Preparations for Double 11 are advanced, and e-commerce bids farewell to the "ROI-only theory"

This article introduces the new strategies of e-commerce giants for Double 11 in 2024, analyzes how platforms can help merchants reduce costs and increase efficiency by pre-sales, providing subsidies, using AI tools and breaking down platform barriers, as well as the impact of these changes on consumers and merchants.

This year's Double 11 e-commerce war started earlier than in previous years.

Before the National Day heat faded, heavyweights in the live broadcast industry such as Li Jiaqi and Jiao Ge Pengyou had already started the Double 11 warm-up mode in their live broadcast rooms. Major e-commerce platforms tacitly kicked off this shopping spree in advance. Tmall, Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Douyin and Kuaishou, these e-commerce giants have all revealed their own traffic allocation mechanisms and investment policies, making full preparations for the upcoming digital carnival.

However, unlike the 618 mid-year promotion where “low price is king” this year, this year’s Double 11 seems to have changed its style. The competition logic of e-commerce platforms is no longer “competing over price and service”, but has turned to working with merchants to create win-win situations. Merchants may usher in the best survival rules in history during this year’s Double 11.

01 E-commerce giants change their strategies to survive, and merchants usher in spring

Morketing observed that e-commerce had four new actions during this year's Double 11:

First of all, the Double 11 pre-sale is advanced and the activity line is extended.

Douyin was the first to start the Double 11 carnival on October 8, 12 days earlier than last year. It added a ten-day advance period, cancelled deposit pre-sales, and added a direct discount gameplay;

Tmall and Taobao's Double 11 pre-sales started on October 14, 10 days earlier than last year;

JD.com's Double 11 event started on October 12, 11 days earlier than last year. The event is divided into five stages, including pre-sale, opening, special period, climax period and return period;

Pinduoduo’s Double 11 event starts on October 14 and lasts until November 11;

Kuaishou's Double 11 event started warming up on October 16, entering the first-come-first-served stage;

Although Xiaohongshu does not have “Double 11”, its “once a year shopping spree” also starts on October 12.

The platform advances the pre-sale period of Double 11 or adds a "early purchase" stage, which means that the total duration of the event is extended, giving merchants more time for preparation and sales cycles. This helps to disperse the order pressure during the promotion period, reduce the logistics pressure on merchants , and allow consumers to have more time to slowly choose their favorite products.

Second, the platform provides merchants with more subsidies and support.

For example, this year Taobao and Tmall have spent tens of billions of yuan, not only to provide merchants with consumer coupons, red envelopes, traffic and other support, but also to help merchants reduce operating costs through measures such as return treasure, ultra-fast collection and commission refund. Among them, Tmall provides merchants with free ultra-fast collection services with a quota of more than 250 billion yuan, setting a record for the largest ultra-fast collection quota in history; Douyin's e-commerce traffic mechanism has been upgraded, with official instant reductions and direct price reductions, and corresponding traffic incentives to guide merchants and influencers to pay attention to the content quality of live broadcasts and short videos; JD.com, in the 2024 Double 11 promotion, in addition to a number of subsidy policies such as 10 billion subsidies for factory goods, 100 million CPS marketing subsidies, and 100 million advertising rewards, has also specially launched a 100 billion traffic support policy to help more merchants achieve business growth.

These subsidies from the platform are like giving merchants a "green light", helping them to prepare for Double 11 with zero financial pressure . This change shows that e-commerce platforms are shifting from simply pursuing sales growth to paying more attention to the sustainable development of merchants.

Third, use a variety of AI tools to improve merchant efficiency and enhance user experience.

"If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools." This year's Double 11, AI tools have become the "secret weapon" of merchants. For example, Taobao provides merchants with an AI product called "Business Manager", which can not only generate materials, provide data services, and act as an agent, but also provide personalized product recommendations to improve conversion rates, just like using a plug-in; JD.com upgraded "Jingmai" and launched 20 free AI tools to help merchants improve their operational efficiency, including store management, marketing promotion, service capabilities, product delivery efficiency, and order processing and outbound delivery, etc., to help merchants operate more easily and efficiently during the big promotion period.

