Recently, Douyin launched a new app: Douyin Mall.
Isn't Douyin a feature of Douyin? No, it's already a standalone mobile app, and according to reliable sources, the Android version has been downloaded more than 420 million times in less than 1 month since its launch in March!
It is not unusual for Douyin to launch a new software, after all, its predecessor, ByteDance, is called an "APP factory" by many media.
Judging from the past development history of bytes, if they find an opportunity in a certain function of a certain application, they will launch a series of applications for this specific function for horse racing.
For example, Byte has a star product: Toutiao. They found that the video data in this product is better, in order to verify this conjecture, they have successively launched a series of short video apps such as volcano, Douyin, watermelon, etc., and finally, Douyin APP has become today's "national application", with 17 billion downloads.
According to this logic, this time, they launched the independent APP of Douyin Mall, does it indicate that Douyin Mall may become the next business growth point of Douyin Group?
Next, let's take a look at the following three aspects:
- What are the differences between this new app and the previous mall?
- Why does Douyin e-commerce want to make the mall an independent APP?
- What is the significance of this standalone app for Douyin?
One
There is another APP in the Douyin family
Why did Douyin launch an APP this time to develop its shelf e-commerce independently?
A very important reason is that the results of Douyin Mall last year were very dazzling.
In January this year, Douyin e-commerce released the "Douyin E-commerce Memorabilia (2023)", which gives several key data of Douyin's e-commerce sector last year.
First, the GMV of Douyin Mall increased by 277% year-on-year.
Second, Douyin's e-commerce search GMV increased by 159% year-on-year.
Third, the GMV of the shelf scenario accounts for more than 30% of the GMV of the platform.
To a certain extent, the GMV growth rate of Douyin Mall has given Douyin the determination to make great efforts to do a good job in shelf e-commerce.
In fact, this is not the first time that Douyin has launched an independent shopping APP, they have previously launched an independent APP called "Douyin Box", which is more inclined to plant grass in style, and is very similar to Xiaohongshu in terms of product experience.
But after a year, it did not bring very good results, and finally disappeared.
So what are the characteristics of the Douyin Mall APP launched this time?
In order to understand this problem clearly, Xiaobian downloaded this APP in the application market and found that it is still a little different from the Douyin we usually use.
Let's take a look at the following picture, the left is the interface of the Douyin Mall APP, and the right is the interface of the Douyin Mall.
We can find that in the Douyin mall version of the APP, the mall location is placed in the first position, as long as we open the APP, the first thing we see is the mall, and the video interface is placed in the second place;
From the different locations of the mall, we can see that the focus of the two is very different, Douyin pays more attention to the content function of the platform, while the focus of the Douyin mall APP is directly aimed at shopping.
In addition, the Douyin mall version of the APP has also upgraded the shopping cart entrance, and the shopping cart in the Douyin APP is located at the secondary entrance, with only a small pattern logo in the upper right corner of the "Mall" page.
In the Douyin Mall version of the APP, the shopping cart is located in the third position at the bottom and is placed on the first-level entrance.
For example, although the Douyin Mall app retains the video interface, it removes the video shooting function, and only synchronizes the user's favorite videos or live content in the Douyin app for playback, as well as shopping carts and shopping preferences.
If we look further at the homepage of the Douyin Mall APP, we will also have a sense of déjà vu, yes! It is too similar to Taobao, we can look at the contrast between them.
It can't be said to be exactly the same, but the whole looks pretty much the same. In the interface of the Douyin mall version of the APP, there is a search bar and subdivided business entrances, such as hourly delivery, Douyin supermarket, trial collection, etc.
In addition, there are entrances such as low-price spikes, live broadcast selections, and value-for-money purchases, and at first glance, there is really an illusion of "shopping on Taobao". So, why does Douyin "copy" a "Taobao"?
Two
Find new breakthroughs in e-commerce business
First of all, a shelf e-commerce APP is specially created, and Douyin has this strength.
A few days ago, everyone was still discussing the revenue of various Internet manufacturers in the group last year, purely from the perspective of revenue, Douyin is not the most, and it is not as good as Ali, Jingdong and other old e-commerce giants, but in terms of profits, Douyin almost threw other big factories a few streets, and some group friends pointed out that part of Douyin's revenue comes from advertising, and it is a proper net profit.
With such a thick family background, it is not surprising to invest manpower and material resources to engage in an APP and several other traditional shelf e-commerce competitions.
In addition, only I know best whether the shoes fit or not, and Douyin also has feelings about the problems existing in the platform itself.
When Douyin e-commerce started, it was catching up with the bonus period of live broadcast e-commerce, relying on its own high-quality content and huge user base, the development of Douyin e-commerce was very rapid.
And its initial transaction logic is also very simple:
The first step is to attract users with quality content.
The second step is to stimulate the user's desire to buy and promote the order through the anchor's explanation in the live broadcast room.
In just two steps, a closed loop of e-commerce transactions has been formed.
