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"The earliest Double 11 in history" is coming, no longer blindly "low prices", what is the e-commerce platform compared to?

"The earliest Double 11 in history" has begun.

Compared with last year, the Double 11 promotion of mainstream e-commerce has almost been advanced by about ten days. Pinduoduo's 10 billion subsidy started on October 8, Douyin also entered the double 11 preemptive period on this day, Kuaishou opened the double 11 pre-sale period on October 10, and on October 14, Taobao and Jingdong also officially entered the double 11.

Once a year, e-commerce platforms are ushering in the most important issue in the industry: how to fight the fierce battle of Double 11?

"This year's Double 11 is the beginning of a new stage." Zhuang Shuai, a special researcher at the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and the founder of Bailian Consulting, said. A closer look at this year's Double 11 will find that e-commerce platforms are no longer shouting "low prices", and the actions of "following" each other between platforms are decreasing.

Do not roll "absolutely low price" anymore

Is this year's 11.11 cheaper than in previous years?

A consumer told reporters that from her experience in price comparison, the price of many goods is not lower than last year's double 11, taking peak canned food as an example, the price of 185 grams of peak canned food she bought last year was an average of 24.9 yuan / can, and this year she found that the cheapest price channel is Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, almost 25.6 yuan / can. However, most of the products on Double 11 are much cheaper than usual, and she still placed a lot of orders.

This year's Double 11, a change is that e-commerce platforms no longer roll up "absolute low prices".

In the context of "anti-involution", compared with previous years, whether it is Jingdong, Taobao, Pinduoduo, Douyin, etc., the rendering of the "lowest price on the whole network" has weakened a lot. "Taotian will compete in different price bands of each category, not that today we have to make a dime a bottle of mineral water in the price range of one dollar." Chen Weiye, vice president of Alibaba Group and president of Taobao Platform Division, said in an interview with the media that the cost performance is still concerned by the platform, but there is more restraint in terms of "volume price".

Judging from the big promotions and preferential measures currently announced by the e-commerce platform, consumption stratification is being promoted by the industry.

Low prices are still the most attractive weapon of e-commerce. A consumer told reporters that at present, many of the things she buys on Double 11 come from friends planting grass, "I will buy some links from friends who send me a good price, and all platforms have them." The consumer said that with all kinds of "homework" such as seckills and deposit red envelopes, there will be some very cheap things on Double 11 this year, but they are more scattered, and there is no obvious sense of which platform is cheaper.

On the one hand, low prices still exist in the e-commerce competition, this year's double 11, Taobao 10 billion subsidies will be issued for the first time, Taotian Group 10 billion subsidies general manager Ru Ci said, up to now, Taobao 10 billion subsidies The number of annual active users has exceeded 500 million, the number of cooperative merchants has doubled, and the number of single products with transactions exceeding 10 million yuan has exceeded 100,000. Jingdong also said that as of now, the number of goods participating in Jingdong's 10 billion subsidies has increased by more than 4 times compared with last year, and the number of goods on Jingdong's 9.9 free shipping channel has increased by more than 2 times compared with last year, and this year's double 11, Jingdong's investment in low prices is still continuing.

However, while continuing to attach importance to "low-cost channels", one change is that the platform is reducing the impact of price competition on the commodity operation of the whole platform. After 618 this year, Taobao clarified the strategy of weakening the absolute low price, and the search weight distribution system was changed back to GMV allocation, no longer pursuing the high DAC brought by low prices.

At the same time, e-commerce platforms pay more attention to operating members. Xiuxun, general manager of Taotian Group's 88VIP business, said that this year's Double 11, the scope of application of 88VIP coupons will be expanded from Tmall stores to some Taobao stores for the first time, and at the same time, Taotian has launched the TOP100 best-selling products of 88VIP consumption coupons in various segments, which is convenient for members to "make up orders" when using coupons. Previously, Taobao disclosed in its financial report that the specific scale of 88VIP members is currently 42 million. Xiuxun said that the current penetration rate of 88VIP in first-tier cities is very high, taking Shanghai as an example, among the permanent population of about 25 million, the current 88VIP membership has exceeded 3 million. In the field of FMCG apparel and 3C digital, 88VIP users accounted for 30% higher purchase of new products than ordinary users. JD Double 11, JD PLUS members will also get 40 yuan off over 500 yuan, 120 yuan off 1500 yuan and other coupons.

