Low-priced mooncakes are hot sellers on Douyin

On the Douyin e-commerce platform, low-priced mooncakes and local specialty mooncakes have become the new favorites. At the same time, the marketing strategies of top anchors and brands are also constantly evolving.

Around the Mid-Autumn Festival, accidents related to mooncakes are always on the hot searches.

The "Hong Kong Meichengli Mooncakes" promoted and sold by TikTok's top anchor @疯狂小杨哥 in his live broadcast room was revealed to have no stores in Hong Kong, so many netizens claimed that he was suspected of false advertising.

At the same time, netizens discovered that several top live streaming sales accounts such as Jiaogepengyou and Dongfangzhenxuan had cooperated with Meichengli mooncakes. On September 16, Jiaogepengyou announced that it would accelerate the "refund one and compensate three" processing for Meichengli mooncakes purchased through its matrix accounts.

On September 18, Oriental Selection responded to netizens' doubts and stated that Oriental Selection did cooperate with the Meichengli mooncake OEM factory in 2022. The factory produced the "Oriental Preferred" lava mooncakes of that year in accordance with Oriental Selection's requirements, and the quality was guaranteed, but the two parties did not cooperate in 2023 and 2024.

Putting aside the controversy surrounding Meicheng mooncakes' alleged false advertising, Ka wants to focus on studying the mooncake marketing business on Douyin e-commerce.

The keyword search index of Juliangxingtu shows that the search index of "moon cake" has gradually climbed since mid-to-late August this year, creating the annual sales peak. Third-party data shows that from July to August this year, the sales of moon cakes on Douyin e-commerce reached 300 million, and the average sales of the top 10 stores exceeded 5 million, a significant increase compared with the same period last year.

In fact, in addition to Meicheng mooncakes, there are a large number of mooncake brands and influencers operating businesses on Douyin e-commerce. Recently, Quan Wenmao, the father of Quan Hongchan, who won two diving gold medals in the Paris Olympics, also promoted mooncakes on his Douyin account. The sales volume of his window showed that this mooncake had sold more than 2,000 orders.

How do mooncake brands market themselves on Douyin? What do the successful brands do right?

Low-priced mooncakes are very popular, and local specialties are emerging

Data released by Douyin E-commerce Marketing Observation showed that during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2023, the GMV of order payments on the Douyin platform increased by 24.4% month-on-month. 12 brands achieved transactions exceeding 100 million yuan on the Douyin platform, and 331 brands achieved transactions exceeding 10 million yuan.

Among the products related to the Mid-Autumn Festival, 65 items had a GMV of over 10 million, and more than 2,000 items had a GMV of over 1 million. In the Mid-Autumn Festival atmosphere, a total of 113 mooncakes had sales exceeding 1 million.

The mooncake category sales popularity list in September 2023 shows that brands Xiangshizhe and Huamei performed outstandingly, with sales exceeding 1 million, followed by traditional pastry manufacturers such as Daoxiangcun and Weiziyuan.

This year things are a little different.

In the list of hot-selling stores, from July to August 2024, the sales of the TOP10 stores all exceeded 5 million, and the TOP5 stores were Weiziyuan Official Flagship Store, Meichengli Official Flagship Store, Daoxiangcun Official Flagship Store, Guxiangren Official Flagship Store and Sushanghuang Food Flagship Store.

However, it is worth noting that in the mooncake sales list in August this year, the black truffle lava milk custard mooncake gift box from the "overturned" brand Meichengli mentioned above topped the list with a score of 10 million to 25 million.

In contrast, the sales champion in August 2023 was the Taxu flagship store, with estimated sales of 75 million to 100 million yuan. This year's sales champion's performance fell by nearly 2/3.

In terms of price range, according to Youmi Youshu's monitoring, in the Douyin e-commerce mooncake sales market, from July to August 2024, the sales share of "low-priced" mooncakes under 10 yuan increased from 13% in the same period of 2023 to 36% this year.

