The logic behind the growth of Dewu (Douyin) users

Dewu is a vertical brand of shoes and clothing that focuses on young people's e-commerce. They precisely target young people as their user base, lock in this group, and conduct targeted operations. This article analyzes the logic behind its user growth, hoping to inspire you.

If you understand things, you will understand young people!

This is a sentence that appears repeatedly in Dewu's PR. Dewu is obviously a very vertical footwear and clothing e-commerce. From the brand concept to the category structure and other full-link business environment, the user group is precisely targeted at young people!

The nature of the market's consumption environment will be highly vertical as user needs are segmented. The finer the granularity of the vertical field, the clearer the needs of the user groups behind it, and the users' culture, ideas, and value orientations are also highly pure. Dewu has cleverly used Z-generation categories such as trendy shoes and clothing to accurately lock in target users, and the stickiness is extremely high!

Let's take a look at the factors that influence young people's decision-making. They are inseparable from several key factors, such as appearance design, brand concept, story culture, and personalized spiritual heritage. The combination of these factors enables users in this circle to complete common value recognition in a very short time. "A new generation of trendy online shopping community", "a trend vane and voice for young users", "committed to creating a free community for young people to communicate, display and share", and a series of official brand slogans of Dewu, are the core foundation of its rapid rise in the course of its development, which has been pursued by a large number of young people's thoughts.

1. From cost-effectiveness to price-performance ratio, build a brand reputation moat

According to the "National Trend Brand Young Consumption Insight Report" released by Xinhuanet and Douyin APP in 2022, the national trend consumption portrait of young people today is presented in three dimensions: national trend industry perspective, brand case analysis, and young consumption trends.

Data reports show that brand dimensions have gradually covered categories ranging from shoes, clothing, digital products, luggage, watches, and artworks, and are gradually being favored by contemporary young people. In the process of this consumption revolution, young people seem to be reaching a high degree of consensus on "how to better obtain emotions, establish emotional connections and spiritual satisfaction in social interactions."

Compared with the survey samples 10 years ago, the popularity growth coefficient of the national trend search index has exceeded 5 times, and 78.5% of consumers in the footwear and clothing category prefer Chinese brands.

The post-90s and post-00s have become the absolute main consumer groups, contributing 74% of the national trend consumption. On the Douyin APP, this proportion is as high as 87%. The factors that mainly influence the consumption decision-making of these two waves of users have gradually evolved into "appearance, quality, emotion, cultural connotation, and personality expression". The influence factors of these five factors even exceeded "price ratio" at one time. The word-of-mouth moat of word-of-mouth has also begun to undergo a qualitative change, from cost-effectiveness to emotional price ratio. The new and diverse demand structure presented behind this structural change has brought brand-new category opportunities and brand expansion space to the national trend and Douyin.

2. From the perspective of changes in user demand structure, it is a "new cultural" movement

From the perspective of user operation, the main user group of user operation, the foundation at the bottom of the pyramid must be highly consistent with spiritual beliefs or cultural pursuits. The middle layer is the lifestyle extended from the spiritual or cultural premise (consumption, social interaction, activities or artistic pursuits), and the top layer is the countless incubated segmented vertical fields.

Young people's trend culture is a very solid foundation. It originated from the streets of the United States, then flowed into Harajuku, Japan, and finally gradually spread to China, becoming a niche area for mass consumers. This foundation is a living organism with social heritage and humanistic beliefs, and it is also an effective foundation that has been repeatedly verified by borderless communication.

The middle-level areas extending from the basic plate are actually also rich. The development of the NBA, the popularity of hip-hop online variety shows, the influence of freestyle, and the emergence of trendy brands created by artists are all changing our lifestyles. The penetration of this lifestyle is also constantly absorbing and acquiring more target users. The larger the scale of users, the greater the demand for various online variety shows, and the higher the demand.

The top sub-sectors are also changing, with consumers gradually pursuing a more liberalized mentality in product selection. Sneaker culture, hip-hop culture, blind box culture, Guka notebook culture, graffiti culture and other sub-sectors are also gradually coming into the public eye. With the continuous penetration of influence, the rise and explosion of the fashion market are becoming more and more rapid.

