Taobao is becoming more and more like Pinduoduo｜618 Observation

More and more people are finding that Taobao and Pinduoduo are becoming more and more similar. Following this article, let’s learn about the adjustments and changes Taobao has made and where its new strategy is heading. I hope it will be inspiring to everyone and I recommend it to my friends on the Internet.

“At first glance, I thought I had opened Pinduoduo.”

During the 618 shopping festival this year, many Taobao users expressed such sentiments.

The homepage information is more concise, the fixed modules of channels are reduced from two lines to one line, the channels can be customized, and the proportion of information flow is increased. This change shows a result visually: Taobao Mobile and Pinduoduo are indeed looking more and more similar.

Left: The revised version of Taobao Mobile; Right: Pinduoduo

Except for the background color and the top channel, the other sections of the two apps are almost the same. Many users also found that when they opened the two apps at the same time, even the first recommended product in the information flow module was "coincidentally" the same.

Since the beginning of this year, after clarifying that "users are the first customers", Taotian is learning from Pinduoduo in all aspects. Not only the product interface, but also Taotian's promotion cycle is getting shorter and the rules are becoming simpler: the official pre-sale link is cancelled, and the first wave of sales will be directly launched at 8 pm on May 20. Although it still prompts that different red envelopes will be discounted separately, consumers only see the direct sale and the final price, avoiding complicated discount calculations.

Since the beginning of this year, many of Taobao's gameplay and services have been fully aligned with Pinduoduo: AI intelligent refunds in seconds without having to contact customer service, red envelope grabbing at the top of the hour, compensation for logistics stagnation, red envelopes with no threshold, more purchases and more returns, use now and pay later, etc. are no different from Pinduoduo.

If Taotian was once extremely complex and fragmented due to its numerous businesses and bloated structure, then Pinduoduo is a representative of extreme simplicity and focus. Learning from Pinduoduo, Taotian is stepping out of its comfort zone.

1. Taobao Mobile is becoming more Pinduoduo-like

"The current consensus is that Pinduoduo's interface design is the most user-friendly, and our strategy is to learn from them and get closer to them," a Taobao employee told 36Kr. It is understood that this major revision of Taobao Mobile was initiated by the Taobao Business Department, Taobao Merchant Platform Department, and Taobao Customer Satisfaction Department.

The biggest change is the homepage. The vertical focus image in the first column of the recommendation page has been removed, and replaced by the recommendation slot (different users will have different views, and some users who are more price-conscious have all vertical focus images removed); the small treasure box icon at the top has been changed from two rows to one row, revealing only a few core business modules; the large image style of the core channel has been reduced, and some modules such as same-city retail (i.e., within-hour delivery) have been moved to the top channel.

The homepage has become simple and clean, which was the result of a series of trade-offs: in order to focus on improving user experience, increasing the efficiency of users browsing Taobao Mobile, and shortening the time users spend opening Taobao Mobile, Taobao Tianyi eliminated many unnecessary startup items in the second quarter and optimized the cache, which made the time it took for users to open the Taobao APP several seconds faster than before.

Left: Taobao before the redesign; Right: Taobao after the redesign

With such a change to the homepage, the biggest beneficiary is the upward-moving information flow recommendation module, while the role of the vertical version of the first focus has been greatly weakened, which also means that the brand effect is getting weaker and weaker. The vertical version of the first focus has evolved from "Super Diamond Exhibition" and "Brand Special Show" in 2020, and has always been the main venue for brand display by Shede.

This change shows Taobao's determination to promote affordable products. 36Kr learned that Taobao still adheres to the price power strategy, but compared with last year, it has adjusted to no longer pursue absolute low prices, but to provide relatively preferential products for different users, such as providing domestic products for users who consume big brands, providing factory products for users who consume domestic products, and providing Taobao factory and 1688 affordable products for users who consume white-label products.

One noteworthy detail is that the designs of the 10 billion subsidy pages of Taobao Mobile and Pinduoduo are almost identical, and after users open the pages, they can't help but wonder where they are.