At the same time, mooncakes priced between 10 and 50 yuan are still the mainstream of the market, accounting for 50% of sales volume and sales revenue, while the sales share of mooncakes priced above 50 yuan has declined.

Smaller and healthier mooncakes are increasingly popular among consumers. Traditional mooncakes are usually around 100 grams, but new mini mooncakes are now around 45-50 grams to cater to the trend of healthy eating.

In terms of taste, the Douyin e-commerce mooncake product sales list in August this year showed that the TOP10 products all sold more than 2.5 million yuan, of which 4 were lava-filled and 4 contained five kernels. Among them, the ones with the highest sales were the Meichengli Black Truffle Lava-filled Custard Mooncake and the Guxiangren Ejiao Five-Nut Mooncake, with estimated sales of 10 million to 25 million yuan each.

Image source: TikTok

Affected by the overall environment, high-end brands are becoming increasingly difficult to sell, and brands have begun to focus on joint ventures to grab consumers' attention.

Nayuki's Tea boarded the magic train to Hogwarts and launched a joint snack gift box with Harry Potter, as well as various peripherals such as transparent cards, refrigerator magnets, badges, etc.

Daoxiangcun and "Black Myth: Wukong" launched a joint gift box. The mooncakes are shaped like the Destiny Man, Tiger Vanguard, and Yellow Eyebrow in the game, which triggered a wave of sharing among users on social media.

Image source: TikTok

Local specialty mooncakes are becoming more and more popular among Douyin users. Judging from many hot-selling items, their prices are relatively low, they are large and affordable, and their taste is proven, so they are easy to sell out. Kas believes that another trend of Douyin mooncakes during this Mid-Autumn Festival is to abandon the need for packaging and gift giving and return to the essence of food.

For example, local flavors such as Shanxi Egg Mooncakes, Shanxi Hollow Mooncakes, Guizhou Yuntiao Mooncakes, and Inner Mongolia Milk Skin Mooncakes are gradually becoming popular.

Among them, the hollow mooncakes are mainly brown sugar flavored, and some are added with peanuts, walnuts, raisins and other dried fruits. With the popularity of Shanxi's cultural tourism, this mooncake has also become a new favorite on Douyin, with sales in the mid-autumn season increasing by 1277% year-on-year.

Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital Mooncakes became popular on the Internet a few years ago and entered Hema in 2020. The sales area has gradually expanded from Guiyang. In the past 30 days, the sales of @Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital Mooncakes on Douyin alone reached 5 million to 7.5 million.

Image source: TikTok

Hot-selling brands, what did they do right?

Through the list of hot-selling stores, Kas will specifically analyze the marketing actions and operational ideas of old faces such as Weiziyuan, Daoxiangcun, and Huamei, and new dark horses such as Master Lu, Gu Xiangren, and Hu Xiaocai.

What these brands have in common is that their main sales platform is the live streaming room.

Third-party data shows that from July to August this year, the sales sources of Weiziyuan’s official flagship store were live broadcasts, videos and product cards, with live broadcasts accounting for 79%, making it the most important sales channel. Similarly, Meichengli’s live broadcast room sales contribution accounted for 72%; and Daoxiangcun’s live broadcast channel contribution accounted for 80.5%.

Secondly, mooncake brands all attach great importance to influencer distribution, but the budget allocation and marketing focus are different.

In terms of sales channels, mooncake brands are mainly sold through self-operation, influencer promotion and merchandise cards.

In terms of sales contribution, 85% of Weiziyuan's sales come from the brand's own operations. Data shows that from July to August this year, Weiziyuan cooperated with 3,830 influencers, 90% of whom were potential influencers. By casting a wide net, they accumulated a large number of A1 and A2 users for the brand, and guided them to enter the live broadcast room to make purchases.

