"Double Eleven saw the preferential things and wanted to share them with friends, but the result could not be shared with one click."
This is the slot point on the Internet giant, and it is also the "wall" built between the APP.
On October 27, Taobao launched the shopping cart sharing function, and the market once speculated that this would become the first wall to be torn down between Internet giants - if Taobao shopping cart can be directly shared to WeChat friends, this will not only increase consumer sharing channels, but also break through the barriers between the Internet.
However, the Beijing News shell financial reporter found that Taobao products shared with WeChat friends, or familiar "copy link", and then after a second jump to see the product page.
In this regard, Alibaba vice president and Tmall industry leader Chuixue responded that the current shopping cart sharing function serves Taobao accounts, and where to go in the future is uncertain.
As early as September this year, the relevant business departments of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held an "administrative guidance meeting on the issue of blocking URL links" and put forward compliance standards for instant messaging software, requiring all platforms to unblock according to standards before September 17. More than a month has passed, and it is still difficult to say the real "interconnection" between some commonly used apps, only to see platforms shouting at each other.
Taobao shopping cart "chiseled the wall", still can not be shared with WeChat one-click
Wang Li (not her real name) in Beijing claims to be a person who holds her mobile phone and surfs the Internet every day, and the inability to directly share the Douyin video has made her gradually complain from disappointment. "Sometimes I see a particularly funny video on Douyin and want to forward it directly to my friends, but there seems to be no way to share, either copy the link or download and send, many times I directly lost interest in sharing."
At present, the major Internet platforms do not "one-size-fits-all" interception of external links, but take certain restrictive measures, and these "invisible thresholds" greatly increase the cost of use of users.
A number of respondents told Shell financial reporters in the interview that for pages that can be directly clicked on, it is generally an acceptance attitude, and if one more operation step is required, such as copying the link to open another APP, "generally lazy to continue the operation."
Double Eleven is coming as scheduled, and the outside world will also turn more attention to Taobao and WeChat. For a long time, Taobao-related links could only be shared with WeChat friends in the form of copying links or sending pictures.
Before the start of this shopping feast, it was reported that the Taobao open team had tested the one-click sharing shopping cart function in WeChat group chat and circle of friends. As expected, Alibaba announced at the Double Eleven kick-off meeting that the sharing function was officially launched on October 27, which coincided with the Taobao Double Eleven activity period.
Ali said that Taobao rushed to launch the function at this time, but also to facilitate netizens to "copy homework (refer to each other's shopping cart list of goods)".
On the day of the announcement, when the Shell financial reporter tested the Taobao shopping cart sharing function, he saw that users could find the entrance in the Taobao shopping cart, and the main functions included viewing the shopping carts of certified stars such as Huang Jingyu, Yang Zi, Deng Lun, etc., and the optional objects also included athletes, fashionistas, etc. The reporter noted that Taobao APP friends can freely share the items in the shopping cart, and the platform has also added WeChat, Weibo, Alipay, DingTalk, SMS and other sharing click entrances.
In the test, when the Shell financial reporter chose to share the items in the shopping cart through WeChat, he found that he could still only send it to His WeChat friends through the copy link, and the other party wanted to see the goods in two ways: copy the link to open Taobao, the page automatically jumped out, or click on the product link in the password, and view the product after jumping.
Picture said: Share shopping cart to WeChat need to copy Tao password Source: reporter WeChat screenshot
In this regard, Alibaba vice president, Tmall industry leader Chui Xue said that the current shopping cart sharing function is first of all a function in Taobao, serving the Taobao account, where the future is uncertain, there is no accurate answer, "a lot of people like to hear, very concerned about the things that require many people to work together, including government support."
One "knock on the door" email a day
The "blocking" between platforms is not unfamiliar to the public. Video platform content is difficult to directly social platform, social platform dating is difficult to easily achieve on the shopping platform, and shopping platform links are difficult to directly put on the video platform. Secondary operations such as "save to album" and "copy link" have become the only way to cross-platform sharing.
In the context of anti-monopoly, interconnection has been frequently mentioned this year. On September 9, the relevant business departments of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held an "Administrative Guidance Meeting on the Issue of Blocking Url Links", requiring all platforms to unblock according to standards before September 17. A few days later, Zhao Zhiguo, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Information and Communication Administration, publicly stated that blocking web links was one of the key problems in the special rectification action of the Internet industry launched in July this year. At present, in accordance with the plan arrangement of the special action, we are guiding relevant Internet enterprises to carry out self-examination and rectification.
As Double Eleven approached, Alibaba executives at all levels repeatedly openly "sought mutual communication", among which Dong Benhong, chief marketing officer of Alibaba Group, had called for "good things should be shared with good friends", implying that he hoped that Taobao shopping carts could be shared to WeChat with one click.