Left: Taobao Mobile’s 10 billion subsidy page; Right: Pinduoduo’s 10 billion subsidy page

According to 36Kr, Taobao Mobile is currently upgrading its entire interactive page, and will directly use Pinduoduo's product promotion map as a reference, which means that the two companies will become more and more similar in terms of interaction in the future. For example, Pinduoduo's interface is direct and simple because it uses a tab flow. On a refund page, three tabs can be switched directly to select the recommended method, while Taobao Mobile has always used a drop-down pop-up window, which requires users to spend more steps to click.

Why didn’t the change happen earlier? A Taotian employee once commented to 36Kr: “When the market is stable, everyone believes that if you don’t do anything, you won’t do anything wrong, and it’s better to do less than more.” However, some user feedback may also explain the previous conservative strategy.

Many users have reported on various social media that the operation is indeed simpler, but it also makes people more eager to place orders. This strategy of following Pinduoduo's simplicity is ultimately aimed at improving conversion rates and promoting GMV growth from a business logic perspective.

Some old fans of Taobao Mobile have expressed their dissatisfaction on various social platforms, mainly focusing on the following reasons: the selection bar for product styles moves up and down, and it is difficult to find the selection position, and you have to click Buy or Add to Cart to see it; the special attention and followed stores are all mixed together, making it very difficult to find a store; the shopping cart icon has become smaller and placed to the left of the order button (consumers are accustomed to clicking on the right), so it is easy to click to place an order directly when adding to the shopping cart; many users also said that Taobao Mobile is changing almost every day, which makes them unaccustomed and increases the inconvenience.

But Taobao Mobile is determined to become Pinduoduo. "It is generally recognized in the industry that Pinduoduo has the highest efficiency. The design that seems to have a poor experience has the best indicators after ab testing." A Taobao employee told 36Kr.

2. Learning Pinduoduo does not mean becoming Pinduoduo

Although Taobao Mobile is catching up with Pinduoduo in terms of interface design, many services and gameplay, employees also believe that it is difficult to make disruptive changes to its underlying algorithmic logic.

An obvious fact is that Pinduoduo’s algorithm has never been suitable for Taobao, and Taobao’s search algorithm has completely returned to GMV this year.

Throughout 2023, Taobao has been promoting the "Five-Star Price Power" (a price power evaluation system created by Taobao: based on the price advantage comparison of the same products on and off Taobao, a 1-5 star rating is given to determine whether the single product has a price advantage in the entire market). In order to match the "Five-Star Price Power", the algorithm was changed to pursue the "Thousand Display Order Volume", that is, the same thousand times of display, the competition is who has more orders, which also means that the goods need to be cheap enough. But after a year of implementation, Taobao found that this path is actually not feasible.

“If Taobao is forced to change its algorithm logic to Pinduoduo’s, at least half of its current GMV of over 8 trillion will evaporate, and its advertising revenue will also drop sharply,” a person close to Taobao told 36Kr.

36Kr learned that after a major change last year, Taobao's algorithm assessment target is now undergoing a callback: from "order volume per thousand impressions" to "GMV per thousand impressions". Under this logic, the same thousand impressions need to bring higher GMV, rather than just looking at the absolute value of the order volume. Returning to the logic of GMV also means that the performance assessment method has become more comprehensive, and it is necessary to find a balance between order volume and average order value.

Some merchants said that the "five-star price power" of many categories on Taotian is also being cancelled, and Taotian will no longer give as much free traffic as it did last year. After closely following Pinduoduo for a period of time, Taotian realized that it is impossible to copy Pinduoduo in all aspects. Instead of offering absolutely low prices, it is better to emphasize "super high cost performance", weighting factors such as price, service, and product quality, and comprehensively considering them, so that Taotian users can also accept them.

However, the above-mentioned merchants also told 36Kr that although the five-star price power is difficult to weight, low-priced goods do have advantages.

Judging from the results, the adjustment of Taotian’s algorithm and core goals this year played a certain role. In Q1 2024, Taotian Group achieved double-digit growth in GMV for the first time in two years, and the order volume also achieved double-digit growth. This means that Taotian Group’s "user-first" strategy has shown its effect for the first time. During this year's 618, Taotian GMV also achieved a long-awaited double-digit growth.

Can Taotian's system foster a product team that truly understands user needs? This may still take time, but at least Taotian has shown its determination to change.

Author: Peng Qian

Source: WeChat official account: "36氪 Future Consumption (ID: lslb168)"