Unlike Weiziyuan, Meichengli mainly cooperates with top influencers, such as @疯狂小杨哥. Influencer promotion is the main way for Meichengli to bring goods, accounting for 53%, with top influencers contributing 43% and self-operated brands contributing 35%.

Image source: @疯狂小杨哥TikTok live broadcast room

Data shows that the top influencers associated with the brand include @疯狂小杨哥, @曾志伟, as well as top influencers such as @嘴哥, @乔妹, and @卓仕琳 under Three Sheep.

During marketing, Meichengli was packaged as "Hong Kong Meicheng Mooncake" and "High-end Mooncake" by experts, but the media did not get the corresponding results when searching "Hong Kong Meicheng" and "Meicheng Mooncake" on HKTVmall, the largest online shopping platform in Hong Kong. Some media consulted Meicheng mooncake agents and learned that the brand's production areas are basically Guangzhou and Foshan.

On September 12, the topic #Hong Kong mooncakes with monthly sales of 50 million yuan are not available in Hong Kong# even became a hot search, and the protagonist was the brand.

On September 17, the Hefei High-tech Zone Market Supervision Administration issued a situation report, stating that it had filed a case to investigate Three Sheep Network Technology Co., Ltd. for suspected "misleading consumers" and would handle it in accordance with the law based on the results of the investigation.

On September 18, the Guangzhou Huadu District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau issued a notice stating that Guangzhou Meicheng Food Company is a food trader that has obtained a business license and registration for the sale of pre-packaged foods; Guangzhou Meicheng Technology Company has a food production license, and its production processes and management systems comply with regulations.

Crazy Little Yang probably didn't expect that the consequences of promoting a mooncake would be such a drastic earthquake. According to Cicada Mama data, @疯狂小杨哥's Douyin account lost nearly 3 million followers in 30 days, and @三只羊网络 lost 200,000 followers in 30 days, with the current number of fans being 11.31 million.

It is worth noting that Meichengli’s self-operated flagship store on JD.com and Meichengli’s official flagship store on Douyin have removed all mooncake products from the shelves.

Comparing the sales charts before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, Kas also discovered new emerging characters, such as Master Lu, Gu Xiangren, Han Xiaoqian, etc.

Take Master Lu as an example. The brand’s estimated sales in the last 30 days reached 10 million to 25 million, and its multi-flavor mooncake combination products topped the Douyin product list.

To differentiate from traditional Hong Kong-style mooncakes, Master Lu focuses on the "crisp" taste, and uses special ingredients such as "sesame crisps, a large number of nuts, buckwheat flour" to create differentiation, which has won the love of many users.

Screenshot of the TikTok account @Lushifu Food Flagship Store

In the brand's live broadcast room, the anchor emphasized the multi-flavor mixed characteristics of the mooncakes. "8 different flavors, 2 kinds of skin materials" meet the needs of consumers with various preferences and who want to try new things, becoming the brand's strongest competitive advantage.

The live broadcast room displays mooncakes of various flavors in pieces, which is more visually appealing and can effectively attract users to stay. At the same time, the products on the shelves in the store also focus on flavor characteristics, highlighting the characteristics of thin skin, large fillings, and rich filling types.

On the sales front, on the one hand, the brand conducts high-intensity and long-term self-broadcasting, and on the other hand, it also deploys channels such as expert distribution and product cards, that is, responding to the platform's suggestions and achieving "full-area operation."

In the past 30 days, the sales contributed by Master Lu’s brand self-operated channels accounted for 62.5%; a total of 492 influencers were deployed, most of whom were low-end influencers, and the sales contributed by the influencer accounts accounted for 8.47%; the sales contributed by the merchandise card channel accounted for 29%.

In short, if brands want to achieve explosive sales during important holiday seasons, they need to attract user attention in a variety of ways, such as product innovation, influencer recommendations, and brand self-broadcasting, and by taking into account the "shelf field + content field" and keeping up with the mall activities to gain exposure and full-area support, thereby improving customer acquisition efficiency.