In addition to the two main fronts of Taobao and Tmall, Ali's cost-effective e-commerce platform Taote, which is regarded as a benchmark pinduoduo, has also begun to "shout". Wang Hai, vice president of Alibaba Group and general manager of Taote Business Unit, said that in the context of the slow progress of direct WeChat payment, Taote launched the WeChat scan code payment project. "Before there is no interconnection, first use the scan code payment method to complete the payment, even if this transitional method exists for a few weeks or days, we also hope that the direct connection to WeChat pay does not wait too long."
Shell financial reporter noted that Taote announced in early October that it officially launched the WeChat scan code payment function, but it is not directly connected.
The WeChat scan code payment launched this time is taote through cooperation with third-party payment institutions that have cooperative relations with WeChat to achieve interconnection with WeChat. The specific operation method is that after the consumer chooses the WeChat scan code payment method, the consumer automatically generates the payment QR code, saves the picture and then scans the code through WeChat to pay or sends a friend to pay on behalf of him.
Shell financial reporter learned from Taote that the "Wall Chiseling" action was prepared to start on December 30, 2020, and the project of serving WeChat ecology was launched at the beginning of this year. In February, Taote first submitted an application for Mini Program and access to WeChat Pay to WeChat, which is still under review and has not received a response from Tencent and WeChat.
"During this period, I gave a reply, saying that our mini program because some products do not meet the category requirements, let us rectify, after the change is re-submitted, there is no following." Taote insiders told Shell financial reporters.
A high-level executive inside Taote revealed that since February, Taote has sent an email to WeChat with the frequency of one email a day to "ask for a reply", but the door has not yet been knocked on.
Tencent did not clearly respond to Ali's repeated voices, but as early as the performance communication meeting of Tencent's 2021 semi-annual report, Tencent President Martin Lau had made a statement on the issue of platform interconnection.
Martin Lau said that Tencent's ecology is essentially open, but the words mainly mention the practical problems faced by platform interoperability, including whether the resource-rich platform can provide a large number of subsidies, whether it will affect merchants on the WeChat platform; whether Tencent can deal with counterfeiting and piracy on other platforms; and how Tencent should deal with completely different business policies between platforms.
Social networking platforms such as Tencent and Douyin hold a large amount of traffic, and under the situation that platforms such as Ali have peaked, the traffic that was originally blocked outside the "wall" is like a treasure attracting them. In the eyes of social platform insiders, "how old people want to take it for free"
A number of e-commerce experts said that WeChat traffic private domain is strong, high conversion rate, pricing is not transparent, is the last depression for many Internet platforms to seek growth, once open, all platforms will scramble into the WeChat private domain traffic pool to absorb nutrients and grow desperately.
Martin Lau also said at the performance report meeting that the interconnection between platforms is a very complex issue that needs to be discussed and solved over time, "once these problems are not handled well, it will be unfavorable to our users, many small and medium-sized brands and merchants on the platform."
Payment interconnection or first turn on?
The progress of connectivity has been slower, but change has quietly arrived.
Shell financial reporter measured Ali's APP Hungry Mo, Barley, Koala Hai purchase, etc., and saw that they have now accessed WeChat Pay. Other Alibaba apps have also applied for access to WeChat Pay.
Taking Taote as an example, although the direct connection of WeChat Payment has not yet been reached, it has also obtained limited openness, and WeChat users can already open the H5 interface of Taote in WeChat, but they cannot directly complete the purchase. In response to the traffic changes after the opening, Zou Yan, general manager of Taote Products, said that in the process of launch and development, Taote has nothing to do with the WeChat ecology by default, and does not rely on it, once opened, it will be a growth opportunity point for Taote.
He also said that at present, the Scene of WeChat has not been fully opened to Taote, so the traffic effect brought by it is not obvious. Once WeChat opens up the ecology, Taote will take the initiative to adjust its strength in terms of product functions and guiding consumers.
In fact, Tencent is also adjusting its posture, the "WeChat External Links Content Management Specification" released last month said that it will implement the first phase of interconnection under the premise of "security as the bottom line", with "four principles and three measures", and will jointly explore further interconnection with other platforms, including users upgrading the latest version of WeChat, you can access external links in one-on-one chat scenes; to provide users with independent choices, group links because it involves the majority of recipient users, Tencent will continue to develop features to facilitate users' independent and personalized choices.
At present, there is still a threshold for accessing external links. In the test, the reporter linked a Taobao product to a group chat, and the members of the group clicked on the link and could not view the relevant products, nor could they jump.
