Where will merchants get new sales during this year’s 618?

Have you paid attention to this year's 618? Do you know what is different from previous years? This article starts from this year's 618 and details the new measures taken by merchants this year. It is recommended for students who want to understand e-commerce platforms and brand operations.

The annual 618 shopping festival kicked off on May 18 when Kuaishou took the lead in launching pre-sales. Compared with last year's low-key and deserted event, although this year's 618 shopping festival has not officially started, undercurrents have already surged among various e-commerce platforms, and actions have been frequent.

At the previous 618 launch conference, Dai Shan, CEO of Taobao Tian Group, which was newly formed after the integration of Taobao and Tmall, said that this year's 618 will "make a historic investment in user scale." On the other side of the war, JD.com also announced that "every link of this 618 will focus on the goal of 'low price'" and will be "the 618 with the largest investment and the strongest measures in history to help merchants grow."

The epidemic in the past three years has trapped platforms and merchants in the macro cage of economic downturn and declining consumer demand, as well as the real crisis of insufficient logistics and supply chain. When the fog cleared, the e-commerce platforms that had been dormant for a long time gathered their firepower again and re-conquered 618.

Faced with new environments and new opportunities, for merchants, what new increases are worth paying attention to during this year's 618?

TOP has integrated the 618 actions of various platforms and provided a reference for everyone:

1. Alibaba and Tencent join hands in 618

The most watched news during this year’s 618 shopping festival is the collaboration between Alibaba and Tencent.

On May 10, Tencent Advertising published an article titled “Tencent Advertising x Alimama Uni Desk join forces to release a guide to prepare for the mid-year promotion”, announcing the official cooperation between Tencent and Alibaba.

The article mentioned that this cooperation will involve upgrades in four dimensions: first, bilateral joint subsidies, with ECPM support to help GMV grow steadily; second, traffic expansion, the launch of video account information flow resources, and exclusive traffic support to achieve faster growth; third, link upgrades, supporting Taobao to access Moments ads, achieving one-click jump, and shortening the conversion link; fourth, system co-construction, leveraging the computing power and marketing advantages of bilateral systems to improve merchants' customer acquisition and conversion efficiency.

The four core upgrades assist in the bilateral traffic inclination and the co-construction of advantageous products, helping brands win the big promotion marketing. This is not only a fusion of social and e-commerce, but also means that the traffic barrier between Tencent and Alibaba has been temporarily removed. As the number one player in the social field, WeChat has accumulated more than 10 daily active users after years of development, and Taobao is also firmly sitting on the top of the current e-commerce platform. For merchants, bilateral access will, on the one hand, leverage the introduction of more traffic in the new field and improve conversion efficiency; on the other hand, it will also help mobilize the functions of WeChat communities and Moments to better serve brand operations and marketing.

2. Video accounts enter e-commerce

In addition to working with Alibaba, Tencent is also gradually expanding its presence in the e-commerce field.

In 2022, WeChat Video Store was launched, marking the closure of its e-commerce business; on January 1, Video Store charged merchants a technical service fee of 1%-5%. Half a month ago, WeChat launched the product showcase function on Video Store and allowed public accounts to insert products into the Video Store showcase, that is, users can directly add product cards in public account articles, further improving the commercialization process of Video Store.

With the arrival of 618, Video Account will further penetrate the field of live streaming sales. On May 16, Video Account announced the latest brand incentive plan. From May 16 to July 16, eligible brand merchants will enjoy ten major benefits, and service providers will enjoy three major incentives. The ten major benefits and three major incentives are based on traffic, service and other aspects, and encourage merchants to join the game with high-quality benefits.

On May 31, Video Account officially announced the launch of the 618 Good Goods Festival promotion. In addition to the above benefits, the platform will also reduce the technical service fee for all merchants to 1%, and merchants who achieve a certain scale of sales can also receive additional incentives, creating a positive cycle of growth for merchants. Previously, the Video Account live broadcast team had announced data that in 2022, the sales of Video Account live broadcast sales increased by more than 8 times year-on-year, and the platform's public domain conversion purchase rate increased by more than 100%.

With the help of "live broadcast + short video", WeChat Video Account has found a feasible commercialization path in the huge social traffic blue ocean. In the face of the big test of 618, Video Account will continue to give benefits to merchants and continue to achieve win-win growth for merchants and platforms. This is also an excellent opportunity for new brands.

3. Xiaohongshu develops global e-commerce

Xiaohongshu has always been particularly cautious in its commercialization, and this year is the first 618 event for Xiaohongshu to be fully upgraded after it fully promoted commercialization. The largest increase in Xiaohongshu's 618 this year came from the well-known notes and live broadcasts.

