E-commerce Morning Post: Online retail sales increased by 8.6% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2024 WeChat launched the function of finding a nearby job

In the third quarter of 2024, online retail sales increased by 8.6% year-on-year; WeChat launched the function of finding nearby jobs; Douyin e-commerce pushes freight insurance discounts, which is expected to save more than 4 billion yuan for merchants every year.

National Bureau of Statistics: Online retail sales increased by 8.6% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2024

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first three quarters of 2024, the total retail sales of consumer goods 353564 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.3%. According to the location of business units, the retail sales of urban consumer goods 305869 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%; The retail sales of rural consumer goods were 4,769.5 billion yuan, up by 4.4 percent. In terms of consumption type, retail sales of goods 314149 billion yuan, up by 3.0 percent; catering revenue was 3,941.5 billion yuan, an increase of 6.2 percent. The sales of some basic living and upgraded commodities were good, and the retail sales of grain, oil, food and beverage commodities of units above designated size increased by 9.9 percent and 4.5 percent respectively. The retail sales of communication equipment and sports and entertainment goods increased by 11.9% and 9.7% respectively.

The national online retail sales were 10,893 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods were 9,072.1 billion yuan, an increase of 7.9 percent, accounting for 25.7 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods.

Meituan adjusts its marketing tools and traffic policies

The intensification of involution in the catering industry has caused more and more businesses to fall into the dilemma of excessive marketing. Meituan Takeaway has recently optimized its platform marketing tools in three major aspects, which can reduce marketing costs and improve traffic utilization efficiency.

First of all, Meituan has eliminated the "activity richness" scoring module in the merchant's store segment, so that merchants can configure marketing activities according to actual needs, and the basic operating strength of merchants can be more objectively reflected through store segmentation. In addition, Meituan has also eliminated the "full reduction" and "discount dishes" discount display tags in the Home merchant list, and added "random user reviews" and "recent praise" tags that can comprehensively reflect the quality of meals and consumer recognition. By weakening the marketing activity factor in the traffic recommendation of the platform, the merchant operation gradually returns to products and services.

The second is to streamline marketing activities, optimize and reduce 6 marketing activities such as "out-of-store coupon delivery fees", and will continue to optimize in the future; It has also launched a "smart marketing assistant" and a marketing spend control tool, which allows merchants to plan their marketing activities reasonably and avoid excessive subsidies.

Third, the rules of the activity have been optimized. From November 11, 2024, the rules of the "Full Discount" and "Discount Dishes" activities will be optimized to no longer be mutually exclusive. Merchants can no longer gain traffic through false full reductions.

Tencent launched the Find a Job Nearby feature to provide efficient settlement and protection for the gig market

On October 17, Tencent launched a new feature in WeChat - find nearby job opportunities, Tencent said that this function is a new ability for the gig market, and is currently piloted in Jiangmen, Guangdong, with jobs from the postal salary platform under the Guangdong Provincial Post Branch, with a complete work review mechanism.

The entrance of this function is in WeChat-Payment & Services-Travel Services, and you can also enter the "gig market" by swiping down, based on location services, you can more accurately match the needs of gig workers, and many factories recruit formal general workers and skilled workers through this function, but they do not match college graduates who need more job opportunities in emerging industries.

In addition, the "gig market" has also been connected to WeChat Pay's "micro work card" digital solution to provide efficient settlement methods for WeChat change and bank cards. In terms of employment security, the "Micro Work Card" cooperates with Tencent Electronic Signature and Tencent Micro Insurance to provide full-chain guarantee services such as contract signing, real-time location punching, and daily settlement insurance.

Douyin e-commerce has launched freight insurance discounts, which is expected to save more than 4 billion yuan for merchants throughout the year

From October 18, Douyin e-commerce has launched a series of cost reduction measures for merchant freight insurance, and the cost of freight insurance for eligible merchants or influencers will be reduced by 10%-40%, which is expected to save merchants more than 4 billion yuan throughout the year.

According to Douyin, the cost reduction is due to the cooperative relationship established by the platform with a number of express companies, which effectively reduces logistics costs by optimizing the distribution operation model, thereby reducing the premium of freight insurance.

