The 618 shopping festival of “new e-commerce” is played differently

This article deeply analyzes the new changes in the 2024 "618" e-commerce festival, the strategic confrontation between traditional e-commerce and new e-commerce, and the changes in consumer behavior. If you are interested in the latest trends, promotional strategies and consumer psychology in the e-commerce industry, this article provides unique insights and in-depth analysis.

Who is still looking forward to 618?

14 years ago, JD.com held the "618" promotion for the third time, which was also the beginning of the "618" model of e-commerce. At that time, there were no anchors shouting "the lowest price on the entire network" every day, nor were there complicated promotional mechanisms and extra-long pre-sale periods; there were only simple and direct discounts, member discounts, free shipping, and point rewards.

Four years ago, 618 reached its peak; afterwards, with the rise of live-streaming e-commerce, content platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin attempted to transform into e-commerce. There were more and more players in the e-commerce track, and the activity rules of the "e-commerce festival" became increasingly complicated, pre-sales became longer and longer... Gradually, everyone seemed to have lost patience with e-commerce festivals and promotions.

01 The battle between new and old e-commerce companies

During this year's "618", both new and old e-commerce companies have started playing in different ways. Some have cancelled pre-sales to return 618 to its essence, while others have tried to overtake others by focusing on positioning and categories. At a time when traditional e-commerce companies still occupy the main market, do "new e-commerce companies" still have a chance?

Image source: Weibo screenshot

Vivian (pseudonym), a former loyal e-commerce festival user, bid farewell to the festival because the final payment after pre-sale was higher than the actual advertised amount. "I was watching a super anchor's live broadcast room and bought a toner recommended by a friend. The price was very clear on the poster and when the anchor explained it, but after paying the final payment, I checked the total price and found that it was more expensive than advertised, and I didn't get a refund after I gave feedback."

There are many consumers like Vivian who encounter problems in the pre-sale stage due to final payment, delivery time, return and refund, etc. In addition, after the pre-sale, the deposit and final payment as well as the complicated preferential policies have invisibly increased the difficulty of consumption.

Therefore, the cancellation of pre-sales by traditional e-commerce companies is also seen as another attempt to please consumers after the release of the "refund only" function. Of course, another reason is that as the anchors on new content e-commerce live streaming platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou shout "the lowest price on the entire network" every day, people have begun to feel tired of discounts; at this time, shortening the duration of the e-commerce festival can actually increase people's sensitivity to prices.

Unlike the "old e-commerce" players, the "new e-commerce" players are still looking for their own "personality" in the e-commerce festival, such as low prices for Douyin, buyers for Xiaohongshu, and KOLs for Bilibili. Douyin's strategy for this year's 618 is still based on the low-price positioning. In addition to the major anchors starting to hold special 618 events in their live broadcast rooms, Douyin also has its own 618 10 billion subsidies. "Fun Business" found that Douyin's 10 billion subsidies are basically concentrated on daily necessities like Pinduoduo, such as kitchen paper, women's sanitary napkins, tissues, men's razors, summer quilts and other products; in addition, Douyin also has "618 magic coupons" that can participate in the full reduction activities in designated live broadcast rooms.

Image source: Screenshot from TikTok

"The atmosphere of the 618 promotions on various e-commerce platforms this year is not particularly obvious, but several Douyin merchants I follow have indeed started discount activities," said a consumer. Because of her fitness habits, this consumer follows some sports brands. She found that both domestic niche and mass sports brands have had discounts recently, but the discounts are not very large. "Clothes that cost more than 200 yuan are about 10-20 yuan less than usual, which is about 10% off."

Xiaohongshu found the route of "e-commerce buyers" after Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcasts became popular, and continued the buyer route during this year's 618. "Fun Business" opened Xiaohongshu's 618 page and first showed the discount coupons, and then displayed the "popular buyers group"; Aikoko, who was live streaming at the time, was showing a red dress from the designer brand Redlabel. When you enter the live broadcast room, you will find that the screen keeps flashing with gifts given by users to the influencers, and there are constant interactions in the comment area asking about clothing sizes and requesting to show other products.

Image source: screenshot from Xiaohongshu

"The atmosphere of the 618 promotions on various e-commerce platforms this year is not particularly obvious, but several Douyin merchants I follow have indeed started discount activities," said a consumer. Because of her fitness habits, this consumer follows some sports brands. She found that both domestic niche and mass sports brands have had discounts recently, but the discounts are not very large. "Clothes that cost more than 200 yuan are about 10-20 yuan less than usual, which is about 10% off."

Xiaohongshu found the route of "e-commerce buyers" after Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcasts became popular, and continued the buyer route during this year's 618. "Fun Business" opened Xiaohongshu's 618 page and first showed the discount coupons, and then displayed the "popular buyers group"; Aikoko, who was live streaming at the time, was showing a red dress from the designer brand Redlabel. When you enter the live broadcast room, you will find that the screen keeps flashing with gifts given by users to the influencers, and there are constant interactions in the comment area asking about clothing sizes and requesting to show other products.

Image source: Bilibili screenshot

However, compared with other leading platforms, Bilibili did not stand out in terms of platform activity positioning or data performance during the same period. Consumer experience, shopping reasons, and activity positioning, new and old e-commerce companies have been constantly trying to update their strategies in these three aspects during this year's 618 shopping festival.

02 Who is buying “new e-commerce”

New strategies will naturally bring new results.

