In the face of the tight money bag, 618 e-commerce GMV collectively remained silent: when low prices are no longer the master key, the giants began to think about turning

China Times

2024-06-20 19:38Published on the official account of Beijing China Times

On June 20th, the battle line was stretched to nearly 1 month and the 618 mid-year promotion came to an end. The "China Times" reporter learned that the 618 promotion of Jingdong and Taotian will end on the same day, and Pinduoduo will be on June 21.

In 618 this year, e-commerce platforms have launched a series of measures such as canceling pre-sales, vigorously promoting live broadcasts, and increasing discounts, but they are also silent about the final GMV, and instead they emphasize growth. Among them, JD.com announced that more than 500 million users have placed orders on JD 618 this year, and Tmall announced that the number of new members of 88VIP increased by 65% year-on-year.

Users represent the future of e-commerce platform business, and low price is the keyword that they have attracted traffic and users in recent years. However, a series of problems brought about by the recent low-price "mutual cut" of e-commerce platforms have also shown that although users' wallets are getting tighter and tighter, low prices are not the final answer to the problems of e-commerce platforms, and finding their own core competitiveness is.

Changes in the live broadcast room

Live streaming has always been the core battlefield of e-commerce platform promotions, representing the growth potential of e-commerce platforms. In 618 this year, JD.com announced that the number of live broadcast orders increased by more than 200% year-on-year. Taobao Live announced that the number of live broadcast rooms exceeded 100 million yuan, an increase of 53% year-on-year.

One of the interesting comparisons is that the top anchors with great momentum in previous years are relatively low-key in 618 this year.

According to the data monitored by the Cicada Mother platform, on June 18, there were no well-known head anchors such as Brother Xiao Yang and Dong Yuhui in the top ten of the Douyin Talent List. In fact, Dong Yuhui previously mentioned in a talk show that he was very resistant to selling things, and he still doesn't enjoy the job of an anchor with goods to this day. During this year's 618 period, the Tmall flagship store of the company behind Li Jiaqi, Mei ONE, was also officially launched, moving from live broadcast to shelf e-commerce track, which can also be seen as a signal of the gradual transformation of the head anchor.

Corresponding to the head anchors, vertical anchors and store self-broadcasts performed well in 618 this year.

Taobao Live announced that this year, 618 has produced 34 live broadcast rooms with more than 100 million talents, and 47 live broadcast rooms with more than 100 million stores. Among them, the reporter learned that the durian live broadcast was particularly popular on Tmall 618 this year, among which "Uncle Fruit" sold 2,000 fresh durians within three hours of the first broadcast on Taobao. In addition, this year's 618, Burger King, Starbucks, McDonald's and other brands have achieved triple-digit year-on-year growth in store-broadcast GMV on Taobao.

New technologies such as digital humans also appeared in the live broadcast room.

On June 18, the digital clone of Xu Ran, CEO of Jingdong Group, and more than 18 digital people of the president appeared at the "Jingdong 618 President Welfare Party". The "China Times" reporter learned from Jingdong that the live broadcast of the president's digital human is the siphon effect caused by the live broadcast of the "purchase and sale of Dongge" AI digital human, leading the trend of enterprises using digital humans and executives to order digital humans. At present, Jingdong 618 has thousands of digital human anchors online in the Jingdong live broadcast room, and more than 100 executive digital humans are stepping up production.

JD.com also announced that in 618 this year, JD Yunyanxi digital people will be broadcast in more than 5,000 brand live broadcast rooms, with a cumulative live broadcast duration of more than 400,000 hours, a cumulative number of viewers of more than 100 million, and an interactive frequency of more than 5 million times.

Internet analyst Ding Daoshi told reporters that e-commerce platforms now have introduced strategies to support small and medium-sized anchors and small and medium-sized MCN institutions, and the general principle is that they do not want to rely on individual big anchors, but hope that through the mechanism of inclusive traffic, more market players can enjoy the dividends brought by the development of the industry, "There is meat to eat together." ”

The brand channel game has deepened

This year's 618, many industries have shown that the game between brands and channel parties is gradually deepening. Behind this, the strong strategy of e-commerce platforms to strive for low prices is one of the driving forces for brands to gradually lose control over channel prices.

Liquor is one of the key categories promoted by e-commerce platforms this year, among them, the results released by Taotian show that compared with Tmall 618 last year, the number of live broadcast rooms, the number of viewers, and GMV of Taobao wine live broadcast have reached a new high. Among them, the "new first sister of wine live broadcast" wine sister achieved sales of more than 100 million yuan in only 43 minutes on the night of its sale.