Once these AI tools are put into use, not only will merchants save time and effort, but consumers will also enjoy a "customized" shopping experience. The application of AI technology is changing the business model of e-commerce, accelerating the entire industry towards intelligence and digitalization.

In addition, interconnection and interoperability have become a new trend, and the barriers between platforms can be easily broken down.

Optimizing consumers' shopping experience has always been the goal that e-commerce platforms have been pursuing. Before this year's Double 11, Taobao and Tmall joined hands with WeChat Pay; WeChat supports direct Taobao shopping; Taobao and Tmall are about to join hands with JD Logistics; JD is expected to join hands with Alipay Payment... This series of "successful partnerships" has broken down the barriers between platforms, allowing consumers' shopping experience to be seamless, just like watching a smooth blockbuster movie, which helps improve consumers' shopping experience and supply chain efficiency.

02 Why doesn’t the low-price strategy work on this year’s Double 11?

The story begins a few months ago.

In this year's 618 mid-year shopping spree, faced with the trend of consumption downgrade, major e-commerce platforms have used all their tricks, trying to reignite consumers' enthusiasm for big sales through promotional means such as simplified processes, billions of red envelope subsidies, cross-store allowances, direct price reductions on single products, and official instant reductions.

However, although the low-price strategy has become the main card of various platforms, the final data shows that the effect is not satisfactory. According to Star Chart data, the total sales volume of the entire network in 2024 was 742.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of nearly 7%. This is the first decline in sales in 16 years.

Moreover, in the three-way struggle between consumers, merchants and platforms, when the platforms turn to users, merchants begin to bear pressure. For consumers, this may be the best and simplest 618 shopping experience, but for merchants, it is the most competitive and difficult 618.

Therefore, this year's 618 saw a rare collective protest by merchants: China's eight major publishing groups and more than 40 publishing houses publicly voiced their opposition to JD.com's price-cutting behavior during the promotion; some merchants even refused JD.com's inventory sales and subsequent deliveries; and many small and medium-sized Taobao merchants also expressed their dissatisfaction.

Therefore, for this year's Double 11, e-commerce platforms adjusted their strategies and no longer simply emphasized low prices. Instead, they launched a series of unprecedented support policies aimed at helping merchants reduce costs, improve efficiency, and thus drive sales growth.

This shift from user-oriented to merchant-supported is undoubtedly a wiser decision - allowing merchants to make money will make the development of e-commerce more sustainable.

E-commerce has set up the stage, and brands also have a stage to showcase themselves. In the third quarter of this year, the number of new brands increased by 70% month-on-month, with the largest number of new brands entering in September, up 239% month-on-month. Many brands entered Tmall around September to actively prepare for Double 11, including international brands such as Yohji Yamamoto, Jimmy Choo, and Chantecaille.

From a more macro perspective, against the backdrop of consumption recovery, a series of monetary stimulus measures introduced by the policy side are helping the economic recovery, and consumer sentiment has continued to improve, especially the strong recovery momentum of online consumption.

Therefore, merchants' expectations for Double 11 are not just a simple digital carnival, but also a positive expectation for the improvement of the economy. In this process, e-commerce platforms play an important role in releasing user consumption demand and provide merchants with a platform to seize business opportunities.

03 Summary

During this Double 11, e-commerce giants showed off their skills and came up with new strategies, with only one goal: to help merchants reduce costs and increase efficiency.

In addition, the walls between JD.com and Alibaba have been removed, which has made the competition more focused on product cost-effectiveness and service quality. This open arena calls for platforms to focus on users and merchants, provide more diversified choices, attract fans with hard-core service strength, and drive growth.

Merchants are very enthusiastic about Double 11, with many big brands and sufficient stock, but the supply chain challenges behind the sales spree should not be underestimated. In the tide of rational consumption, Double 11 is not only a digital carnival, but also a test of quality and service. As the annual drama of the e-commerce industry, if the platform wants to seize the opportunity and maintain its leading position, it must plan ahead and optimize its warehousing and logistics strategies.

We hope that this Double 11 will not only have a high starting point, but also be able to make steady progress and advance rapidly all the way.

Text: Jadesky
This article is written by the author [Morketing] of Operation Party, WeChat public account: [Morketing]. It is originally created/authorized to be published on Operation Party. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.