We say that this pyramid model, from the basic level to the middle level to the top level, is accelerating consumption changes among young people and is a "new cultural" movement.

3. Start from the users themselves and understand our users in a three-dimensional way

From the user's perspective, the user profile of Dewu is concentrated in the age group of 24-35 years old, accounting for 62%; the occupation attributes are concentrated in students or white-collar young people entering the society; the ratio of men to women is basically half and half, relatively equal; the source cities are concentrated in first-tier cities represented by Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as new first-tier cities represented by Chongqing, Chengdu, Xiamen and Jiangsu. These users have typical attributes of contemporary young people, and the circle of users provides a natural clustering bonus for Dewu's user operations.

According to the data from iResearch, the user portraits and demand scenarios of users in corresponding age groups and cities can be basically divided into the following categories:

The user portrait is focused on "students (no pressure to save money, like to follow the trend, compare, pursue the market, and like interactive social interaction):

• Basketball enthusiasts (like playing basketball, basketball peripherals, and basketball stars);
• White-collar workers (relatively stable jobs and pursuit of quality life);
• Dressing up (likes to show off one’s outfit in the community, eager to gain any sense of satisfaction and honor)”;

The demand scenario focuses on "users' shopping needs for trendy products":

• “Users have dual needs for both the seeding and social attributes”;
• “Users’ pursuit of genuine products and their need for trustworthy authentication agencies”;
• "Find like-minded friends, share and exchange ideas on trendy products together and gain a sense of honor."

4. Start from online user behavior and improve user conversion efficiency throughout the entire chain

From the perspective of the life cycle, we can improve user stickiness and conversion efficiency at each level from the perspective of the entire chain, including new user registration rate, new user conversion, old customer activity, and old customer retention and recall.

As the first behavior node after users open the APP, new user registration is naturally a key cost item for each APP. The guide of Dewu is a 520 yuan new user limited-time red envelope, through the high gift package amount and limited-time collection atmosphere, as well as the front-end large-area interactive pop-up window. The red envelope operation configuration plan + product-side process optimization can naturally achieve a high improvement in registration efficiency.

We think the conversion of new users is a clever design of Dewu. As a C2B2C business model, Dewu's platform must repeatedly verify the trust of users. Brand endorsement and perfect after-sales service are Dewu's combination plan for the conversion of new users. After registration, the user link jumps to the new user area. The new user area is different from previous APPs in that it distinguishes "new user gift packages, first order discounts, first purchase worry-free, and first purchase privileges". The core of the new user gift package is mainly coupons for 520 yuan gift packages, the first order discounts are mainly high-cost-performance ranking products, and the first purchase worry-free is mainly domestic and foreign first-line brands, which fully reflects the endorsement of big brands. The first purchase privilege is the overall expression of after-sales service guarantee. The complete system accelerates the conversion of new users' first orders.

To activate old users, Dewu’s solution is a points growth system + UGC community. The points growth system is applied in Dewu as the “Aurora Level”. Users can accumulate points by purchasing goods, collecting goods, posting community updates, subscribing to channels, and other actions. Different points accumulations apply to different levels of growth, and each level has exclusive rights and services. For example, Aurora L1 level can enjoy free shipping service, Aurora L2 level can enjoy late arrival compensation service, etc. In addition to obtaining Aurora by completing tasks every day, there is also a form of cultivation. As time goes by, it will grow like a tree, prompting users to collect several times a day.

In addition to the Aurora Growth System, UGC is a key promotional activity of Dewu. The "Video Creator Plan" released by Dewu is a reflection of Dewu's determination and investment in creating UGC content. Top brand managers and artist IPs serve as early PGC content guides. The platform leads high-heat creative topics and allows ordinary users to follow and learn to create PGC content. After the scale effect, high-quality UGC content has become a key means for Dewu to activate its core users.

To retain old customers, Dewu’s solution is extended services + community services, such as a series of extended life services, identification services, idle transactions, trendy product cleaning and care, game redemption, etc. These services are all daily needs. Once users develop a favorable impression and habit, they will become dependent on them; community services include daily coupons, community activities, sharing rebates, Star Wish Forest and other operational activities, which provide user motivation for retaining old customers and length of time they stay in the app.

