WeChat stores, the end is a crash

The launch of WeChat Stores is seen as the rekindling of WeChat's e-commerce dream, heralding the arrival of a new era. WeChat's e-commerce business is divided into two modules: private domain and public domain, mainly video accounts. The upgrade of WeChat Stores has released the global traffic within the ecosystem, providing more opportunities for merchants.

Late Night Announcement: The Shop is Coming!

WeChat’s e-commerce dream has been ignited again.

The term "WeChat e-commerce" has been mentioned frequently in recent times. The emergence of this name means the arrival of a new era.

WeChat's e-commerce business is generally divided into two modules: one is the private domain of each merchant, and the other is the public domain mainly composed of video accounts.

With the arrival of small stores, WeChat began to release all the traffic within its ecosystem.

1. WeChat Store, open up the lifeline

Small shop, maybe this time you have opened up your Ren and Du meridians.

The announcement just released an important signal:

"Small stores will further simplify the merchant entry process, upgrade the brand certification and store naming system, and lower the entry threshold and deposit. It will also support the circulation of store and product information in multiple WeChat scenarios such as official accounts (subscription accounts, service accounts), video accounts (live broadcasts, short videos), mini programs, and search, helping merchants to better meet user consumption needs."

First, let’s take a look at what the basic foundation of WeChat e-commerce is?

1. The user side is a newcomer to e-commerce.

Logically, it is everyone who uses WeChat, but in fact, it is targeting the middle-aged and elderly people aged 40-60 who are new to e-commerce and have not been contaminated (the logic of WeChat payment in the past);

2. On the merchant side, the basic base is small and micro businesses.

Maybe a seafood shop owner in the community, of that magnitude.

Of course, there are also white-label merchants in the industrial belt, product merchants whose core selling point is cost-effectiveness, source factories, and agricultural product growers.

Like Taobao, Pinduoduo, and Douyin, big brands always come to realize things later. After the ecosystem matures, they will invest heavily in it, bring in brand potential, and harvest influencers and users.

For middle-aged and elderly e-commerce newcomers and small and micro businesses, it means that the threshold must be very low, otherwise this business cannot be done.

Without the growth of traffic, merchants have little motivation to enter small stores.

If small shops want to become the first choice of merchants, they must be more sincere, which means releasing global traffic.

Therefore, this announcement is extremely important, and the official accounts, video accounts, mini-programs, Moments, and searches should be used to direct traffic to the store.

Merchants of small shops can have more room for development by attracting traffic from all regions:

1. Left-hand private domain, community, private message, circle of friends, no card point activation;

2. In the right hand side, in the public domain, short videos on the video account are used to acquire customers, live broadcasts are used to acquire customers and monetize, as well as public domain search traffic such as SouYisou.

In other words, as long as there is new traffic for merchants, the 3-5% platform commission deduction is really not a problem.

Let’s go back to Zhang Xiaolong’s underlying thinking: “commodities and information”. Commodities are circulated throughout the entire WeChat area.

By replacing mini programs, small stores have become a concentrated harvesting tool for various traffic nodes on WeChat.

The flow of information and goods within the WeChat ecosystem forms a closed loop in the store.

2. Small stores kill mini-program e-commerce

If small shops are a better system, then whose business will it destroy?

1. A purely private domain mini program mall.

Pure private domain has become a dead end, and pure private domain tools such as Youzan and Weimao have fallen into an embarrassing situation.

Starting seven or eight years ago, the concept of "private domain" was quietly ignited by WeChat, and everyone started to fan the flames, and then the spark spread like wildfire.

In fact, a large number of businesses have imported users from various platforms to WeChat, and have carried out selective operations, repeatedly squeezing old fans to the point where no more profit can be squeezed out.

What businesses lack is not the ability to monetize traffic, but the ability to acquire new traffic.

At this point, small stores have undoubtedly replaced these purely private domain tools.

2. Mini Program private domain e-commerce platform.

From the user's perspective, one is the official platform and the other is a third-party platform.

Who would you trust more?

In the previous article, I mentioned several key points of third-party mini-program e-commerce:

First, the user experience is poor and merchants are not supervised.

The after-sales policy is far below the public domain level. "They pull themselves up by their own hair" and when problems arise, they basically rely on "consciousness" to solve them. It is impossible to have a good user experience.

Second, there is a huge risk of violations of regulations and laws.

All private domain e-commerce companies will be involved in fission and reach. If WeChat does not manage this, the consequences will be: pyramid schemes, illegal fund-raising, selling counterfeit goods, and bankruptcy.

Third, the merchants make money, but WeChat does not. WeChat only charges an annual certification fee, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the profits of the merchants.

Therefore, the small shop was smashed.

The first step is to destroy the mini program private domain e-commerce platform.

Kuaituantuan, Qunjielong, Tuanmaimai, Quntuantuan... I know of tens of thousands of such mini-program distribution malls and H5 malls as "external link third parties".

In theory, once the small store system matures, WeChat can gradually upgrade its management and control as needed at any time, just like Douyin cut external links in 2020.

For small shops that are purely private or sell goods to third parties, an increase of 3-5% in technical service fees is well within their affordability.

Compared with other tool platforms, the overall cost may be lower.

Therefore, the migration speed of merchants may be faster than expected.

With its own formal platform, WeChat will definitely crack down on micro-businesses, counterfeit goods, and businesses that skirt the five black categories.

Therefore, whether it is a brand’s private domain or merchants on various third-party e-commerce platforms, small stores are a better choice.

Mini program e-commerce has completed its mission and exited the stage of history.

For those private domain platforms that have already grown large, it may be a necessary choice to develop their own apps as soon as possible and migrate merchants out.

3. Hidden concerns of WeChat stores

“If Tencent had e-commerce genes, mini programs wouldn’t exist.”

In the comment section of my previous article, there was a very interesting message.

This starts with Tencent’s cultural genes.

Zhang Xiaolong’s “product supremacy” is actually a typical example of Tencent.

As China's most successful product manager, Zhang Xiaolong tries to solve problems at the product function and design level as much as possible.

The WeChat team, and even the entire Tencent, are immersed in the logic of how the product can solve all problems.

Strong products, weak operations, or even no operations.

Then, ordinary people can hardly find WeChat’s customer service and can hardly contact official people.

The product speaks for itself. If there is a problem, it can be managed or upgraded through the product.

The Video Account e-commerce team has recently made major adjustments to its entire business line, bringing WeChat e-commerce back to the official account era.

But can an e-commerce platform really be successful without a waiter or an operator?

I found no precedent.

In logical deduction, we will come to the following conclusion:

1. WeChat goes its own way and will not be as extremely commercialized as TikTok.

Don’t use the mindset of “becoming bigger and stronger, and harvesting traffic” to analyze WeChat e-commerce. Perhaps the eight words “steady and long-term flow, and free growth” are more appropriate.

2. WeChat’s base is too large. Don’t try to use a single point breakthrough or vertical depth to look at WeChat e-commerce based on this business logic.

Because with this kind of thinking, it is impossible to couple the broad, large and universal scale of WeChat.

The WeChat ecosystem has to accommodate too many things. Any limitation will not be able to fully utilize WeChat’s traffic and meet the needs of WeChat e-commerce.

In an environment where the flow of goods, logistics, and information is unlimited and users migrate freely, traffic becomes the only decisive factor.

Despite many problems and uncertainties, as small stores improve, perhaps WeChat e-commerce will overtake other competitors and become a new e-commerce power.