During this year's 618, traditional e-commerce's new tactics such as canceling pre-sales were clearly effective. According to data released by Analysys, in the first period of the event, the average DAU of traditional e-commerce users, led by Alibaba and JD.com, increased by about 20% compared to last year; the average DAU growth of content e-commerce users, such as TikTok and Kuaishou, was about 5%. This also indirectly shows that the new strategies of traditional e-commerce this year have captured the hearts of consumers to a certain extent.

Image source: Screenshot from Analysys

However, in terms of the proportion of overall transaction volume and growth rate, Douyin still performed well. In terms of the total transaction volume, Taobao Tmall still has a monopoly, accounting for 47.6%; Douyin almost caught up with JD.com with 17.4%, slightly behind JD.com's 17.9%, and exceeded Pinduoduo's 13.2%. In terms of year-on-year growth in transaction volume, Douyin led traditional e-commerce with a year-on-year growth rate of 30.2%; in comparison, Taobao and JD.com grew at 14.6% and 9.5% respectively.

Image source: Screenshot from Analysys

While traditional e-commerce platforms remain the "base camp", various e-commerce platforms are also deepening their vertical fields and exploring their own unique advantages.

“I used to only buy things on Taobao, but now I’ve slowly discovered that JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu each have their own appeal.” A heavy e-commerce consumer expressed the thoughts of many people.

During the 618 shopping festival this year, Liu Yan (pseudonym), a plant lover, switched from Taobao to Douyin. "In the early spring of this year, I started to try to buy plants on Taobao, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and JD.com, and finally chose several merchants on Douyin for frequent purchases." Liu Yan was worried that Douyin's after-sales service was not perfect before, but after receiving two broken seedlings, she found that the refund was completed smoothly, which dispelled this concern.

"The most important reason is that buying flowers on Douyin is more cost-effective." Liu Yan said that she bought four Phalaenopsis orchids at an average price of 10-15 yuan in a live broadcast room specializing in Phalaenopsis orchids. "The quality is no different from the 30-40 yuan offline ones, and they all survived."

Fitness enthusiast Xiao Meng (pseudonym) started to "switch" to Xiaohongshu during the 618 shopping festival this year. "Maybe because I often visit fitness bloggers, I recently saw several sports brand products, and after comparison, I found that Xiaohongshu is about 10% cheaper than flagship stores on other platforms. Last year, when Xiaohongshu live broadcast was very popular, I paid attention to the live broadcast room of a big blogger and found that some niche brands also have stores on other platforms and are even cheaper, so I was a little skeptical about Xiaohongshu, but this time during the 618 shopping festival, I felt that the discounts were really good."

Image source: Xiaohongshu, Taobao screenshots

With cost-effectiveness as the basis, diversified positioning and services as the support, domestic e-commerce platforms have gradually changed from a monopoly to a flourishing one. Of course, in today's environment where traditional comprehensive e-commerce platforms still occupy most of the market share, judging from the data, although Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, two e-commerce players that started with content, have not yet fully "come to the table", the transition trend of the entire e-commerce track from comprehensive to segmented, and from search to content has already emerged.

03 Is there still “blue” under the red sea?

There are more and more new e-commerce players, but the user penetration rate has gradually reached the ceiling, which also means that this track will become more and more "competitive". "Competitive prices" are inevitable. Now it seems embarrassing to sell without the "lowest price on the entire network", but a long-term price war is actually not a good solution for both merchants and consumers.

For merchants, the constantly lowered selling prices still have to come from consumers, the "sheep". In order to maintain a certain profit margin, there may be problems such as poor product quality, poor logistics quality, and untimely after-sales service.

Some merchants have their own tricks to offer the “lowest price”. One consumer said that when he wanted to buy a T-shirt in the summer this year, he searched for keywords on Douyin and a live broadcast room of a trendy brand popped up. The anchor said that the price in Taobao’s flagship store was 149 yuan, but in the Douyin live broadcast room it was only 99 yuan. The consumer was so excited that he placed an order.

Later, it was discovered that the brand’s shipment volume in the Taobao flagship store was actually very low, and it was possible that the price was just to highlight the low price on the Douyin platform to encourage consumers to place orders. “After this experience, I always pay attention when watching the live broadcast room, and found that this is a common means to make low prices.” The consumer said.

Moreover, the needs of consumers are also changing. In addition to pursuing cost-effectiveness, more and more consumers are beginning to pursue quality. Many consumers said that with the improvement of the platform's after-sales service, although there is a "refund only" policy, they do not want to apply for refunds all the time.

The essence of online shopping is that consumers can buy the products they like; blindly pursuing low prices while ignoring quality, and then using "quick" refunds to cover up quality problems is not a long-term solution. Therefore, both new and old e-commerce companies have begun to highlight their own unique advantages.

Some start from the product categories, such as electronic products on JD.com, women's clothing on Taobao, big brands on Tmall, agricultural products on Pinduoduo, and designer products on Xiaohongshu; some start from the services, such as JD.com's logistics, Tmall's after-sales service, and Douyin's product display.

It has to be admitted that there are not many opportunities left for the "new e-commerce" companies. After all, the three biggest pain points of e-commerce, namely product categories, logistics, and after-sales service, have basically been solved. It is difficult for the "new e-commerce" companies to find the "blue ocean" in the segmented tracks from the perspective of positioning.

Therefore, "cultivating internal strength" has become a compulsory course for e-commerce platforms; for example, combining AI algorithms to achieve more accurate recommendations and simplifying platform data systems are more conducive to merchants closing orders and users making high-frequency purchases. Overall, the 618 in 2024 will be quiet and fierce. New and old e-commerce companies must "cultivate both inside and outside" if they want to continue.