However, the low-price promotion of e-commerce has also triggered fluctuations in the liquor price system. Among them, the reporter saw that in early June, through the superposition of tens of billions of subsidies and 618 major promotion activities, the C-end price of 53 degrees 500 ml Feitian Moutai on some e-commerce platforms has been lower than the market wholesale price, and at the same time, its delivery cycle has been extended to 20 days.

When communicating with reporters, some industry insiders believed that in the context of the overall price decline, adjusting the delivery cycle to 20 days is equivalent to allowing people to buy futures that will inevitably fall, so it directly led to the collapse of Moutai prices. He believes that the practice of 20-day delivery not only hurts dealers, but also harms the stability of the industry.

Home appliances have also been the key category of the 618 promotion. The reporter saw that this year, on various e-commerce platforms, Xiaomi, Hualing, Commander and other air conditioning brands launched fierce competition around the price band of 1500 yuan. The sales list released by Pinduoduo also shows that this year, 618 air conditioners have become the highest-selling single product in its major appliance category, and the four major brands of Xiaomi, Midea, Hualing, and Gree have taken the top ten in the sales list of air conditioner products. However, at the same time, there are also problems such as the C-end price of some air conditioning products being lower than the B-end wholesale price, and the offline market is cold.

"The price of these sinking channels of e-commerce platforms has been particularly sharp this year, resulting in the offline market also falling, and the price of the entire market has been disrupted." Zhang Qingqing, an analyst at Industry Online, told reporters. Regarding the problem of inverted prices on the C-end and B-side, she said that on the one hand, the price of the platform itself is lower during the big promotion, and on the other hand, the price of the brand itself is "volume", "Once one company lowers the price, the others will follow up with the price reduction." ”

Ding Daoshi also said in an exchange with reporters that the strength of the e-commerce platform stems from the fact that the brand has become more and more dependent on the platform in the past two years. He took books as an example, according to his understanding, many online orders for books now far exceed the sum of other traditional channels, and the right to speak is not in the publishing house or bookseller, but on the e-commerce platform, "This makes the brand fall into a contradictory state, on the one hand, it is necessary to rely on the platform to attract users through price wars, but on the other hand, the price is too low and not profitable, and even some categories lose money, but now most consumers have developed the habit of online shopping." ”

Look for core competencies

For e-commerce platforms, the low-price strategy can bring traffic and users to themselves, but when they encounter opponents who are more willing to spend money and subsidies than themselves, will this strategy still work? For brand merchants, the price of more and more volumes undoubtedly makes them love and hate, and their profits are under pressure while obtaining orders. For consumers who are accustomed to seeing the big scene of promotion, low prices are becoming more and more difficult to stimulate their consumption impulse.

In fact, when the low price becomes the electric trademark distribution, this strategy loses its original meaning, and the e-commerce platform has to compete with the core competitiveness behind the low price. As far as the current situation of deepening the game with brands is concerned, a good way to solve the situation is that the e-commerce platform not only puts itself on the positioning of the channel, but also uses its core competitiveness to empower more merchants while enriching its own platform ecology.

During this year's 618 period, the reporter observed that the e-commerce platform is gradually releasing its competitiveness to the B-side.

In this 618, JD.com is helping more small and medium-sized enterprises and businesses in the industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency through supply chain capabilities. According to the reporter's understanding, in May this year, Jingdong announced that it had reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation with the Chengdu women's shoe industry belt, including a number of Chengdu women's shoe brands such as Uncle Wu who wore high heels, and settled in the Jingdong procurement and sales live broadcast room.

Among them, Wu Nan, the founder of the women's shoe brand "Uncle Wu WUDASHU", who was previously out of the circle with the image of "a man in high heels", mentioned that the "Chunxiao Plan" gave it a lot of help in the early stage of the store, including the upgrade of JD.com's "Chunxiao Plan" this year to help it improve a lot of operational efficiency. The reporter also learned from Jingdong that in March this year, Jingdong's "Chunxiao Plan" proposed 20 upgrade measures, among which the "AI all-round service package" intended to make it easier for merchants to open stores through AI technology attracted the most attention.

Taotian is also helping small and medium-sized businesses deepen their supply chain and refined operation capabilities. According to the data provided by it, as of 24 o'clock on June 18, the turnover of 1.9 million Taobao small and medium-sized merchants increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and the number has more than tripled compared with last year. Nearly 30,000 small and medium-sized businesses have exceeded one million transactions. Sister Jiu, who has taken Taobao as the main position for operating live broadcasts, also said when talking about the experience of entering Taobao, Taobao compared with other platforms, the biggest advantage is that it has enough rich pallets, which can match the anchors with high-quality goods that best meet the attributes of the persona.

This 618 may be the beginning of e-commerce platforms to consolidate their core competitiveness.

Editor-in-charge: Huang Xingli Editor-in-chief: Han Feng

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