very dismal one.
What is the reason behind this?
It's not cost-effective enough, promotions are normalized, and scarcity disappears
According to the statistics of Shangguan News, the Baidu search index of Double 11 this year is a "freezing point" in the past 10 years, and the peak search volume has decreased by 60% compared with the same period last year. JD.com set the theme of the Double 11 promotion as "really cheap", and Tmall as the "lowest price on the whole network". Although compared with the previous two years, the preferential policies of this year's "Double 11" have been streamlined a lot. But in fact, only half of the products have the lowest prices of the year!
The economic environment is not good this year, and the decrease in everyone's income is definitely not the core reason. One of the main reasons is that now that promotions have become normalized, a reporter made statistics on the discount arrangements on the Tmall platform in 2023 and found that almost two-thirds of the days are shopping festivals. Seasonal trade-offs and holiday specials fill daily life.
In fact, in addition to Tmall Taobao, Pinduoduo and Jingdong's tens of billions of subsidy wars have also become normalized, and the promotions of various short video live broadcast rooms are launched almost all the time.
In fact, after 2019, Double 11 has been worse every year. The main reason is that consumers are tricked too much, and consumers can really get not much actual benefits, and they buy a lot of goods they don't want. There are times when there is no discount when it comes cheaply.
The routine of first raising prices and then reducing prices still exists on a large scale
This year's Double 11, many consumers are complaining, merchants before the double eleven first raise prices, and then reduce the price. Even some goods remain unchanged or even lowered in price after Double 11, making consumers feel cheated.
Some consumers complained that this year's Double 11 is not like the Double 11 discount mechanism, it is no different from usual, so why do you have to give it a special holiday.
Judging from the comments of netizens, many consumers have mentioned the routine of raising prices before Double 11, and the so-called full reduction is all routines, and the price is more expensive than usual.
According to a report by Qilu One Point, Ms. Li from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province originally planned to take advantage of the "Double 11" full reduction event, but after she paid the final payment, she found that the shampoo that usually costs only 128 yuan costs 162 yuan this time, which is 34 yuan more expensive than usual.
Ms. Li asked the customer service for feedback, hoping that the other party would refund the price difference and give a sample as compensation. After some bargaining, the customer service finally agreed to give a sample and refused to refund the difference, because "the price is set by the brand, and the store has no authority to refund the difference".
There are many consumers who have similar experiences to Ms. Li. The reporter combed through a third-party complaint platform and found that there are currently more than 60,000 complaints about "Double 11", many of which are recent complaints, and most of the complaints are "advertising the lowest price but actually increasing the price", "grabbed the coupon but can't use it", etc.
Some netizens said: The biggest failure of Double 11 is that before this, all kinds of goods have increased in price, and during the event, the price will fall again, in fact, the price is higher than usual. I have been playing this trick for several years, and the common people have seen it clearly, and there will be fewer and fewer people participating in the future.
The complex mechanism of Double 11 has caused complaints many years ago, and various systems such as the tail payment system, the full reduction system, the shopping gold system, the rebate system, and the single system are really testing the computing ability of consumers. People have the illusion that what they buy is not the most cost-effective.
In addition, the timeline is too long, all kinds of platforms are full of discounts, platform coupons, store coupons, pay a deposit discount, reduce on the hour, share coupons, from the pre-sale in October to the return of Double Eleven, for up to a month, either missed the coupon, or missed the benefits of the live broadcast room, busy for half a day, looking back, it is still expensive. Even many products are cheaper on weekdays. Some consumers roared: If any platform cancels all coupons, I promise to give priority to you.
The rules are becoming more and more complex, and the concept of mass consumption has changed
Judging from this year's Double 11, the public's consumption concept has changed significantly, and the understanding of routines has also deepened, and the quietness of this year's Double 11 is not only the reason for the platform to reduce the volume, but also the reason why consumers are rational and pragmatic.