In terms of notes, Xiaohongshu launched a new feature this year, "notes to bring goods". Under this feature, brands can cooperate with influencers in the form of pure commissions, and the influencer's notes can be directly linked to products, and users can directly complete the purchase through the note product card. Compared with the previous simple advertising model, this form can quickly achieve integrated planting and pulling, and improve conversion efficiency. At the same time, for the notes themselves, when the GMV of the product notes introduced by the activities is greater than 500 and 3,000 yuan, the platform will give an additional 30,000 and 90,000 notes exposure and push flow respectively, and a single note can get a maximum of 200,000 exposure rewards.

In terms of live streaming, Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui have successfully achieved GMV of over 100 million yuan with "slow live streaming", which also promoted Xiaohongshu's live streaming to break the circle. In this year's 618, Xiaohongshu continued to increase its investment in live streaming e-commerce and issued two types of tasks: one is to give store live streaming merchants potato chips incentives according to the store GMV stratification dimension; the other is that merchants who meet the GMV and growth rate requirements will have the opportunity to obtain "live streaming card traffic" according to the incremental gradient.

It is understood that Xiaohongshu will also establish a linkage model between notes and live broadcasts, recommending live broadcasts of experts who have accumulated fans through notes to precise users, thus forming an efficient closed loop of "goods find people". Although Xiaohongshu, which currently has about 100 million daily active users, does not have as much user traffic as Taobao and JD.com, its high user stickiness and high-quality user portraits have become Xiaohongshu's most prominent advantages. During the 618 shopping festival, for merchants who want to promote sales and build brands, it might be a good idea to try their hand at Xiaohongshu.

4. Mei ONE helps merchants with marketing

In addition to the platform, as the only super-head e-commerce anchor IP at present, Li Jiaqi also recently launched the "Super 618 Launch Conference" in cooperation with Mei ONE and Taobao Live. In the "Beauty Festival" live broadcast on the first day of the 618 pre-sale, the overall broadcast volume of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room reached 170 million times, including 324 beauty products, with a GMV of 4.977 billion yuan.

The high transaction GMV points to Li Jiaqi’s super ability to attract traffic and sell goods. Therefore, the dynamics of Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room also profoundly affects the layout of brand merchants.

At the launch conference, Mei ONE, where Li Jiaqi works, provided merchants with richer and more transparent marketing methods: first, starting from the live broadcast column, more exposure opportunities were provided for merchants' core products during the "Super 8:30" prime time in the live broadcast room; in the "New Product Show", the brand merchants' topic popularity was increased by preheating new products; second, merchants could cooperate with Mei ONE on social media, artists and events to jointly plan omni-channel marketing; third, Mei ONE announced its own "ONE Home" live broadcast product selection platform, through which brand merchants could understand the real-time progress of product selection and communicate effectively with the platform.

5. Taobao and JD.com support small and medium-sized businesses

This year, Taobao and JD.com are both competing around "low prices". Correspondingly, the two major platforms have also devoted more support to small and medium-sized businesses.

In January this year, JD.com launched the "Spring Dawn Plan", which attracted a large number of new merchants including new farmers and designers by adding "natural persons" and "factory stores". The number of new merchants on the JD.com platform increased by 240% year-on-year in the first quarter.

In order to help small and medium-sized businesses grow better, JD.com has launched a series of support measures based on the marketing platform "JD.com", including upgrading the system image, creating a product matrix, simplifying the entry process, launching traffic packages and compensation guarantees, etc., to ensure that new merchants obtain deterministic traffic.

Taobao also launched an exclusive marketing product for small and medium-sized businesses, the "618 Taobao Good Price Festival", which provides a 10-day exclusive marketing channel for small and medium-sized businesses.

During these ten days, Taobao will provide a number of development plans for small and medium-sized businesses, including 2 billion advertising subsidies, AI intelligent efficiency improvement, and business guarantees, to help small and medium-sized businesses achieve growth more efficiently by providing high-quality, low-priced goods.

Compared with the top merchants, small and medium-sized merchants are more flexible and can meet the diverse needs of consumers. They are also the source of the platform's prosperity and vitality. Taobao and JD.com started with small and medium-sized merchants this time, relying on their strong warehousing and logistics and product quality control capabilities to find new growth points. Small and medium-sized merchants who are hesitating are recommended to give it a try.

Author: TOP Jun

Source: WeChat public account "TopMarketing"