Will you get involved in a price war this year? Ali Daishan: High investment to roll up low-quality growth is not the optimal solution

At 3 p.m. on March 22, Tmall held a small-scale closed-door communication meeting for core brand merchants, attended by Dai Shan, president of Alibaba's China commercial division, to communicate with more than a dozen brand merchants in Shanghai.

In the 3-hour meeting, Dai Shan clarified Tmall's development strategy for 2023 for the first time, and communicated with brand merchants on issues such as "whether it should be low price" and "how to better content".

It is Alibaba's practice to hold a business communication meeting at the beginning of each year. A person close to Ali told 36Kr that in the early years, Xiaoyaozi would attend in person, but due to the impact of the epidemic in the past three years, such communication could not be carried out normally offline. This is the first time that Dai Shan has communicated face-to-face with the senior management of brand merchants offline after Dai Shan took over Taobao in 2022.

Dai Shan said that in 2023, Tmall will increase investment in three aspects: "user growth", "market growth" and "new industries", "only the investment of real money can allow brands and platforms to achieve growth together".

In the face of the general concern of merchants about "whether e-commerce platforms will be involved in price wars this year", Dai Shan responded, "Blindly rolling in low-quality growth through high investment is not the optimal solution." She proposed that "good goods and good prices", "content" and "user value growth" are the growth opportunities of Tmall and brands.

Alibaba was the number one in e-commerce for several years, but today the company is in a very different position. There are more and more trillion-GMV-sized competitors, and Taobao's core user management revenue has been negative for three consecutive quarters.

With the pandemic over, platforms and merchants are looking to return to the growth channel. One business who participated in the closed-door meeting said, "I hope to give concrete, landable solutions that can solve the growth problem."

How to do a good job of "cost performance" and "content"

As e-commerce platforms such as JD.com announced a re-investment in the "low price" strategy, some merchants said at the meeting that they were very worried that major e-commerce platforms would start a price war again this year, because it would hurt the profits of brand merchants.

In this regard, Dai Shan proposed that the first growth opportunity comes from "good goods and good prices", hoping to dispel the concerns of merchants, "good goods are in front, there are 'good goods' to pursue 'good prices', and good goods are often not the cheapest, only good goods and good prices exist at the same time, in order to meet consumer demands to the greatest extent." ”

Instead of blindly pursuing low prices, Tmall encourages merchants to invest in "cost performance", which will not break the existing price system and achieve growth. An Ali employee told 36Kr that the so-called "cost-effective" investment includes discounted coupons, new product planning, and operational strategy adjustments for segmented groups.

In addition, Dai Shan revealed that the platform will change the business mechanism of tens of billions of subsidies/juhuasuan and "launch a fairer bidding mechanism".

Another issue that brand merchants are particularly concerned about is "how to do content". 36Kr learned from some Tmall head merchants that in the past 1-2 years, in order to do a good job of content on Taobao Tmall, they have built their own content teams. In addition to live broadcasting, most of them have invested a lot of energy in operating and shopping, and some brands even send hundreds of short videos every month.

Dai Shan said at the closed-door meeting, "This era has changed, the past graphic details page is no longer clear about the product, to keep up with the needs of consumers." We also saw that after Double 11 last year, the growth of content-based businesses that used short videos, live broadcasts and other forms of user communication was much higher than that of merchants who used graphic details as expressions. ”

In fact, after Dai Shan took office, the strategic position of Taoji content has been improved. Taobao's live streaming and content business shopping was originally placed under the framework of the platform business, but in the organizational structure adjustment in early January 2022, the head of Taobao Live Daofang and the head of shopping Qiancheng both reported directly to Dai Shan. In mid-2022, the person in charge of shopping was changed to Wang Tingxiang, who was the CEO of Taoxianda and the head of Taocai Market.

36Kr learned that Taobao Live maintained good growth in the second half of 2022, largely due to the fact that the anchor pool of Taobao Live has continued to introduce new blood in the past year, such as Luo Yonghao, Yu Minhong, Liu Genghong's wife vivi and other celebrity IPs that already have a large number of fans, Taobao Live also announced a cooperation with TVB recently, more than 48 TVB artists will select this account based on TVB to enter Taobao Live.

Dai Shan mentioned at the meeting that an important task of content this year is how to make good use of Taobao live broadcast, short video and other content products to carry out deeper connection with store operations.

From the perspective of Taobao Tmall, traffic is the most direct support. Previously, 36Kr learned from people close to Ali that the traffic to live broadcasts and short videos will be increased from about 30% to 70%, and the entrance to live broadcasts may change again. In addition, short videos, content planting and live broadcasts will enter the homepage of the brand store.

"We have not done well enough in the past to operate the whole life cycle of users"

In response to the question of "how to better retain users", Dai Shan also reflected.

"We have not done well enough in the past to operate the whole life cycle of users, and we will increase investment this year." In the past, everyone was busy running forward during the bonus period, and they couldn't care so much, so they let him buy it first, and the people who came to the store converted first. Dai Shan said, "For our operation, the long-term construction of the brand, the long-term business of the brand, and the construction of the whole life cycle of brand users are the unchanged themes." ”

In order to help merchants manage good old customers, Taobao Tmall recently issued a new rule - allowing the membership price, fan price, old customer price, and new customer price set by the store not to be counted in the calculation of the lowest price of the promotion. This means that both Taobao and Tmall stores are expected to make lower prices than promotions on the price of member fans.

The big promotion used to be Alibaba's most important weapon. However, with players re-entering e-commerce and live broadcast rooms discounted 365 days a year, it is already difficult to retain consumers by relying on big promotions alone.

A person in charge of a brand merchant who attended the meeting believes that Tmall is ready for growth in attitude, and the action is currently a small step, but it needs to be further clarified.