However, as other platforms such as Kuaishou are catching up in the field of live broadcasting, as well as the in-depth development of the field of live broadcast e-commerce, the problems of Douyin in the field of live broadcast e-commerce have slowly emerged.
The first problem is the user's mind. Although Douyin has many users, in everyone's mind, Douyin is an entertainment tool.
For many people, its primary use is to watch videos and live broadcasts, not shopping. We can give the most direct example, when you want to buy something online, the first thing you think of is Taobao Jingdong Pinduoduo, not Douyin.
Therefore, this situation has led to some e-commerce users on the Douyin platform, who have a lot of fans, but the conversion just can't keep up.
The second problem is that the room for growth in the scale of users is gradually shrinking. Of course, this is almost a headache for all e-commerce platforms now, for Douyin e-commerce, with more and more e-commerce competitors doing content, the growth of the entire live broadcast e-commerce industry has begun to slow down, and they are also facing great growth pressure.
In the "2023 China Live E-commerce Industry Research Report", there is a very intuitive data. In 2023, the scale of the live broadcast e-commerce market has reached 4.9 trillion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 35.2%, and the growth is still continuing, but compared with the growth rate in the early stage of industry development, there has been a certain decline.
Live e-commerce accounts for such a large proportion of Douyin e-commerce's revenue, and shelf e-commerce is undoubtedly a key breakthrough in order to achieve new growth.
In addition, there are media reports that Douyin e-commerce has determined the total transaction target of e-commerce this year: 3 trillion+.
The total turnover of Douyin e-commerce last year was about 2.2 trillion yuan, and there is still a lot of pressure to complete this year's goal, so it is necessary to invest more energy in shelf e-commerce and launch an independent platform.
In the past, the Douyin mall was just a first-level entrance in the Douyin APP, but now, it has become an independent APP, and the importance of shelf e-commerce to Douyin is self-evident.
Three
The significance of launching a standalone app
In recent years, Douyin e-commerce has become more and more interested in shelf e-commerce, and the attention to shelf e-commerce is not just talking.
In May last year, Douyin held an e-commerce ecological conference, and Wei Wenwen, president of Douyin e-commerce, put forward the business concept of "global interest e-commerce", and expressed such a view when explaining this concept: It is not enough to have good products and good content, but to have greater growth. There also needs to be a shelf yard that echoes the content field.
This time, Douyin launched an independent e-commerce APP, which has the following important significance.
First, it is not only an important step for Douyin to develop the shelf e-commerce sector, but also very timely.
Why? Because if you want to "better develop content and shelves together", you can't just tinker with the original framework. In the Douyin APP, there are short videos, live broadcasts, and shopping malls, which have become very bloated.
Launching an independent e-commerce app now can not only reduce the pressure on the e-commerce business in the Douyin app, but also find more business growth opportunities through independent e-commerce brands.
Second, strengthen the user's shopping mind.
When talking about why Douyin launched the e-commerce version of the APP, the relevant person in charge of Douyin e-commerce replied, "We have observed that some users have a strong demand for active shopping, in order to better serve these users, Douyin e-commerce has launched the Douyin mall version to help these users find good prices and manage orders conveniently." ”
To put it bluntly, it is to reshape the user's mind and make shopping a rigid need of the user. However, whether it can reverse the user's impression of Douyin and whether everyone can accept this APP still needs to continue to observe.
Thirdly, two teams, two-wheel drive.
The launch of an independent e-commerce APP, Douyin not only increased the proportion of shelf e-commerce in the overall e-commerce business of the platform, but also weakened the strong correlation between Douyin e-commerce and content, transforming itself into a comprehensive e-commerce platform. The content team and the shelf team compete with each other, which can improve the professionalism of Douyin e-commerce itself and make the platform's e-commerce ecology healthier.
Fourth, better compete with industry bigwigs.
At present, the competition for traffic, users, and turnover between major e-commerce platforms has entered a white-hot stage.
Douyin, which is known for its content, is now starting to vigorously build shelves, and those traditional shelf e-commerce companies are also actively exploring the content sector, such as Taobao and JD.com, are starting to build their own live broadcast e-commerce.
For Douyin, the launch of an independent e-commerce APP can help it further exert its e-commerce characteristics and advantages and break the bottleneck of growth.
Four
epilogue
Douyin's upgrade of its own mall to an independent APP not only reflects the growth dilemma faced by content platforms in the current e-commerce operation, but also reflects the general trend of major e-commerce platforms moving closer to each other in terms of business models.
Although the content-based platform has attracted a lot of fans, most of the users come to "shop", users come, users stay, but users do not buy, buy, buy.
On the platform that is good at shelf e-commerce, users have a strong willingness to shop, but because the quality of the content is not enough, users are unwilling to click in to see it, and there is also the embarrassment of insufficient transactions.
Therefore, major e-commerce platforms have begun to penetrate into the areas that their opponents are good at, and Douyin, which mainly focuses on live streaming, has "reproduced" a "Taobao", while traditional shelf e-commerce, such as Taobao, is trying to deeply integrate content, live broadcast and shelves.