With an investment of over 10 billion yuan, shelf e-commerce platforms are "fighting for the top of content"

This article deeply analyzes the strategic layout of shelf e-commerce platforms in content competition, explores how JD.com and Taobao solve traffic problems through AI technology and content innovation, and guides readers to understand the latest developments in the e-commerce field. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Liu Qiangdong’s first live broadcast has become a big event in the industry recently.

At 6:18 p.m. on April 16, Liu Qiangdong dropped into the JD Supermarket and JD Home Appliances and Home Furnishings purchasing and sales live broadcast rooms in the form of a digital human. The live broadcast room had over 20 million views in one hour, and the sales of the entire live broadcast exceeded 50 million yuan, which is comparable to that of top first-tier anchors.

Judging from the data, this live broadcast debut was a success. Liu Qiangdong's AI clone cleverly leveraged his influence and attracted a large amount of free traffic to a large extent. Not long ago, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic as rewards to attract more original creators and high-quality content organizations. The AI ​​digital man Liu Qiangdong's live broadcast debut obviously meant to "get a head start and build momentum" for JD.com's content e-commerce strategy.

E-commerce platforms are naturally thirsty for traffic. Once upon a time, the way to alleviate their thirst for traffic was to cooperate with various forms of content, such as purchasing traffic from content platforms or sponsoring long video programs, etc. However, times have changed, and the e-commerce of content platforms has been so smooth that the already stable e-commerce landscape has been shaken up again.

Under the pressure of competitors, traditional shelf e-commerce platforms must step out of their former comfort zone and path dependence, and content-oriented development has become an inevitable trend. Business cases like "Caixiao Dongge" are just one of the solutions for traditional e-commerce platforms to alleviate traffic anxiety.

1. Can entrepreneurs’ live broadcasts be copied?

The live broadcast of AI digital person Liu Qiangdong is a good move.

JD.com once chose Luo Yonghao as the initiator of its livestreaming e-commerce strategy. However, this “first-generation internet celebrity” who made Douyin e-commerce a hit has been unable to attract a large number of new users again and again, and livestreaming e-commerce is no longer a piece of undeveloped land as it used to be. Luo Yonghao’s first livestreaming show was not bad, but it can only be said to be a start for JD.com.

On external platforms, the interests of super anchors are basically tied to the platforms. Among the remaining top anchors, rival Taobao has “basically talked to all the Internet celebrities you can think of.” For JD.com, it is better to rely on itself than on others. It is the right time to bring out its most influential and appealing founder.

In a previous article titled "Super Anchors Are Collectively Tired", Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) analyzed that the development of underlying technologies will drive changes in the industry, and AI digital humans have created a possibility for super anchors to liberate themselves and gain freedom. Although Liu Qiangdong is not a super anchor, he is JD.com's super IP, and AI digital humans can make the most of his topicality without having to appear in person to build momentum for JD.com's content strategy.

In the end, the sales volume of 50 million really proved the value of the three words "Liu Qiangdong".

In the future, can Dong Ge continue to replicate the success of his debut?

For reference, every entrepreneur's live broadcast in the past has brought corresponding topics and achievements. For example, Liang Jianzhang's Douyin live broadcast brought Ctrip's performance growth, Dong Mingzhu's JD live broadcast brought 700 million sales, Li Guoqing's live broadcast of wine sales ushered in the second spring of his career, and Yu Minhong's Douyin entrepreneurship got Oriental Selection off the ground, etc.

However, apart from entrepreneur Li Guoqing who has already lost his own business, few of the above figures can stay in the live broadcast room. Due to the busy affairs of the company itself, they are unable to complete the transformation from entrepreneur to anchor. On the other hand, although the personality charm of the entrepreneur can attract a large number of users, the personality traits he displays may not be completely consistent with the identity of "anchor".

Live streaming can ultimately only become a special marketing event for them at certain special time points, similar to the logic of Lei Jun appearing in Xiaomi's live streaming room at certain time points to interact with fans.

JD.com obviously realized this, so at the beginning it did not let Liu Qiangdong himself come out to support the show, but directly let "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge" show up. This is a "Liu Qiangdong" who is closer to the identity of an anchor and will be able to stay in the live broadcast room for a long time in the future.

Of course, Liu Qiangdong's debut brought a lot of topicality to this live broadcast. When the audience's novelty wears off, can AI digital salesman Dong Ge continue to have such an eye-catching performance?

Liu Qiangdong and JD.com, the company behind him, have certain advantages in terms of trust and price power. In addition, JD.com also has strong contract fulfillment capabilities. Whether Dongge can continue to make progress depends on whether the underlying technology behind it can continue to innovate, and whether JD.com's content capabilities can continue to evolve.

2. E-commerce platforms are hungry for traffic

To a certain extent, Liu Qiangdong works so hard because his competitors work too hard.

In the past few years, the biggest change in the e-commerce industry did not come from the three giants that were already quite stable, but from the challenges of new forces. The e-commerce path of content platforms is so smooth that almost all content platform companies in China can be transformed into e-commerce companies. The leaders are Douyin and Kuaishou, followed by Bilibili and Xiaohongshu.

According to the forecast data of China Internet Network Information Center, the transaction volume of live e-commerce in China will reach 4565.7 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 1065.7 billion yuan compared with last year, a year-on-year increase of about 30%. A corresponding data is that the national online retail sales in 2023 will be 15.42 trillion yuan, an increase of 163 billion yuan compared with last year, a year-on-year increase of 11%.

