文 | 窄播，作者 | 庞梦圆、邵乐乐
This is the 10th issue of the narrowcast "Weekly", and the business dynamics we focus on in this issue are: JD.com makes content.
This week, the AI digital human "Purchasing and Selling Dongge" based on Liu Qiangdong brought goods on JD.com's live broadcast, attracting 20 million views in less than 1 hour, and the final turnover exceeded 50 million. It is also a good transaction result on the whole network.
10 days ago, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic to attract influencers and institutions to settle in.
One month ago, JD Retail Group announced that content ecology, open ecology, and instant retail are the three major strategic directions for 2024.
It seems that JD.com is going to make great efforts to build a content ecology again.
But we can't overestimate JD's ambition and ability to make content.
The essence of the e-commerce platform is to control the goods and control the traffic, after the e-commerce enters the era of stock-based, the goods are surplus and homogeneous, the goods go with the traffic, and with the traffic advantage, it will occupy a greater right to speak.
For the ability to obtain traffic and the level of distribution efficiency, it can basically truthfully reflect the market size and development speed of each e-commerce platform. Douyin Kuaishou has the advantage of its own traffic, and Pinduoduo is also an industry leader in the acquisition and distribution of new traffic, so that upstart apps like Kimi will target people with Pinduoduo backgrounds when recruiting growth talents.
Taobao continues to build a live broadcast ecosystem, Pinduoduo makes short dramas, and some dramas have been played 90 million times, and JD.com makes content, all of which have the logic that e-commerce platforms need new traffic.
However, the role that content can play on different e-commerce platforms is different:
One is pure traffic logic, video or live streaming is a newer and potentially more efficient way to carry traffic than graphics and texts, and any platform needs to master this capability to meet the user's usage habits, so as to better understand consumers, interact with consumers, and improve transaction efficiency.
One is ecological logic, where the platform wants to build a content ecology through content to serve brand merchants more comprehensively, such as attracting more brand marketing budgets.
JD.com's content is more in line with the logic of improving transaction efficiency through new traffic, rather than creating a content ecology.
JD.com is essentially an online retail company.
As a retail channel, relying on "logistics" and "self-operation" to establish a "fast" consumption mentality is JD.com's core competitiveness for a period of time, and traffic has never been its core competitiveness. A practitioner once told us that when JD.com tried live broadcast on a large scale last year, it was a layman even in terms of the proportion and method of sharing and settling with MCN.
With video and live streaming, bringing goods has become a basic capability of e-commerce. Just like Meituan does live streaming, it is necessary for JD.com to master this ability and use it to improve transaction efficiency.
It's just that considering the limitations of its capabilities, there is no need for JD.com to create a content ecosystem similar to Doukuai, which has rich creators and a variety of content types, and can even generate various content trends, and has the ability to attract off-site traffic.
Historically, JD.com's exploration of content or new traffic has also taken action in most cases, but it has not achieved much results.
In the Internet world, whoever is more efficient in acquiring users is the new traffic.
In general, at first, e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com had the ability to attract traffic. Later, with the rise of WeChat, as well as the rise of Bilibili, Kuaishou, and Douyin, e-commerce platforms have experienced a process of relying on external social traffic (drainage from WeChat Jiugongge) - self-built content community (learning new content platform) - self-built social e-commerce (because of the emergence of mini programs).
Of course, as content platforms become e-commerce and snatch the market share of traditional e-commerce platforms with a whirlwind trend, e-commerce platforms are gradually taking video/live streaming as a basic capability to achieve it.
JD.com and Taotian are constantly trying to make content in the process of such traffic changes, but JD.com rarely precipitates its own content capabilities through various content level attempts, and even rarely tries to achieve rapid growth at the traffic level through these contents.
In 2015, Jingdong and Pinduoduo obtained the entrance to WeChat Jiugongge, Pinduoduo completed rapid growth through social relationship fission, and Jingdong's growth is basically a static superposition.
In 2016, when following Taobao's community exploration, JD.com's changes were mostly superficial, and product categories still occupied an important position in the homepage column.
At this time, the difference between JD as a retail company and Internet companies that are good at and dare to try new content and new traffic - the continuous optimization and innovation of the retail link is the key to JD's ability to stand out in the first stage of e-commerce competition, and it is also the essence of JD.
Compared with JD.com, Taotian and Pinduoduo have stronger platform attributes, and the demand for direct access to traffic is also more urgent.
The difference between traffic and these two platforms is that Pinduoduo sells traffic, and Taotian sells advertising.
Pinduoduo does not maintain brands and stores, and the matching of people and goods is in accordance with the principle of "going to the middle link", and the traffic is directly directed to the goods, especially the explosive products of a single product (the price is the core latitude that can go to the middle link), and in the end, Pinduoduo actually earns the investment fee of all kinds of merchants selling goods.
Therefore, Pinduoduo can have any traffic, as long as it can bring DAU and duration, it can be redistributed to all kinds of goods. Short dramas are currently the most efficient traffic acquisition tool, and Pinduoduo will do short dramas. Short dramas have basically become the vane of the platform's traffic policy, and whoever invests most actively and vigorously in short dramas proves who is most thirsty for traffic.
Taotian is relatively complicated. Today, this kind of business has evolved into a complex link that requires short video + live broadcast, Dabo + store broadcast, product promotion + effect, and KOL+KOC collaborative participation under the iteration of Douyin e-commerce. To do content, Tmall needs to create a content ecology covering talents, merchants, and users like Douyin, and provide marketing services and transaction links that integrate quality and efficiency in order to make more brand money.
Taobao should sell traffic. Small and medium-sized businesses are more concerned about whether the traffic can be directly converted into transactions, rather than bringing transactions through grass planting or marketing, Taobao needs everything to take GMV as the core, and use various short videos to broadcast interactive games outside the station through streaming, fission, and various short videos live interactive games in the station to attract as much C-end traffic as possible in order to bring greater transactions. Alimama released its own site-wide promotion products on April 16, and such traffic purchase products have been highly praised by merchants in Pinduoduo.
Therefore, even though the outside world has repeatedly questioned whether it is necessary for e-commerce platforms to do content, Taotian has tested the waters of content-based e-commerce and the path is difficult to understand so far, but in this year's growth year, it still shouted that it will invest tens of billions of resources to engage in content ecology (especially Xiaohongshu-type life-oriented content). In the meantime, Taobao Live's vacillating choice of pan-entertainment traffic such as short dramas also reflects its complex demands for both advertising business and traffic business.
Therefore, although the same e-commerce platform makes content, the pursuit that the platform wants to achieve through content is different. This difference is essentially caused by the platform's self-positioning (whether it is a platform-based or channel-based e-commerce; whether it wants to earn commissions or advertising money), as well as its own capabilities.
Platforms must clearly position themselves and know what their needs for content are, so as not to be confused by content and embark on detours such as overinvestment or inability to interact organically with the original e-commerce ecosystem.
More specifically, in our opinion, JD.com's content, whether in terms of willingness or ability, should have boundaries.
Content ecology is indeed one of the three core strategies of JD Group in 2024 (content ecology, open ecology, and instant retail), and it is very important, but this importance is more because of urgency and because it needs to make up for shortcomings, which does not mean that it has to become a new core.
Even if it is mentioned at the top of the three major strategies, it does not mean that its importance will go beyond open ecology and instant retail, and even in the long run, the latter two may be closer to the essence of JD.com.