In the past, Double 11, everyone bought and bought very crazy, almost all the people participated, what they liked to pay directly, Double 11 showed how much they bought on social platforms, how much money they spent, this day really has a carnival atmosphere, but also created rising consumption data for the e-commerce platform, in the past, Double 11 people will post their shopping carts and loot on Moments, Weibo and other platforms, but now, more and more consumers have become rational and pragmatic, there is no sense of holiday atmosphere, the sense of participation is getting weaker and weaker, and there is almost no discussion.
Some netizens said that they have long stopped fighting Double 11, because Double 11 does not mean low prices. The low price is not high-quality, so it's not necessary. I used to like to hoard daily necessities, but now I don't want to hoard because it's not necessary.
Even if you buy, it is no longer a large amount of hoarding, but to see if you really need it and whether it is really cost-effective. But you will find that it is not that everyone does not consume, but that there is no need to consume, so they do not consume.
The impact of Douyin on traditional e-commerce has been highlighted
In addition, outside of traditional e-commerce platforms, the impact of Douyin is actually obvious. According to the data, Douyin's GMV from January to October this year is close to 2 trillion, and it may exceed 2.5 trillion for the whole year. You must know that Ali's GMV in the entire domestic market was 7.8 trillion last year, including Taobao Tmall Hema 1688 and local life, which shows that Douyin, as an entertainment platform, is close to 1/3 of the volume of the commercial boss.
In fact, many users may have developed the habit of shopping on Douyin, and the effect of Douyin's interest push mechanism still exists, and they buy things while brushing.
The lethality of this short video interest e-commerce on Double 11 lies in the fact that it eats some of the user's personalized consumption needs all the time, and the things it pushes are often really what consumers need, and the fit with consumer needs is very high, the probability of placing an order is very high, and once the shopping habit is formed, the repurchase rate is also very high, which forms a strong diversion for traditional e-commerce such as Taobao Tmall and JD.com. This has also led to a lot of drop in shopping demand on 11.11.
At the same time, a large number of merchants have settled in Douyin, and from the three levels of consumer fragmentation time, insight into potential demand, habit cultivation, and merchants, the impact of this impact may be greater and greater in the next few years.
Double 11 was eaten up by routines, and it was time for a change
The sense of existence of Double 11 is getting weaker and weaker, because merchants have played routines year after year, which has affected the trust value of the platform, overdrawn consumers' psychological expectations for the shopping festival, and the fatigue of merchants' participation has gradually deepened, and after so many years of rapid evolution, the bottleneck period of traffic growth of e-commerce platforms has also arrived. Due to the arrival of the bottleneck period of traffic dividends, the amount of online shopping spending has declined, and the competition on the platform has become more and more fierce, and the average traffic shared by the entire Double 11 has become less and less expensive.
Double 11 in fact, it's time to change, change to start from sincerity, really simple discounts, completely abandon the first price increase and then price reduction tricks, now consumers are extremely sensitive to prices, you take consumers as leeks, will inevitably be counterattacked.
Especially in the case of Douyin e-commerce, Pinduoduo's low-price mentality is being finalized, Taotian and Jingdong need to make practical changes, before, double 11 Many people are fixed consumption, either Tmall, or Jingdong, this is called fixed consumption, and even once there was a saying that the e-commerce pattern has been determined. But now, this is not the case, and fixed consumption is starting to be broken up. The e-commerce industry has shifted from a fixed pattern to a stage of development in which a hundred flowers are blooming. The desertion of JD.com and Tmall on Double 11 may be a better proof that more Internet e-commerce platforms are on the rise. This means that merchants and consumers have more choices.
Double Eleven, when it comes to change, less routines, more sincerity, although every year is shouting to change, but every year to play routines, from the current double eleven cold situation, from the platform to the merchants, have been eaten up by the routine, and the damage to the brand is irreversible, and the future of the double eleven, if not changed, it is foreseeable that this year's double eleven, it may be the best double eleven in the next few years.
Author: Wang Xinxi, Senior Reviewer of TMT This article is not reproduced without permission