At the same time, the financial report data released by Kuaishou showed that the annual GMV of Kuaishou e-commerce in 2023 has reached 1.18 trillion yuan. According to Wandian.com, the GMV target of Douyin e-commerce in 2023 is 2.3 trillion yuan. In addition, the e-commerce businesses of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu have both grown accordingly.

Almost all the growth comes from live streaming e-commerce, which is not a good signal for shelf e-commerce platforms.

In the past, shelf e-commerce platforms and content platforms were complementary. The latter was an important place for the former to purchase traffic, and the former was the latter's revenue path. Li Jiaqi's live broadcast required a large number of slices to be released on Douyin, and Bilibili's evening party also required the sponsorship of Taobao, JD.com and Pinduoduo.

Today, some things remain the same, but others have changed. The link between seeding and closing deals within content platforms has been opened up, which has added powerful competitors to e-commerce platforms and reduced the efficiency of purchasing traffic. Because no matter what kind of product it is, it is likely to face equal competition from within the content platform. Even more extreme is the disappearance of the concept of "Internet": content platforms directly block external links, making competition fierce.

In the last generation of e-commerce wars, vertical e-commerce platforms eventually lost to comprehensive e-commerce platforms. One of the reasons was that vertical e-commerce platforms could not afford the high cost of buying traffic and could not dilute the cost of buying traffic through a large number of products. Today, comprehensive shelf e-commerce platforms must face the "traffic war" again when facing content e-commerce platforms. The latter can easily obtain a large amount of free traffic, while the former's traffic purchase costs are increasing invisibly.

It is better to rely on oneself than on others, and it is better to create blood than to transfuse blood. By creating one's own content ecosystem, not only can traffic be obtained at a lower cost, but also a self-circulation of internal traffic can be formed. In theory, this is the optimal solution for the current shelf e-commerce platform and the only way to resolve the traffic dilemma.

However, the word "content" is quite easy for content platforms themselves. But it is very difficult for e-commerce platforms. In order to build a real content ecosystem, how much effort do shelf e-commerce platforms have to make?

3. E-commerce platforms create content: spending money, poaching people, and restructuring

Before "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge" went on live broadcast, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic as rewards to attract more original creators and high-quality content organizations to join.

Before JD.com's billion-dollar investment, Taobao announced at its annual content e-commerce festival that it would increase its investment in content e-commerce by adding 10 billion in cash and 100 billion in traffic. At the event, Dao Fang, general manager of Taobao Group's content e-commerce division, also made bold statements: the user scale increased by 100% year-on-year, the number of anchors with monthly transactions exceeding one million increased by 100% year-on-year, and GMV increased by 80% year-on-year.

Taobao started to focus on live streaming e-commerce earlier than JD.com, and also explored content earlier. In the past few years, Taobao has made many big moves, but they are nothing more than spending money and poaching people. At this year's content festival, Daofang also told all the media present, including Hedgehog Commune: "Basically, we have talked to all the Internet celebrities you can think of."

In the past two years, Taobao has invited a large number of celebrity influencers to join the Taobao live broadcast, allowing influencers with valuable content to attract some free traffic, while also helping a group of content influencers with content capabilities but lacking supply chain energy to complete commercialization trials on Taobao, etc. The list here includes Ichiri Xiaoshazi, Li Dan, Dao Yueshe Food Encounter, TVB, etc., and the list is constantly growing.

The person in charge of Taobao Live once said that Taobao Live really hopes that more people with content attributes from outside, as well as organizations and anchors with such backgrounds, can join Taobao Live to complement each other and explore new ways to balance content attributes and sales attributes within the Taobao system. At present, it seems that this strategy is still continuing.

In a media interview after the content e-commerce festival, Daofang also said that Taobao fully embraced content last year and opened up all content types for testing. It was found that non-personal content such as news and film and television clips had limited effects. Although users retained pure content, it did not bring back visits. Therefore, Taobao's contentization eventually shrunk to the positioning of "content community with people". Only life consumption content with real people can bring valuable e-commerce attributes.

Of course, from the end of last year to now, the biggest change within Taobao Live is the adjustment and reorganization of the organizational structure. In December last year, Taotian Group merged the Guanguan team with Taobao Live to form the Taobao Content E-commerce Division, led by Daofang. Taotian's live broadcasts, short videos, and pictures and texts were connected for the first time. This new department also took on the goal of enriching the ecosystem with content-based means, thereby increasing DAU and DAC, and driving Taotian's GMV growth.

Before the merger, Guanguang seeding and Taobao live broadcast were two independent paths, and there were barriers to succession. Daofang believes that now that the two teams have merged, the transaction path is shorter. After Guanguang content seeding, Taobao live broadcast can be directly linked to place orders and complete transactions. That is, short video water storage and live broadcast recall.

Investing resources in content is a common choice for Taobao and JD.com. An interesting fact is that in the current process of changes in the e-commerce industry, the previous disputes between B2C and C2C, and between vertical e-commerce platforms and comprehensive e-commerce platforms no longer exist. Everything and everyone in the industry is related to content.

Who will win at this stage and who will truly build a systematic content ecosystem, perhaps only time can tell.

Author: Chen Shoucheng, Editor: Director

WeChat public account: Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe)