E-commerce “exam”, the answer sheets are “similar”?

This article analyzes the current situation of this year's 618 e-commerce promotion from multiple perspectives. Through the phenomena of major platforms competing for anchors, shelf e-commerce turning to content e-commerce, and the convergence of models among platforms, this article deeply analyzes the current situation of competition among platforms and the future development direction. This article is recommended for students who want to understand the current situation and trends of the e-commerce industry.

This year's 618 seems to be more chaotic than previous years.

First, Taobao announced through the live broadcast calendar that more than 100 celebrities will come during the 618 period, including many Hong Kong beauties, to compete on the same stage, bringing exciting content and giving away customized gift boxes, autographed photos, etc. In addition, Taobao also invited nearly 100 elite CEOs to sit in the brand live broadcast room and meet consumers face to face.

Facing Taobao's offensive, JD.com was not to be outdone and invited former "TikTok No. 1" Luo Yonghao to attend the opening night of the 618 pre-sale. He live-streamed house sales and launched various low-priced welfare products to attract traffic.

In addition to these established e-commerce giants, Xiaohongshu, which has always relied on content to gain popularity, can no longer bear the loneliness and try to get a piece of the pie. For example, Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui, Zhang Jingchu, etc. are all celebrity anchors who have been active in Xiaohongshu's live broadcast room recently.

Coupled with the regular output of live broadcast rooms such as Li Jiaqi, Simba, and Oriental Selection, there is no doubt that this year's 618 will be extremely successful.

01 The battle for anchors begins

The battle for anchors among major platforms is visibly escalating.

Taobao released the 618 live broadcast calendar a few days ago, revealing that during this year's mid-year promotion, more than 100 celebrities will come to Taobao's live broadcast room. According to its official Weibo, celebrities such as Zhu Yilong, Charlene Choi, Li Xian, Yang Zi, Wang Ziwen and others will all be present and enter the corresponding brand live broadcast rooms one after another.

In addition, on the evening of May 31, TVB even set up a live broadcast room at the site of the former Miss Hong Kong pageant, and invited four Miss Hong Kong contestants, including Gao Haining, Zhu Chenli, Ho Yiting and Tong Luwen, to compete on the spot. Not only did it recreate the famous scene of the Miss Hong Kong pageant, but it also brought many good things from Hong Kong to consumers, including jewelry, food and various daily necessities.

In fact, in March this year, TVB's veteran actors Moses Chan and Sharon Chan entered Taobao's live broadcast room to sell goods. Official data showed that the two live broadcasted for more than 6 hours in total, with 3.2 million viewers, and finally delivered a GMV of 23.5 million yuan in the first live broadcast event.

In addition to Taobao, JD.com is also not idle. For JD.com, the biggest trump card in this year's 618 is undoubtedly Luo Yonghao and the team behind him.

Also at 8 pm on May 31, Luo Yonghao and his right-hand assistant Zhu Xiaomu appeared in the JD live broadcast room on time, starting his first live broadcast on the JD platform.

In addition to the low-priced welfare products that consumers love, Luo Yonghao sold houses again after selling satellites in his live broadcast room last time. A Hangzhou property worth more than 3 million yuan was sold at a 6.18% discount in Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room and was snapped up within two minutes.

Not only that, JD.com also continues to support Luo Yonghao, offering various home appliances and digital products at prices even lower than JD.com's own subsidies. During the more than 4-hour live broadcast, Luo Yonghao also mentioned many times that "only on JD.com can you enjoy such benefits and prices."

Once welfare benefits are distributed and prices are controlled, people will naturally pay for it.

Data shows that Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast on JD.com received a total of 17 million visits and a transaction volume of 150 million yuan. Although it is slightly inferior to his previous debuts on Douyin and Taobao, considering that JD.com has just started to make efforts in the live broadcast field, this result is already impressive enough.

The major e-commerce platforms are in fierce competition, and Xiaohongshu has also achieved a sudden rise this year. Among them, the most popular one is the live broadcast room of Zhang Xiaohui, the "first generation of product promotion pioneer".

Not long ago, Zhang Xiaohui achieved sales of over 50 million yuan in a single show through the art of selling goods. During the live broadcast, many items were quickly sold out, including hairdressing devices that cost nearly 7,000 yuan. In response, a fan said bluntly: "No girl can leave Miss Zhang's beauty salon empty-handed."

Unlike many live broadcast rooms that sell products in a hawking style, the style of live broadcast rooms on Xiaohongshu is more literary, and the consumption needs of different groups of people are met by introducing products in a leisurely manner.

The competition between platforms for anchors is in full swing, and consumers have indeed gained some benefits in the melee. After all, as long as the platforms and anchors start to compete, prices, subsidies and various services are always the focus of competition.

02 Two-way development of shelf e-commerce and content e-commerce

During this year's 618, as all parties competed for territory, the boundary between shelf e-commerce and content e-commerce became increasingly blurred.

Behind Taobao's big push for live streaming is the anxiety of the platform facing traffic and user growth, and Taobao has to continue upgrading around content. And what Taobao Tian Group has emphasized the most for a long time is precisely content.

At the 618 Merchant Conference held earlier, full contentization was repeatedly mentioned, and Dai Shan, CEO of Taobao Group, put forward the view that "the future e-commerce platform is the best content platform." Taobao also focused on supporting content merchants this year and launched four major columns, including the New Encyclopedia of Life.