WeChat releases incentives for high-quality service stores to attract new customers, and they can get traffic support

A few days ago, WeChat released an incentive plan for attracting new users to high-quality service stores, and WeChat stores that have successfully signed up will have the opportunity to receive traffic support in the live broadcast room of the associated video account, and the technical service rate of the event products will be reduced to 1%.

New customers on the platform place an order to purchase the products participating in the full discount for new customers on the WeChat store, and when the total amount of the activity products under the same order reaches 20 yuan, they can enjoy a discount of 5 yuan, and each new customer on the platform can only enjoy one discount and can be used across stores. New customers on the platform refer to users who have completed less than 3 orders in the history of WeChat stores and video account stores.

The transaction amount reduced by the new customer discount on the platform shall be borne by the merchant. If an order meets the requirements of this event and the "WeChat Store 2024 11.11 Good Things Festival Event" at the same time, it will not be used together. This activity is aimed at WeChat store merchants with a WeChat store score of ≥ 4.6.

The registration period for this event is from 3 p.m. on October 22, 2024 to 12 p.m. on November 30, 2024, and the event time is from 8 p.m. on October 31 to 12 p.m. on November 30.

Taobao has launched a number of merchant protection strategies

Ebang Power learned that Taobao will launch more strategies to improve the business environment in the near future, including increasing the coverage of return vouchers, upgrading a variety of after-sales tools, and closing the full refund-only evaluation entrance, etc., to help merchants reduce costs and improve efficiency in Tmall's "Double 11" and establish a fair and dynamic e-commerce ecology.

Specifically, on the issue of returns, which is the most headache for merchants, Taobao has taken the lead in the industry in loosening the "refund only" and guiding the industry to pay attention to and govern the unreasonable "refund only" phenomenon, and Taobao has intercepted more than 400,000 unreasonable "refund only" transactions per day. At the same time, Taobao has also strengthened the proof requirements for return applications initiated by consumers due to product quality problems, and the coverage of return vouchers on the whole platform has been increased by 20%. In order to reduce unreasonable product reviews, Taobao will close the full refund only review entrance, which is expected to reduce 2.65 million negative reviews a year.

In addition, Taobao has also begun to test the new version of the store system internally, providing merchants with a variety of store management solutions, including but not limited to optimizing platform rules, redesigning business mechanisms, business tools and store products. The new store system solves the problem of high operating threshold and cost for merchants, and helps merchants achieve sustainable growth on Taobao.

Tianlala plans to open 400+ new stores overseas

A few days ago, the new tea drink brand Tianlala announced the opening of its first store in the Philippines in the Greater Bay Area of Manila, Luzon, which also means that Tianlala has officially entered the Philippine market.

It is reported that Tianlala will officially deploy the overseas market in 2023, and the 6th store will be located in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, in October 6 of the same year. In 2024, it will fully deploy the Southeast Asian market, and up to now, Tianlala has 7 directly operated stores and 33 franchised stores in Indonesia; 2 directly-operated stores in the Philippines, and plans to open franchises after opening 5 directly-operated stores in the Philippines by the end of this year; Opened 1 agent store in Cambodia and authorized 10 agent rights and interests simultaneously; Three directly-operated stores have been officially authorized in Uzbekistan, and are currently in the preparatory stage of building stores, and are expected to open to the public by the end of 2024.

Tianlala official said that in the future, Tianlala will continue to lay out overseas markets, and plans to add more than 400 new stores in Southeast Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East in 2025.

Shopee Viet Nam implements new order cancellation rules

From October 21, 2024, Shopee Viet Nam local stores will implement a new order cancellation policy that allows buyers to cancel orders before they are handed over to the carrier, and the request will be processed automatically. This change is designed to help sellers reduce unsuccessful shipping, returns/refunds, and associated fees, while saving operational time. In addition, orders that are canceled prior to delivery to the carrier will not affect the seller's Order Failure Rate.