Picture said: Copying links, saving screenshots and other means are common means of bypassing blocking and sharing Source: Reporter WeChat screenshots
In addition to Ali and Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu, JD.com, Pinduoduo and other head platform companies belong to the category of interconnection, and all enterprises have also expressed their position after the "Administrative Guidance Meeting on Blocking URL Links" of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
"Many consumers in the sinking market have limited mobile phone memory, and downloading more than one APP is a burden for them, allowing consumers to buy things freely on our platform, which is our attitude." An Internet e-commerce practitioner said that interconnection has indeed encountered some difficulties, and is now taking communication or other smarter "around the wall" approach.
At present, there has been some progress in the exchange of payments. At the beginning of October, Alipay announced that it had opened up online scenes to UnionPay Cloud FlashPay, covering 85% of Taobao merchants in the first batch; offline, it and UnionPay Cloud Flash Pay achieved mutual recognition of collection code scanning codes in multiple cities, and planned to cover all cities in the country in March next year.
At the same time, WeChat Pay has officially realized mutual recognition and mutual scanning of offline barcodes with UnionPay Cloud Flash Pay APP, and WeChat Mini Programs have gradually supported cloud flash pay.
Experts said that the era of payment interconnection is coming, and the interconnection between the two sides for UnionPay will be the beginning of "tearing down the wall".
Rub traffic or suppress the competition
Daniel Zhang, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Alibaba Group, said at the Q1 earnings analyst meeting that the social value generated by the large cycle between platforms must be far greater than the small cycle within a single platform. For small and medium-sized enterprises, the removal of external link shielding can reduce traffic costs, which is conducive to reducing operating costs and bringing better business convenience; for consumers, it is conducive to improving the convenience of life.
Not only that, once social networks such as Tencent's system are opened to Ali's core e-commerce sector, Ali's e-commerce will have the same service capabilities as JD.com and Pinduoduo that are available to WeChat ecological consumers, and the e-commerce pattern may change.
For the situation that opening external links and interconnection will lead to platform enterprises being "rubbed traffic", Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, once said in an interview with Shell Financial Reporter that interconnection means that since enterprises want to build public platforms, they cannot restrict the forwarding and jumping of other enterprises. In fact, sometimes the platform restricts forwarding, not to say that it is "rubbed traffic", but to restrict it with "security review does not pass" or other reasons, but it is fundamentally to safeguard the interests of the enterprise and suppress the behavior of competitors. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposes that interconnection is more for the purpose of building an open and win-win environment.
Wu Hequan said that the interconnection of the three major operators is at the network level, and the interconnection that is now said is the content and data level. Now the so-called "interconnection" refers more to whether some videos of Douyin can be forwarded through WeChat, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology does not want platform companies to restrict the external links and forwarding of small and medium-sized enterprises.
In this regard, Zhu Keli, founding dean of the National Research Institute of New Economy and chief researcher of the New Economy Think Tank, told Shell Financial Reporter that the opening of data traffic is conducive to the flow or migration of data elements between different platforms, protecting competition and encouraging small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, improving the level of industrial chain and supply chain, and promoting inclusive growth and innovative development of the digital economy.
However, Wang Xiaoye, the leader of China's systematic research on anti-monopoly law and a professor at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Shell Financial Reporter that the anti-monopoly field should pay attention to whether there is a problem of "excessively strict law enforcement". "The Anti-Monopoly Law is important, but the market economy is also important, as is ownership protection and intellectual property protection." Wang Xiaoye believes that anti-monopoly cases should not only consider the short-term interests of enterprises, but also consider the sustainable development of the economy and the long-term development of enterprises.
"Assuming that weChat Mini Programs do not access other payment tools, calculated at a payment rate of 0.6%, the revenue increase in 2021 is about 540 million yuan, and the profit increase is 270 million yuan." If Alibaba's entire site (8120 billion GMV) accesses the WeChat Mini Program, it may contribute about 900 billion yuan of GMV increments, with an increase in revenue of about 5.4 billion yuan," Said Everbright Securities Research Report, internet giants have been building traffic moats for a long time in a closed ecosystem, and as an extension of the tone of anti-monopoly policies, platform open interconnection has become inevitable.
At the same time, open links are conducive to reducing the overall transaction costs of society. The platform side realizes the mutual transfer of traffic, and the future platform growth will shift from scale-driven to efficiency-driven. WeChat diverts traffic to other applications, the ecology is richer, and the user stickiness is enhanced; Alibaba and ByteDance leverage WeChat traffic, but the drainage efficiency is expected to be low in single digits. In addition, in terms of businesses, the competitive space for small and medium-sized enterprises is more fair and reasonable.
Beijing News shell financial reporter Cheng Zijiao Editor Wang Jinyu Proofreader Lu Qian