"Douyin Mall" independent APP is launched, starting at 0.01 yuan, competing head-on with Pinduoduo

This article deeply analyzes the launch of the independent APP "Tik Tok Mall" and its strategic significance, and explores how it competes with Pinduoduo through low-price strategies and content diversion, guiding readers to understand the innovative trends and market strategies of e-commerce platforms. I hope it will be helpful for your insights and decisions in the e-commerce field.

The independent APP of Douyin Mall is here.

Different from the "Douyin Box" two years ago, the newly launched "Douyin Mall Edition" APP completely connects Douyin's user data and transaction data. While separating from the main site to have its own position, it also receives "full blood transfusion" from Douyin's traffic side.

At present, the "TikTok Mall Edition" APP has been launched on the Android App Market, but it is not yet available for download on the Apple App Market.

As of press time, the Android App Market shows 160 million installations. The official introduction is: Douyin Mall is an e-commerce shopping app that provides users with product browsing, search, purchase of goods or services, logistics query, commenting, sharing of goods and other services. Users can get a more convenient shopping experience through the app. In the brief version of the introduction, the key words "super value, worry-free selection" are used - from the user experience, the product continues its strategy of attracting customers with low-priced hot items.

Left: The Douyin Mall app. Right: The Douyin Mall within the Douyin app.

In April 2021, Kang Zeyu, president of Douyin e-commerce, first proposed the concept of "interest e-commerce". In the following three years, Douyin has been continuously expanding the radiation of interest e-commerce. It has indeed supported Douyin's "e-commerce dream". According to "LatePost", in 2023, the total transaction volume of Douyin e-commerce will be around 2.2 trillion yuan, which is equivalent to "half of Pinduoduo" in size. However, such a transaction scale is gradually approaching the upper limit of Douyin's "content" + "shelf" model. Some media interpreted that Douyin e-commerce GMV is mainly generated from "content" (live broadcast room, short video) and "shelf" (Douyin Mall, stores, etc.), and the ceiling of live broadcast e-commerce GMV is between 2 trillion and 3 trillion yuan. Further improvement in business efficiency will affect the content experience.

How can Douyin e-commerce, which has already reached its ceiling, find new "growth"?

Making a separate APP to solve the problems of "instability" and "low repurchase" that have been criticized by the industry, and increasing revenue by increasing consumption frequency and stickiness, may be a feasible idea. After all, compared to endlessly finding a balance between "content" and "e-commerce", letting consumers come and buy frequently on the "Douyin Mall" APP is obviously more sustainable than a one-time transaction on "Douyin".

1. Douyin Mall’s two tricks: low-price flash sales and content traffic generation

Open the "Douyin Mall" APP, you can see an interface very similar to Douyin, but the first thing that comes into view is no longer the infinite information flow that slides up and down, but the "Mall" section. The original content section "Video" has been relocated to the bottom TAB bar.

In the display page of the first screen, the top part strengthens the business mentality. The basic functional blocks such as "My Order", "Evaluation Center", "Refund/After-sales" originally placed here have disappeared, and the business blocks such as "Hourly Delivery", "Douyin Supermarket", "Mobile Recharge", and "Trial Collection" have been retained and moved forward. The middle part, which occupies the most visual center, is set with eye-catching "Mall Newcomer Subsidy" and "Low Price Flash Sale".

Left: The Douyin Mall app. Right: The Douyin Mall within the Douyin app.

It is worth noting that the priority of "low-price flash sales" which was originally at the bottom of the list in Douyin has obviously risen. Paper towels at 0.01 yuan, kitchen knives at 0.01 yuan, mobile phone cases at 1 yuan... are simply and crudely marked with "subsidized by xxx yuan", and the prices are basically within 10 yuan. The original "live broadcast selection" and "super value purchase" are ranked behind them, and the "brand hall" has directly lost its homepage position.

This is also in line with Douyin e-commerce's strategy this year. Previously, there was news that Douyin e-commerce has set "price power" as the highest priority project in 2024, and people close to Douyin revealed in an interview that compared with the benchmarking of Alibaba in the early years, now "the internal benchmarking is more Pinduoduo." This also means that the platform will invest more resources in cost-effective products rather than branded products.

In the TAB bar at the bottom of the APP, in addition to "Video", there is also the first "Shopping Cart" section - the shopping cart has a special meaning for Douyin. Douyin has always been best at "one video to make a hit product popular", but the appearance of the shopping cart points to "combination purchase", which makes it easier to make orders and repeat purchases, and is a classic configuration of shelf-based e-commerce.

Despite being backed by Douyin, the new "Douyin Mall" APP still needs more traffic to build a trading ecosystem. Its first main strategy is "low price". In the "Low Price Flash Sale" section, the platform subdivides into three secondary areas: "Hot Sale Flash Sale", "3 yuan for 3 pieces", and "9.9 yuan for 3 pieces". The hot sale area is marked with "grab at the top of the hour, limited time replenishment", and users can clearly see that the product "(inventory) has been grabbed XX%", and can also make an appointment to grab it, with a strong promotion mentality; in the 3 yuan 3 pieces area, you can see a wide range of "1 yuan products"; the "9.9 yuan 3 pieces" area is currently conducting a "jewelry special", and other category specials are not ruled out.

In addition, the "Super Value Purchase" section of the "Douyin Mall" APP has also added a special area for "limited time purchase at 8 o'clock every night": the "Red Kidney Essence" priced at 599 yuan, the official display shows that "437 yuan has been subsidized." If "low-price flash sales" is the grocery market for white-label products, then "Super Value Purchase" originally emphasized the subsidies for big brands, but during the same period, the "Super Value Purchase" in the Douyin APP did not carry out this activity - it is not difficult to notice that this is more like an additional platform subsidy activity to attract popularity for the "Douyin Mall" APP.

Left: Low price flash sale Right: Super value purchase

In addition to “low price”, the second traffic-generating strategy is “content”.

On December 16, 2021, ByteDance launched its first independent e-commerce APP "Douyin Box". The merchants who settled in at that time told "E-commerce Online" that the bottom data of Douyin and Douyin Box were connected, and Douyin Box could synchronize short videos, live broadcast content on Douyin, and goods and even sales data of Douyin Mall with one click, but the Douyin Box at that time could not synchronize the fans, reposts, likes and comments of the Douyin account - this means that Douyin did not actually import its own real users to Douyin Box.

In comparison, today's "Douyin Mall" APP has the full support of Douyin. The "Video" column at the bottom is like a replica of the full version of "Douyin" - reposts, comments, likes, and favorites are all connected with Douyin. Even ordinary users who are not e-commerce sellers have been imported into the "Douyin Mall" APP. Douyin users can now search for their own accounts directly in the "Douyin Mall" APP and inherit data such as fans. The richness and interactivity of the content are greatly extended compared to the Douyin box.

Many e-commerce platforms have tried to achieve this goal: attracting users with low-priced goods, increasing the volume quickly, and then extending the user time through short videos, live broadcasts and other content. The only difference is that Douyin, which has the content gene, seems to have completed the most difficult step: building a content community. But is it as easy as imagined to integrate content with e-commerce?

Left: Video section of the Douyin Mall APP. Right: Douyin users can search for their own accounts on the Douyin Mall APP for the same blogger.

2. Use three years to answer the question of the balance between "content" and "e-commerce"

Traffic and daily activity are key factors in the survival of an e-commerce app, which determines whether merchants decide to enter and operate the app for a long time. Douyin was once considered a "traffic gold mine" by many merchants, but this "traffic gold mine" cannot endlessly import traffic to e-commerce. An industry insider once told "E-commerce Online" that the commercialization rate of Douyin APP is capped at around 14%. Once this value is exceeded, the uninstall rate of the APP will increase - this is because users who purely like to watch videos do not like too many advertisements.