5. Deeply penetrate PGC+UGC to establish a connection network between creators and ordinary users

From the proportion of UGC content module in APP, it is not difficult to find the importance of this module, which is also the key factor for Dewu to successfully transform APP from consumer e-commerce to community vertical e-commerce. For Dewu's user growth environment, innate user beliefs and highly consistent spiritual pursuits, the form of shopping consumption cannot meet the release of demand. At this time, a community is needed, a community of sharing, inheritance and resonance is needed, and Dewu just stepped on this opportunity point.

For the content e-commerce ecosystem, several key factors are indispensable, including content quality, traffic distribution, user ecosystem (creators/KOLs/mass users), and product supply. The solution of "Xiaohongshu" is to focus on content quality + traffic distribution, and secondary user ecosystem and product supply. The platform recommends related category videos based on user behavior preferences and category preferences to improve the completion rate, while increasing product links within the content to form a closed loop.

The solution of "What's Worth Buying" is to focus on content quality + product supply, secondary user ecology and traffic distribution. The platform selects the best from the best based on multi-dimensional product rankings such as "value list" and "recommended list", and chooses the product supply that is more likely to be converted, and matches it with high-quality content as the content supply for the community.

Dewu's overall solution focuses on product supply + user ecology, and secondly on quality and distribution (of course, the importance will vary depending on each stage). Dewu's idea is that the bottom layer of high-quality content must be top products and KOLs! Now let's see that this bottom-level thinking is correct. Take Xiaohongshu and What's Worth Buying as examples. These two platforms face comprehensive users of all categories, while Dewu's users determine that it is very vertical and focused.

Let's break down this logic. Sneaker users are not concerned about the comfort of the shoes, but the brand influence and collection sharing value. There are many stories behind them that can be sold at a premium. These are the spiritual pursuits of Dewu users. Similarly, the brand manager KOLs can tell the story of the shoes. The superimposed value behind this is what Dewu users highly pursue. In Dewu's view, people follow the goods and KOLs, not the content. They prefer to see KOLs wearing the shoes, JK wearing the shoes, and the lifestyle of the boss sitting on the street showing off his basketball shoes.

6. From offline to online variety shows to IP cooperation, building multi-dimensional user connection scenarios

Pop-up exhibitions seem to be a must for trendy brands in recent years. From milk tea to clothing and JD Experience Center, Dewu also applies them to theme activities. DTS Dewu Trendy Carnival is a series of offline pop-up exhibitions of Dewu, gathering more than 200 popular IP top products on site, and trend managers cheering for the event on site. More than 70 trendy toy brands & designer works, 100 trendy toy limited top products, and 6 large-scale punch-in interactive devices are exhibited. Blizzard games, Yu-Gi-Oh, Saint Seiya, Fights Break Sphere and other IP hot products made their offline debut; at the same time, users are guided to produce UGC activities, connect online, and bring the atmosphere and heat of the event to a climax.

As a trendy hip-hop culture dance variety show, "This! Is Street Dance" naturally has a high degree of overlap with the user attributes of Dewu. Both cultural beliefs and spiritual satisfaction are key entry points for the cooperation between the two parties. The collective entry of "This! Is Street Dance" contestants into Dewu not only brought enough traffic exposure to Dewu, but also created a "national hip-hop trend" cultural event for users on the Dewu platform.

Artist IP and brand IP are also important links in Dewu's process of connecting users. William Chan, Han Geng, and Lin Yun joined with their brands and shared some of their daily life dynamics, which naturally attracted many fans to stay. In addition to popular stars, KOL Lee Cansen in the fashion circle and Yan Junze from the online game League of Legends also joined, which also attracted the attention of people from different fields.

Dewu's user operations are comprehensive and multi-dimensional. Our perspective is that we should not regard Dewu as an e-commerce trading website. If we regard it as a community APP, an active platform for young people, using content creation, IP co-branding, and online variety show sponsorship may help us better understand the story that the brand wants to express.

Author: Leon; Official Account: Leon New Retail Notes