AliExpress and Cainiao jointly upgraded the cross-border logistics guarantee of Double 11

At present, more than 40 cross-border warehouses and distribution centers of Cainiao International Express and AliExpress have entered the stocking stage. In order to cope with the upcoming peak of single volume on Double 11, Cainiao temporarily increased the number of workers and expanded the capacity of the warehouse, and the millions of square meters of Choice warehouse, first mile pickup warehouse, and JIT warehouse were ready. In addition, the three major cross-border warehouses in Europe, the Americas, Japan and South Korea have stepped up the pace of stocking, and added global stocking centers and special fleets for replenishment and transportation support.

On the eve of Double 11, Cainiao has also further upgraded its industry solutions, for small and medium-sized businesses, Cainiao's latest worry-free special line has covered 36 countries, relaxing certain timeliness requirements, but logistics costs can be saved by about 15-30% on average, and in ocean-going countries such as Mexico, freight can be saved by more than half; Cainiao's special cargo solution has covered 53 countries around the world, using various transportation modes such as air freight, China-Europe trains, and trucks to continue to speed up the cross-border transportation of special cargo. AliExpress's official "super oversized special line" large-scale solution continues to be upgraded and optimized, currently covering 11 countries such as Europe, the United States, Australia, and South Korea, and consumers can view logistics nodes in the AliExpress App in real time. In addition, Cainiao International Express has successively locked in high-quality capacity resources in key national markets one month in advance, and prepared multi-flow temporary procurement charter planes and package boards to provide flexible capacity guarantee for the big promotion.

TikTok Shop Autumn Promotion in the United States, Overall GMV Increases by 124%

TikTok Shop's Autumn Sale has come to an end. According to the report card, the overall GMV of the United States increased by 124%, and the single-day GMV of the merchant-owned operation model and the full custody model both reached a record high.

It is reported that during the autumn promotion, the single-day GMV of the merchant's self-operation model increased by 144%, and the GMV of live broadcast exploded by 133%. Some categories whose demand is not affected by the season continue to sell well, such as vibrating board fitness machines, non-stick pot sets, negative ion straightening combs, curling hair stylers, vacuum cleaners, etc., all of which are squeezed into the top 10 of hot sales.

The GMV of the fully managed model exploded by 166% in a single day. Specifically, the GMV of large-cap payments achieved a strong growth of 139%, the number of orders increased by 144%, and the GMV of bargained goods also increased by 140%. Women's hooded jackets, men's plush hoodies, men's pullover sweatshirts, solid color fluffy carpets and other autumn and winter clothing and household items are all hot sellers.

The director of "Once Upon a Time on the Side Water" joined Alida Entertainment and established Sanbianpo Studio

The director of the drama "Once Upon a Time in the Borderwater" joined Alida Entertainment and established Sanbianpo Studio. This is also the first drama studio led by the director of Ali Entertainment. Calculation said that Sanbianpo Studio will focus on originality in the future, and with the help of Alida Entertainment's rich platform resources and film and television industrialization capabilities, it will launch more good-looking dramas.

Grain and oil duoduo and Sinotrans officially opened "Qingdao Yuncang No. 1 Warehouse"

A few days ago, the "Global Agricultural Products Trading Center and Qingdao Yuncang No. 1 Warehouse" initiated by Guolian Co., Ltd. and Sinotrans Qilu Logistics Co., Ltd. was officially launched. It is mainly used for the storage of various agricultural products to form a centralized trading market, aiming to better serve the whole industrial chain and all ends of the supply chain, and is committed to complementing the advantages of agricultural product resources in the whole industrial chain.

It is understood that "Qingdao Yuncang No. 1 Warehouse", as the crystallization of the union of Grain and Oil Duoduo and Sinotrans, brings together the experience of both parties in warehousing management, logistics and distribution, integrates intelligent and automated technology, and provides a one-stop warehousing solution for cross-border transactions in the industrial chain.

The official opening of the warehouse will greatly enhance the service capabilities and market competitiveness of Grain and Oil Duoduo in the field of cross-border warehousing, and provide more convenient, safe and reliable warehousing services for domestic and foreign customers.