Video account e-commerce, "grasping" the middle-aged and elderly

With the attributes of WeChat private domain traffic, video accounts are gradually highlighting their differentiated advantages. In terms of user groups, video accounts have attracted a large number of middle-aged and elderly users. So how to interpret this phenomenon? What challenges will video account e-commerce face if it wants to develop better in the future? Let's take a look at the author's interpretation.

“The last traffic depression on the Internet.”

The well-known label of "video account" is far more attractive than the actual conversion effect of its e-commerce. At a time when Douyin and Kuaishou e-commerce are gradually becoming saturated, the initial dividends of video account e-commerce seem to be even more precious.

A person from a video account service provider said bluntly: "No matter what category it is, the overall competition in video account e-commerce is not as fierce as Douyin. Douyin is becoming more and more popular, and the prices of goods are being pushed down. Many merchants are now considering video accounts."

"Especially for some new brands or merchants, it is advantageous to find a new platform to settle in and grow with the platform. The traffic of mature platforms is mostly inclined towards mature brands."

When merchants move in, they will invariably compare Video Accounts with Douyin and Kuaishou e-commerce, and traffic dividends, little competition, and no volume have become one of the most prominent advantages of Video Accounts at this stage.

Just like the previous content layout, "occupying a spot first" has also become a true portrayal of many businesses flocking to the video account in the increasingly saturated e-commerce environment.

In 2022, video accounts will accelerate their commercialization. However, there are still no top influencers and GMV myths like Douyin and Kuaishou in the past. This is limited to a certain extent by the content ecology and traffic logic of video accounts.

However, with the gradual improvement of e-commerce infrastructure, video account e-commerce has also begun to release some differentiated competitive advantages in small steps.

1. Video account e-commerce "captures" the middle-aged and elderly

“Sisters I like can snap and pay instantly” “Sisters, remember to follow me” ... When watching the e-commerce live broadcasts on Video Accounts, the hosts call them “sister” and “uncle and aunt” one by one, which is in direct contrast to other platforms.

Unlike platforms such as Douyin and Taobao Live which are dominated by young people, Video Account has become a content paradise for middle-aged and elderly people.

The video account is embedded in WeChat, which provides convenience for most middle-aged and elderly users who are not proficient in using the Internet. They can directly watch short videos and live broadcasts in WeChat without the need to cross platforms.

QuestMobile's "2022 China Mobile Internet Annual Report" shows that in 2022, people born in the 1960s and 1970s accounted for 28.2% of video accounts, which means that more than 40% of people are over 50 years old.

The gathering of middle-aged and elderly users on Video Accounts also directly determines the e-commerce ecology of Video Accounts.

"Whether it's investing in traffic or providing free traffic, you will basically not lose money by deploying e-commerce on video accounts mainly for the elderly customer group." said an e-commerce operator.

The user ecology of the platform affects the conversion effect of e-commerce. Based on the user base, merchants in categories such as tea, jewelry, agricultural and sideline products, and Chinese tonic products are actively deploying video accounts.

The above-mentioned operator bluntly stated that since this year, a visible change is that many brands and live broadcast rooms are carrying out differentiated operations for video accounts, and the previous practice of "copying and pasting" from other platforms is being reversed.

When Video Account first started to engage in short video content and e-commerce, it did not show obvious differentiated characteristics. In addition, there were already mature platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou on the market. Many content creators and subsequent e-commerce players went through the trial stage of deploying Video Account based on their existing experience.

For example, moving the video content of Douyin and Kuaishou to Video Account, and operating Video Account in the same way as Douyin e-commerce, etc., has undoubtedly made some merchants or anchors feel uncomfortable.

Nowadays, as the user portrait of the video account becomes clearer, merchants have been actively catering to the style of the video account and have made targeted layouts after settling in.

Take Zhou Dasheng as an example. Its main products on video accounts tend to be traditional Chinese and retro styles. Ruyi rings and peony pendants often appear in the live broadcast room. Compared with platforms such as Douyin, they are more inclined to promote trendy and fashionable jewelry that young people like.

In addition to catering to the middle-aged and elderly groups in terms of product style, according to public information, Zhou Dasheng has also adjusted the product palette on the video account live broadcast to target this user profile, increasing the proportion of high-priced products and heavy gold jewelry. For example, in terms of bracelets, Zhou Dasheng adjusted the price of products with a unit price of 2,000-3,000 yuan, which was the main product on traditional e-commerce platforms, to 5,000-10,000 yuan.

Zhou Shuo, managing director of Jingrun Pearl Group, also shared: "Our average order value on other platforms is 600-800 yuan, but on Video Account, it can reach 1,000-1,200 yuan or even higher. Some relatively rare items will be sold."

Most of the middle-aged and elderly people who are immersed in video accounts are rich and have free time. Their sensitivity to prices is correspondingly lower than that of many young users, which pushes up the overall average order value of video account e-commerce.

In January this year, WeChat officially disclosed that among the users of video live streaming, female users accounted for as high as 80%, and the age distribution was relatively mature. The purchasing power of female users is obviously much higher than the market. At that time, the average customer price of WeChat video live streaming exceeded 200 yuan.

Previously, many people often asked what is the difference between video account live streaming and Douyin, Kuaishou and Taobao? Now, judging from the popular clothing categories on each platform, Douyin and Taobao are full of fast fashion items loved by young people, while Kuaishou is mainly white-label, and more and more counters and high-end luxury brands are pouring into video account live streaming rooms.