We have reported in "Douyin Mall, Nowhere to Put" that Douyin has repeatedly moved around, trying to find a suitable location for "Douyin Mall". At first, the entrance to Douyin Mall was deep, and you had to jump through "Homepage-Personal Page-Douyin Mall". But soon Douyin Mall was moved to the homepage of the APP - the infinite information flow on the homepage is the place with the most traffic.

Douyin has tested the homepage position of Douyin Mall many times. In 2021, only two months after Douyin Store upgraded its mall, a merchant posted a screenshot: Douyin Mall replaced the "Same City" position at the top of the homepage in the internal test version at that time; in March of the following year, three screenshots were leaked at the same time: one was listed alongside "Same City", one replaced "Scan", and another replaced the "Friends" position at the bottom.

However, despite frequent adjustments, the mall at that time was always built into the Douyin APP, and merchants' attention was also limited. This is because, when users do not actively open the mall frequently enough, the mall built into Douyin, even if it has a "centralized field", still has to rely on the monetization path of short videos and live broadcast jump purchases. The person in charge of the Fino brand once bluntly stated, "We are not really concerned about the changes in this entrance. We are more concerned about the changes in the traffic distribution algorithm in the live broadcast room."

Another service provider once revealed to "E-commerce Online" that on Douyin, the sales efficiency of the sales video and related sales indicators will affect the distribution of traffic. For merchants and brands, this is not a good thing. This means that the balance between e-commerce and content has been thrown to merchants and brands, and they need to achieve a balance between the two through continuous testing. "For example, after the introduction of the shared bike, the platform will not only consider content indicators such as dwell time and completion rate, but also your sales efficiency."

Two years ago, ByteDance launched the "TikTok Box" APP

Today, the launch of the "Douyin Mall" APP has given "content" and "e-commerce" relatively independent development space. Problems that were once repeatedly criticized by merchants, such as "strong but unstable traffic" and "high return rate and low repurchase rate", have also been alleviated.

But in essence, although the "Douyin Mall Edition" APP replicates a "Douyin", its underlying logic is still shelf-style e-commerce. When interest e-commerce is separated from Douyin, no matter how novel the packaging is, it still cannot escape the fate of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" - just like Taobao has done Guanguang (Taobao's content seeding community), it will not be considered as "interest e-commerce" by merchants, and the same is true for "Douyin Mall Edition". Despite the transfusion of Douyin, it is difficult for "Douyin Mall Edition" to have the same huge "traffic potential" as Douyin. The originally silky "live broadcast/video jump transaction" path will be weakened after being stretched out.

There may seem to be little difference between running a mall in Douyin and running Douyin in a mall, but in fact it completely changes the platform's mentality.

However, for Douyin at this stage, the "Douyin Mall" APP may not be seeking innovation in the model, but more like a supplement: to gather those users who originally made a single purchase on Douyin, and gradually cultivate the habit of "planting grass and consuming on the Douyin APP, and repurchasing on the Douyin Mall APP". The rich e-commerce service experience such as membership, logistics, order inquiry, etc., which was originally difficult to achieve perfection in Douyin, can also be gradually improved and enriched in this "centralized field".

From this perspective, compared with external competition, the launch of the "Douyin Mall Edition" APP may be more important to Douyin internally - by completing the "shelf-style e-commerce" segment, maintaining its own sustained growth and breaking through the existing "ceiling".

However, in the field of shelf-based e-commerce, Taobao and JD.com will be strong competitors. As a latecomer, the "Douyin Mall Edition" APP has not made disruptive innovations in its model, which also determines that "coexistence" will be the situation that will be maintained for a long time in the future. But no matter what, Douyin, which is already 8 years old this year, finally no longer has to be sandwiched between content and e-commerce. The launch of the "Douyin Mall Edition" APP, in a sense, means that the Douyin e-commerce system is relatively mature, and the battle for interest e-commerce has also come to an end.

Author: Wang Yaqi

Source: WeChat public account "E-commerce Online (ID: dianshangmj)"