After analyzing the 618 strategies of the six major platforms, I only understand one thing: price is king

This article will take an in-depth look at the 618 event strategies of major platforms and how they stand out in this e-commerce war.

At the end of last month, Taobao and JD.com announced the cancellation of pre-sale activities for 618. This caused a lot of controversy among consumers, and most of them said that they had been suffering from pre-sale for a long time, and it was these complicated activities that wore out their patience with the 618 shopping festival and shopping platforms. I think it is an inevitable trend for shopping promotions to enter a minimalist mode.

JD.com and Taobao canceled pre-sales, and 618 entered "minimalist mode".

However, the simplification of the activity rules of a single platform does not mean that consumers can withstand the big promotion activities held by the six major platforms at the same time: we have observed that Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo have all shown their talents, and each has provided substantial subsidies and complex activity rules to the platform merchants to stimulate the increase in the platform's GMV.

1. Tik Tok & ByteDance: Providing more exposure opportunities for high-priced products

This year, the "Douyin Mall 618 Good Products Festival" launched "official instant discount" and "one-piece direct discount" gameplay for all registered merchants on the platform, aiming to provide consumers with lower-priced goods. It is understood that Douyin will "bring up to 500% exposure increase for low-priced goods."

In addition, among all the customized gameplays, the "Merchant Mission Competition" is more worthy of attention. That is, after merchants receive and complete the order target, they can obtain official Qianchuan traffic coupons and red envelopes and other platform resources. Similarly, the "Live Streaming Mission Competition" is for creators, who can also receive rewards after completing certain order targets.

Throughout the 618 event on the Douyin platform, ByteDance proposed a formula: Brand voice = Reach + COV + SOV. Reach refers to the coverage of the crowd, "whether users see me"; COV refers to the content interaction share, "whether users recognize me"; SOV refers to the search share, "whether users search for me".

Based on this formula, ByteDance defines May 4-14 as the "Reach" stage; May 15-20 as the "COV" stage; and May 24-618 as the "SOV" stage. In each stage, ByteDance provides tools such as live broadcast opening screen, hot list, and short dramas to help merchants complete conversions.

2. Xiaohongshu: Encourage stores to live stream, the more you broadcast, the more you earn

Xiaohongshu launched the "Three Upgrades, 100 Million Subsidies" during the 618 Shopping Festival this year, which means " upgrading support resources, upgrading live streaming methods, upgrading live streaming products, and providing users with 100 million-level platform subsidies ." Specifically, it includes 10 times the support resources (increasing the traffic of live streaming notes across the board), 5 major live streaming methods (newly upgraded incentives for store broadcast buyers), breathing light upgrade (doubling the traffic, speeding up the live streaming), and 100 million-level platform subsidies (comprehensive conversion of high-quality live streaming users).

Xiaohongshu has developed different rules for buyers and stores. After buyers or stores have broadcast for a certain period of time or sales, they will receive subsidies or rewards from the platform. For example, "if you broadcast two live broadcasts for more than three hours within seven days, you can get a traffic voucher worth 2,000 yuan."

Among them, Xiaohongshu will give priority to "store live broadcast". From May 19 to June 15, adhering to the principle of "more broadcasts, more rewards", the platform will set up four stages: "store live broadcast ranking competition", "store live broadcast star plan", "super store live broadcast day" and "store live broadcast coupons", covering different types of merchants such as mature merchants, small and medium-sized merchants, and new merchants, encouraging them to conduct live broadcasts and obtain exclusive incentives from them.

3. Pinduoduo: More price cuts, more traffic

Recently, Pinduoduo announced the traffic rules for 618: "All discounted products will increase the traffic weight of the entire site, with the weight increased by up to 9 times, and the prices of activity orders completed during 618 will not be included in the historical lowest price ."

The benefits that merchants may obtain through price cuts include weighted search recommendations, official subsidies worth tens of billions of yuan, exposure to billions of traffic at the main venue of the 618 promotion, increased 618 conversion rates, and so on.

In addition, it is worth noting that Pinduoduo is also increasing its content: in the Pinduoduo App, a "short drama" section has appeared, and the short dramas contain a lot of product placements and sales plots, which will also help Pinduoduo's merchants in converting during this 618.

4. Alimama: Double explosion of “stores + live streaming”

Shu Yang, general manager of Alimama's operations center and marketing department, once said, "This year, Alimama's core strategy is to use AI to reconstruct a win-win situation for users, merchants, and platforms. Providing consumers with good products, good prices, and good services is the core foothold." Specifically, Alimama uses AI capabilities to help merchants achieve a double explosion of "stores + live broadcasts."