On the left is a screenshot of the clothing page of the video account live broadcast; on the right is a screenshot of the women's clothing page of the Douyin live broadcast

The price ceiling of video account e-commerce is different from the strategy used by live broadcast e-commerce to capture users with "low prices", which also leaves more imagination for the development of video account e-commerce.

2. Shortcuts and barriers to private domain traffic

When it comes to WeChat, what people often praise is its private domain traffic.

For video account merchants, private traffic also directly affects their e-commerce layout on video accounts. For those merchants who have already accumulated private traffic, launching video account live streaming on the original basis will obviously have a stepping stone under their feet; while for those new merchants who have just arrived, they may be submerged in the public traffic pool of video accounts, which is still not very accurate.

The e-commerce operator mentioned above told us that among some of the more successful cases of video account live streaming, many are merchants that have accumulated original private domain traffic.

“Before the live broadcast, brands can use various private domain operations to direct users into the live broadcast room, such as attracting private domain users to make reservations for the live broadcast in advance through official accounts, Moments, communities, or even private messages, thus directly skipping the cold start period.”

Activating private domain traffic and further realizing conversion will give old merchants who have long used WeChat as a platform for brand experience a first-mover advantage.

An insider of Hippocampus has publicly stated that Hippocampus’ WeChat public account has 12 million followers and its corporate WeChat account has nearly 10 million users, and one of the best ways to activate these users is live streaming.

During the 618 period, Haima set a sales target of 6 million yuan in video live broadcast room sales and 1,000 sets of key promotional products. The result was far beyond expectations, with sales exceeding expectations by 200% in the first live broadcast and sales exceeding 10 million yuan on the closing night.

At the same time, for merchants like Hippocampus that have a large number of offline stores, this is also a good opportunity to achieve online and offline linkage, directly converting online traffic into orders and driving offline traffic.

In addition, brands that have performed well on video accounts, such as high-end clothing brand Lancome and jewelry brand Chow Tai Seng, have already regarded private domain operations as an important means.

In addition to activating existing traffic and stabilizing conversion, private domain traffic is also a weight for increasing repurchase rates and reducing return rates. Private domain users gather based on their trust in brands and have a higher degree of trust in brands, which is different from the impulse shopping model driven by interest e-commerce.

Brands such as Lancome and Chow Tai Seng have publicly stated that video accounts have more optimistic repurchase rates and lower return rates.

At the same time, there are various signs that as the amount of private domain traffic imported into the video account live broadcast room increases, the user accuracy of the public domain traffic provided by the platform will also be higher. "Public-private domain linkage" is often a compulsory course for video account merchants, and it is precisely because of this that many merchants who lack private domain operation capabilities have failed.

At the beginning of its launch, Zhang Xiaolong said that Video Account would not engage in "strong operations" and that directly using systems and rules would be much more efficient than setting up an operations team.

Video account e-commerce does not rely on heavy manpower operations like other platforms and is not deeply involved in merchant operations, which has also exacerbated the confusion of merchants.

The above-mentioned e-commerce operator said that previously, if a merchant without brand effect cold-started through video account live broadcast, the traffic in the live broadcast room would fluctuate and be very unstable. However, this year, the accuracy of the platform's public domain traffic is improving.

"It is recommended to broadcast live for a long time during the cold start. The platform will push traffic every once in a while. It depends on whether the merchant can handle it."

For example, on the eve of 618, ADQ (Tencent Advertising Platform) began to support merchants in "investing short videos to attract traffic to live broadcast rooms". Compared with the previous "direct investment in live broadcast rooms", investing short videos to attract traffic to live broadcast rooms is more accurate.

However, current merchants have a certain degree of acceptance of the incomplete infrastructure and inaccurate traffic. After all, video account e-commerce is still in its early stages of development.

3. Waiting for the video account to go to the "mass"

Among the existing top video account merchants, many are based on the WeChat traffic dividend. For other mass merchants and white-label products, they are still waiting for the continuous development and improvement of the video account.

A sales expert told us that in Video Accounts, merchants can only make deals by attracting users to the homepage showcase through videos. "Compared to short videos on Douyin, the transaction chain of Video Accounts is longer."

But even so, he has not chosen to sell goods through live streaming. "This is determined by the usage preferences of the middle-aged and elderly groups. They like to watch videos on video accounts, but the frequency of directly clicking on the 'live broadcast' to shop is not high."

This reflects the importance of content.

"At present, I mainly create video content by reposting and remixing, and earn commissions by selling goods as a side job."

Content transfer seems to have become a lingering burden for video accounts. For a long time, there has been no hot content going viral and no top influencers coming out.

During the 618 period, the total transaction volume of the top influencers @宝哥宝嫂couple on the video account exceeded 35 million, and @郭亿易couple broke 20 million in a single transaction. Both are the influencers currently supported by the video account. However, compared with the top influencers on Douyin and Kuaishou, their volume is still far behind.

In addition to the aforementioned businesses with their own brands and accumulated private traffic, the influencer ecosystem directly affects the distribution of mass merchandise on the platform. Non-standard products such as white-label products and cultural relics are also important categories for video accounts, and such products need influencer endorsements to increase sales.

According to the "2022 China Mobile Internet Half-Year Report" released by Quest Mobile, the average daily usage time of Douyin is 118 minutes, Kuaishou is 119 minutes, and Video Account is only 35 minutes.

Video accounts have already demonstrated some differentiated advantages thanks to attributes such as WeChat private domain traffic, but they still need to continue to improve if they want to compete on the same stage with e-commerce players.

Author: He Furong; Editor: Wu Xianzhi

Original title: Video accounts are associated with "longevity tribe"

Source public account: Photon Planet (ID: TMTweb), see the future in the details!