Earlier, in April, Taobao also released a store upgrade announcement, adding content sections such as live broadcasts to the dynamic homepage. Whether consumers or merchants, they can view the content and data they need in real time.

Of course, it’s not just Taobao. JD.com is also facing the same anxiety, but for JD.com, the development of its live streaming business has not been so smooth.

In fact, even if JD Live is mentioned now, most people don’t have a deep impression of it. For example, just like Taobao has Li Jiaqi, Douyin has Luo Yonghao, and Kuaishou has Simba, JD Live has never had a person who can carry the banner.

What cannot be ignored is the lack of internal positioning. Xu Lei, former CEO of JD.com, once said: "Live streaming is not retail, but more like a marketing behavior." This sentence defined the nature of live streaming e-commerce within the group, and JD.com has since fallen into a dilemma of falling behind step by step.

Faced with increasingly powerful external competitors, JD.com can no longer ignore the huge influence brought by live streaming, and this collaboration with Luo Yonghao is strong evidence of this.

On the one hand, as a former top anchor on the Douyin platform, Luo Yonghao can bring positive effects to JD.com with his influence; on the other hand, since Luo Yonghao's fan base is mostly male, it is also a perfect match for JD.com, which started as a 3C platform. The products listed in Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast on JD.com, such as game consoles and Maotai, are the favorites of many male users.

However, the cooperation has just begun, and Luo Yonghao's live broadcasting platform is not limited to JD.com. For JD.com, if it wants to achieve success in the field of content e-commerce, it cannot rely solely on Luo Yonghao.

On the other hand, Douyin started out as a content company and then entered the e-commerce field. Initially, many brands were skeptical because its content attributes were too strong. They were only attracted to join in the beginning by various preferential policies such as no commission. In the process, with the entry of Luo Yonghao, Douyin's live streaming e-commerce and content e-commerce began to enter the fast lane.

Douyin, which is known for its content, has also set its sights on shelf e-commerce after it has grown in scale. According to the president of Douyin e-commerce, shelf scenes accounted for 30% of Douyin's total GMV in the past year, not to mention that Douyin has also entered supermarkets and other business formats.

It is not difficult to see from here that shelf e-commerce is now focusing on content, while content e-commerce is actively laying out shelves. So, why is there such a change? One point that cannot be ignored is the competition for users, merchants and traffic on the platform. Everyone wants to form a complete e-commerce closed loop within their own ecosystem.

But the ultimate result of this two-way rush is that the major platforms gradually converge and the competition between them becomes increasingly fierce.

03 As models become increasingly similar, what will the platform rely on in the end?

In fact, whether it is Taobao, JD.com, Douyin or Kuaishou, e-commerce platforms and content platforms are indeed becoming more and more similar.

In terms of gameplay, the deposit pre-sale and cross-store discounts that were previously the most common methods on Taobao and JD.com can now be seen everywhere on Douyin and Kuaishou, and even the discount is the same: 300 minus 50; and activities such as the good product live broadcast room and big-brand subsidies launched by Douyin and Kuaishou have already appeared in the other two.

But no matter what, price is always a crucial influencing factor in every big promotion, and this year will be no exception.

Taobao launched an action to break through the bottom price and opened an application channel for compensation for overpriced purchases; JD.com continued to increase its 10 billion yuan subsidy on this basis and launched double compensation for overpriced purchases; Pinduoduo shouted the slogan that every day is 618; even Xiaohongshu, a new player in the e-commerce field, announced that the prices on the entire network were the lowest during the event.

This year, the main reason why major platforms are competing for anchors is still their desire for users, except that everyone is offering the lowest price, and even the discount promotions are not much different. Many consumers have said before: "Now, whether it is 618 or Double 11, the price difference with usual times is no longer so obvious. You can just place an order whenever you want."

If the major platforms compete with each other through price wars, then continuous internal competition and low prices will become the norm in the future, which will bring many benefits to consumers, as they can buy high-quality and low-priced products. However, when the price gap cannot be widened, content becomes very important, which can largely determine which platform users will ultimately place orders on.

Taking the celebrity anchors invited by various platforms as an example, let me ask you: for the same product, with exactly the same price, would you place an order in the live broadcast room of your favorite celebrity or in the live broadcast room of a celebrity you don’t care about?

It is conceivable that celebrities and top anchors will continue to play a key role in the e-commerce industry for a long time, and they are also the goal of major platforms. Celebrities are responsible for directing traffic to the platform at key nodes, while anchors carry out regular operations.

However, from the perspective of the platform, in the long run, it is the actual conversion rate that needs to be paid attention to. It is not acceptable to invite celebrities and attract a lot of traffic, but the conversion rate cannot reach the set target. Otherwise, in the end, the platform with the lowest traffic input-output ratio may be the first to be eliminated.

Of course, whether it is content e-commerce, shelf e-commerce or a combination of the two, it all comes down to the relationship between people, goods and places. After all, in the past when e-commerce was growing wildly, consumers often complained about the uneven quality of the products they received, the lack of after-sales service and many other problems.

Now, with the supply chain system becoming more and more perfect, and the period of blindly competing for sales has long passed, the focus should be on continuously providing better products and services, which is crucial for the long-term development of major platforms.

Or to put it more simply, focus on the user's overall experience.

Author: HH

Source: WeChat public account "Hydrogen Consumption (ID: HQingXiaoFei)"