Why hasn’t e-commerce “gifting” become popular?

During the Spring Festival, major e-commerce platforms launched the "gifting" function, trying to use the festive atmosphere to ignite a new engine for social e-commerce. However, this function did not become as popular as expected. This article will explore in depth the reasons why the "gifting" function of e-commerce has not become popular, analyze the current consumption trends, social habits and changes in the e-commerce operating environment, reveal why in the field of social e-commerce, giving gifts is not as good as giving money, and people's new needs for social interaction under the "lonely economy".

The "gift sending" function of major e-commerce platforms led by WeChat did not become popular during the Spring Festival.

The heads of each e-commerce business should have anticipated this result. Even so, the e-commerce giants do not want to miss this "what if" possibility.

WeChat’s “Send Gifts” feature was initially tested on December 19 last year, targeting the Christmas scene for couples. Douyin was the fastest to follow up, supporting e-commerce and bio-service gifts on December 26. Taobao, which launched the “Send Gifts” feature on January 8 this year, joined the battle shortly afterwards, and some orders also support WeChat payment. JD.com followed, launching on January 17. Then everyone discovered that Meituan’s “Gifts” feature was actually launched earlier than WeChat’s “Send Gifts”, but it has remained silent…

“Gift” function on multiple platforms

After placing a bet, WeChat launched the "Group Blue Package" on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month before the Spring Festival, targeting the scene of visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival.

As a result, everyone saw it.

Forget about "giving gifts", even fewer people give out "red envelopes" during this year's Spring Festival.

The outside world should stop over-hyping the "gift sending" feature.

Taobao actually tried to enter the social e-commerce market with this function as early as Double 12 in 2021.

Three years later, the cold reality still leaves no room for opportunity, even for the social giants to intervene forcefully.

This "new engine" that the e-commerce industry had placed great hopes on failed to run smoothly.

01 Giving gifts is not as good as giving money

There are fewer red envelopes this year, but to be honest, it is better to give money than gifts now.

In an era of scarcity, giving gifts may be better than giving money, because there are some goods that you cannot buy even if you have money, such as goods supplied by tickets or overseas goods.

Nowadays, no matter what people in China want, they can just tap their fingers on their mobile phones and wait for the goods to be delivered at home.

Moreover, the gift you give may already be in the other person's home, or may not be needed at all. This is difficult to avoid even between very familiar friends.

When you give him a gift, all you get in return is superficial courtesy and complaints behind his back.

Please recall how many holiday gifts given by companies were posted on Xianyu?

The WeChat red envelopes that year were intended for finance and were a huge success during the 2014 Spring Festival. They were praised by Jack Ma as the "Pearl Harbor attack" on Alipay.

While the current “WeChat Blue Packet” is aimed at e-commerce, it has failed to make a name for itself in the market.

In any case, e-commerce is a heavy business centered around operations. Social networking can be the icing on the cake, such as Pinduoduo's "cut one knife", but if operations don't keep up, it's like a good cook without rice.

The biggest problem this brings is insufficient supply.

This is a problem that new e-commerce companies, including live streaming e-commerce, cannot avoid.

When talking about e-commerce, we cannot ignore the overall environment of China's retail industry.

WeChat red envelopes were launched in 2014, two years before Jack Ma proposed the "new retail" at the Yunqi Conference and one year before Pinduoduo was founded.

That year, China's GDP growth rate was 7.5%, and the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods was over 10%.

In 2024, China's GDP growth rate is 5%, and the proportion of e-commerce in retail sales will drop for the first time in history, from 27.6% in 2023 to 26.8%.

Source: National Bureau of Statistics

Nowadays, any behavior will be questioned by "cost-effectiveness", so what benefits will I get if I choose to "give gifts"?

According to a Nielsen AIC survey, buying gifts for oneself has surpassed giving gifts to spouses and parents to become the number one gift-giving purpose. There is no doubt that self-pleasure consumption is on the rise.

These are enough to kill the social e-commerce behind "gift giving".

02 Everyone is Buddha

The Nielsen survey report also shows that New Year's Day is only the fifth most popular gift-giving occasion, ahead of birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

Therefore, the social e-commerce function of "sending gifts" should focus more on relationships between couples.

For the important gift-giving occasions mentioned above, couples can complete their purchases on birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine's Day.

However, another scary fact is that the current market trend is that couple consumption is also becoming increasingly sluggish.

The initial grayscale test of this round of "gift giving" was on December 19 last year, which was obviously aimed at Christmas. However, it happened to coincide with the Christmas with the lowest consumption in more than a decade, as can be seen from the box office of Christmas movies.

Giving gifts is a way of conveying goodwill, and the gift giver expects a goodwill response from the other party.

But the reality is that the gifts you give may not be suitable for the other party, and the other party is often picky about the price of the gift.

Moreover, the split among the e-commerce population is also ongoing.

JD.com’s Yang Li incident is an example.

The big background that social interaction cannot go against is that we are entering a "lonely society". This concept, proposed by Japanese social consumption researcher Hidetoshi Miura, is gradually becoming a reality in China.

The “lonely economy” does not mean that people no longer need social interaction. On the contrary, people need social interaction, but they may not need social e-commerce.

Because of loneliness, we are more eager to connect with others. This kind of connection is more retro, face-to-face communication.

Psychologists have also found that social media can hardly replace face-to-face communication. Excessive use of social media often leads to more psychological problems. Australia will ban minors under the age of 16 from using social media in November this year.

If the "gift giving" route for online e-commerce is not easy, will it work offline?

WeChat "Send Gifts"

Some bookstores have teamed up with e-commerce platforms to launch a book gifting activity. If you see a book that a friend likes in a bookstore, you can scan the code and give it away on the spot.

In fact, a lower-cost and more meaningful way can be provided immediately: use the latest translation plug-in with AI big model to translate a foreign book and give it to a friend.

Overall, the fast-food social method of "sending gifts" has come a little late and it is difficult for it to take on the main responsibility of social e-commerce.

So, is it impossible for new e-commerce forces to emerge now?

The biggest difficulty lies in whether the executives of the giants can step out of their comfort zone and break through themselves.

Didn’t Cheng Yixiao, the “Zhang Xiaolong of Tiantongyuan”, also start up the Kuaishou e-commerce business? However, many bigwigs’ motivation to do e-commerce is probably not as good as Cheng Yixiao’s.

The latter took over the positions of CEO and chairman from Su Hua in 2021 and 2023 respectively. As the new official with great power, driven by a sense of responsibility, he will definitely comply with the needs of investors and do live streaming e-commerce as the market needs.

The current situation in the e-commerce field where no one can defeat anyone else makes executives more content with the status quo.

They are not short of money.

Although many of them cannot make it onto the rich list, the annual income of tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars has allowed this generation with technological ideals to earn enough money to last for several lifetimes.

This may be because the first generation of Internet people have also become Buddhists.

We have all witnessed the era of wild growth of the Internet, and have seen the now gentle and polite bosses gritting their teeth in the war.

People change.

So will the economy.

Even the big guys have become Buddhas, let alone you and me?

It’s the Spring Festival. I hope that after bidding farewell to the era of high growth, everyone can still have what they love in their hearts and polish it carefully.

Text | Taishi James