Behind this, e-commerce hopes to tap more possibilities through the segmentation of the population. Through the targeted subsidies for members on Double 11, e-commerce is strengthening its operation for high-net-worth individuals, in order to explore the shopping scenarios of consumption upgrades to promote the growth of new categories, new brands and new products. "Low volume" is no longer the only answer to Double 11.

"The earliest Double 11 in history" is coming, no longer blindly "low prices", what is the e-commerce platform compared to?

A more "business-friendly" 11.11

E-commerce platforms are coming to a watershed moment.

According to Zhuang Shuai's analysis, the adjustment of e-commerce to the relationship between supply and zero is entering a new stage. In the past few years, due to oversupply and the intensification of price and service competition among major e-commerce platforms, the relationship between supply and zero has been tight, and consumers' high sensitivity to price has brought fierce competition in the industry. But now, after the competition in the past few years, the e-commerce industry has eliminated many businesses with low operational efficiency and high operating costs through "low prices", and how to rebuild the benign competition mechanism of merchants within the platform is receiving the attention of e-commerce platforms.

First of all, on the question of whether to pre-sell or not, JD.com and Taobao gave different answers. Jingdong Double 11 continued the big promotion style of spot sales, while Taobao took back the pre-sale period on this year's Double 11 after canceling the pre-sale in 618 this year, and the official event period of Taobao Double 11 spot will start on the evening of October 21.

Chen Weiye responded to the first financial reporter, the reason is that after research, more businesses feel that pre-sale is very important to business, which can bring business incremental opportunities, "may not be the same as what everyone thought in the past, today we are in line with market demand, in line with the principle of creating value, if we find that we do not feel happy to do, or do not solve the problem, we will use new methods to solve the problem, the next time we think about this matter in the future, we may think more deeply, and we will do more and more perfect strategies in this regard." ”

From the perspective of selling goods, spot low-price promotions are often more attractive to consumers to place orders in advance, while pre-sales are to lock in consumer demand, which cannot meet the immediate needs of consumers but can allow merchants to better stock up and enhance the certainty of merchants in big promotions. Behind the different choices made by e-commerce platforms, JD.com, which is mainly self-operated and has perfect logistics infrastructure, has less pressure on the organization of goods in the big promotion, and the response to adjusting the pallet is more rapid, which is more suitable for spot sales, while Taobao has more third-party merchants and more comprehensive product types, especially in the field of clothing, which requires pre-sale to reduce the pressure on merchants in stocking and inventory. In the midst of differentiation, the competition of e-commerce platforms is returning to rationality, and more attention is paid to the demands of merchants.

This is a Double 11 that the platform attaches more importance to "merchant friendly". Major e-commerce platforms have announced many preferential policies for merchants this year, such as Taobao and Tmall have launched welfare policies such as return treasure service, zero handling fee and fast payment, and full return of tens of billions of subsidy commissions; JD.com has brought hundreds of billions of new traffic to merchants through "10 billion subsidies for factory goods", live broadcast subsidies, advertising rewards and other methods; Pinduoduo launched the "10 billion consumption vouchers" activity for the first time on Double 11, investing a large amount of subsidies and resources, and has successively released a number of "10 billion reduction" policies before Double 11, such as reducing technical service fees, reducing margins, and logistics transit fees, etc., to further reduce the operating costs of merchants. This year's Double 11, Jingdong also put forward the goal of helping the number of small and micro merchants with "daily sales exceeding 10,000 yuan" to increase by more than 2 times year-on-year, and the number of merchants with sales of more than 5 million increased by more than 50% year-on-year.

In this regard, Cao Lei, director of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society, said that the e-commerce platform launched various support policies in the early stage of Double 11, which is conducive to reducing the operating costs of merchants, attracting small and medium-sized businesses to settle in, and then optimizing the platform ecology. For merchants, the operating burden is reduced, service efficiency is improved, and more exposure opportunities are increased; For the platform, it can optimize the merchant ecology, increase the variety of merchants, and provide consumers with more choices, thereby indirectly improving the consumer experience.