As in previous years, during the 618 period, Alimama provides merchants with high rebate benefits, but this year is the " unprecedented '618 dual-band super recharge rebate' policy ", which allows immediate use of the rebate, with the highest rebate reaching 98% off. In other words, the advertising costs of merchants on the Taobao platform during the 618 period this year will be relatively lower. In addition, the platform also provides merchants with traffic support, special incentives and other rights and interests.

In terms of live streaming, Alimama's live streaming marketing tool "Super Live Streaming" also added new features such as "Full-link crowd in the live streaming room" and "Insights into the live streaming crowd" during the 618 shopping festival this year. The purpose is to accelerate brand acquisition and user retention through the live streaming room, and leverage more sales opportunities.

On May 20, the first night of the 618 sales, Alibaba Mama data showed that it "helped boost business growth for over 130,000 merchants, doubling year-on-year"; in terms of live streaming, 22 brand live streaming rooms achieved a transaction volume of over 10 million that night.

5. JD.com: Alleviating traffic anxiety of small and medium-sized sellers

Since JD.com launched the "Spring Dawn Plan" last spring to provide all-round support for small and medium-sized businesses, it has brought new vitality to the business of small and medium-sized sellers on the platform through activities such as "0 yuan trial operation" and "fastest 1 minute settlement". It is understood that during this year's 618, JD.com will also launch a 10-day marketing channel for small and medium-sized businesses and provide 3 special support policies for small and medium-sized enterprises to alleviate their traffic problems during the 618 period.

During this year's 618, JD.com proposed using "store star rating", "price star rating" and "product service star rating" as three criteria to screen out merchants with good products, low prices and good services, and provide them with higher search rankings and more exposure opportunities .

In terms of promotional benefits, plans such as the "Navigation Plan" and the "Escort Plan" are used to provide sellers with traffic support and subsidies, thereby reducing advertising costs.

In terms of AI, JD's "Yanxi" AI digital human opens up its rights and interests to the majority of merchants, who can conduct 30 days of free store live broadcasts; in addition, JD's merchant workstation "Jingmai" has also deeply integrated AI technology in product releases, store decoration, intelligent customer service and other work, making merchants' operations simpler and more efficient.

6. Kuaishou & Magnetic Engine: Deeply cultivating 5R groups, short dramas help promote the post-618 promotion

For Kuaishou, this year’s theme is “Every day is 618, big brands’ subsidies are higher than the entire network”, and it has provided 10 billion platform traffic and 1 billion red envelope subsidies.

Kuaishou divides the 618 event into four stages: "water storage and preheating, big promotion heating, sales detonation, and long-term operation". Among them, the magnetic engine pointed out that "with the diversified commercial resource combination of atmosphere, grass-planting, and product effect, and rich big promotion incentive policies, the whole link and the whole domain are deeply empowered." Throughout, it is the deep conversion ability from R1 to R5 people - for example, in the R1 stage, the magnetic engine provides 5R assets & fan assets analysis and other capabilities.

Kuaishou's event this year lasted 42 days, and its feature was that it included a variety of projects, thus providing marketing opportunities for different vertical categories. It is worth noting that after 618, Magnet Engine will also launch Kuaishou's short drama "Ace Chasing Season", creating a long-term content matrix in July and August, penetrating target users through different types of short dramas, and completing consumer seeding.

VII. Conclusion: Low price, a forever correct path

If we define Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo as traditional shelf e-commerce, and TikTok, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu as content e-commerce, generally speaking, the former mainly focus on promotional discounts and product display weight in the face of 618, while the latter focus on live broadcasts, short videos, and graphic content.

However, this year, as the competitiveness of the two types of platforms gradually approaches, we can clearly see that the strategies of the two types of e-commerce platforms are moving towards unification. The six major platforms have their own unique strategies, and we can see the three key words of this year's 618: low prices, live broadcasting and AI.

The first point is low price . This is reflected in the "rough" rule of Pinduoduo that "reducing prices will give traffic" and JD.com's 9.9 free shipping event. Under the pressure of new consumption trends and fierce competition, low prices have become a path that major platforms have to take.

The second point is live streaming . We can see that Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Taobao are all encouraging brands and influencers to do live streaming while deepening the ability of live streaming rooms to help businesses. The underlying logic is that at a time when brand self-streaming is becoming an inevitable trend of the times, they are trying to seize market share, increase the platform’s 618 live streaming GMV, and also enhance the long-term influence of the platform’s live streaming.

The third point is AI . On the one hand, AI digital human live broadcast is becoming more and more popular, and the platform provides some free digital human live broadcast functions; on the other hand, AI improves the underlying marketing capabilities, helping businesses to better conduct market insights and marketing work. AI capabilities will also become the long-term competitive focus of major platforms in the future.

Author: Claire; Source public account: Morketing (ID: 1083455)