In Double 11, how to find a balance between consumers and merchants is being rethought by the platform.

Step into the competitive differentiation

How to get more consumers to pay for this year's 11.11?

An SF Express courier in Beijing told reporters that his express delivery site has not yet entered a busy period in the past few days, "It is expected that it may be busy after the 20th." "Combined with the pre-sale situation of some platforms, the peak of express delivery on Double 11 has not yet come, and the growth that Double 11 can bring to the e-commerce industry still needs to wait and see.

A number of interviewed consumers told reporters that they did not pay much attention to the opening time of "Double 11" because they did not have anything to buy at present. As the 11.11 campaign cycle becomes longer, many consumers are more inclined to "think of (demand) before buying." ”

How to stimulate consumer demand for purchases? While reducing the pressure on merchants to "roll low prices", in order to balance consumers' demand for low prices, the double 11 subsidies for platforms, live broadcast rooms and other channels are increasing.

"We really did make the biggest investment in 11.11 in history." Wu Jia, vice president of Alibaba Group and president of Taotian's user platform division, said in an interview with the media that on the one hand, at present, many of the e-commerce rights and interests of Double 11 have become the standard configuration of major platforms, and Taotian needs corresponding budget investment in serving the paid membership group and increasing the purchase frequency of different groups. On the other hand, while facing the fierce competition of e-commerce, Taobao should also pay attention to the protection of the price system of merchants.

According to the pre-sale data of Double 11 that has been released so far, within 10 minutes of the opening of the pre-sale of Tmall Double 11, 13 beauty brands have exceeded 100 million, and 20 brands have exceeded 100 million in the first 30 minutes. In the first hour of the pre-sale, the transaction volume of Tmall's major appliances increased by 765% compared with the first day of pre-sale on Double 11 last year.

Behind this, the government and the live broadcast room are increasing subsidies for Double 11. The reporter learned from the beauty wrist that on the first day of Tmall Double 11 pre-sale, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room added more than 20% year-on-year to increase the amount of double eleven purchases, and on the first day of pre-sale, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room drove a substantial increase in the sales of a number of beauty brands, a consumer told reporters that night, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room users can get a deposit of more than 20 yuan red envelopes, which is the reason for stimulating her to place an order. In terms of home appliances, this year's Double 11 is also the first time that government subsidies are superimposed on Tmall discounts, which has led to a sharp decline in the "arrival price" of a large number of goods in the household appliance category.

While increasing subsidies, e-commerce platforms are paying more attention to enhancing consumer experience.

"Interconnection" has become a key word in this year's Double 11. Before this year's Double 11, Taobao APP was connected to JD Logistics, providing merchants with more choices. Previously, Taobao has been fully connected to WeChat payment, and recently, some users have found that they can directly shop on Taobao on WeChat, using WeChat payment, without jumping to Taobao APP. Wu Jia said that the opening of payment is the first step in the cooperation between Taobao and WeChat, and the two sides will continue to deepen the cooperation in the future, including cooperation in traffic. After the "interconnection", Taobao will further do a good job in the corresponding user operation.

"We expect this to be the most attended 11.11 in history." Wu Jia said that after a series of "interconnection" actions, Taobao has seen a rapid increase in the frequency and scale of use by young users and users in the sinking market.

Zhuang Shuaibiao analyzes that behind the interconnection, large factories are already in the stage of competition in the stock market, and they all have their own needs for new growth and improving profitability.

In the wave of double 11, it is worth mentioning that Pinduoduo said that tens of billions of subsidies for double 11 will focus on supporting new quality merchants and new quality brands, and Jingdong said that it will recruit at least 10,000 purchases and sales in the next three years, and bet heavily on product selection, Zhuang Shuai believes that in the future, cultivating more differentiated and innovative products will also become the key to attracting consumers on the e-commerce platform. In the face of this Double 11, e-commerce companies need to answer more questions.

(This article is from Yicai)