9.9 special sale, online on Taobao homepage

Recently, Taobao quietly changed its homepage and moved the "99 Special Sale" section to the homepage. Behind this change is the reconstruction of traffic entry logic and the change of interests. This article analyzes the 99 Special Sale section and explores how merchants can make the 99 Special Sale bring new growth. Let's take a look.

Taobao’s homepage has been quietly revised.

On some consumers' mobile phones, Juhuasuan, the first screen of Taobao's homepage, has been replaced by a section called "99 Special Sale", which focuses on cheap and cost-effective products with free shipping. A person close to Taobao said that the 99 Special Sale channel can be understood as an upgrade of the previous daily special sale, which is changing from a hidden entrance that needs to be searched to a homepage channel entrance, and is expected to be fully launched at the end of this month.

Open the 99 Special Sale channel, in addition to the limited-time flash sales and rush sales that were available in the previous daily special sales, there is also an "N yuan selection" channel, where users can buy 3 items for 3 yuan or 9.9 yuan, and can also buy many white-label products at a lower price.

Different home page presentation

This is not the first time that Taobao has targeted low prices. Previously, Taobao brought together many factories and merchants through the Taote (Taobao Special Edition) APP, leveraging its supply chain advantages to achieve more refined operations for the lower-tier population and attract different users.

This year, facing the new competitive landscape, Taobao began to return to its main body, focusing on operating MAC (monthly active consumers) and DAC (daily active consumers), and wanted to serve the existing users on the platform well. In August 2022, Zhang Yong, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, said at the earnings conference, "1 billion consumers have covered almost all active consumers in China. We hope to serve these consumers well, do a good job of stratifying and classifying them, and increase the wallet share of each layer of users."

The homepage was redesigned and a 99 sale was launched, behind which is the reconstruction of the logic of the traffic entrance and the change of interests.

Among the five major strategies for Taobao in 2023 formulated this year, "price power" is the key. This move is considered to be the implementation of "price power" on the platform, using low prices and high-quality and low-priced goods to attract users, while providing new traffic entrances for supply chain merchants previously gathered in the Taobao ecosystem, creating new opportunities.

1. 99 Special Sale, on the homepage

The 99 Special Sale Channel is still in the gray testing stage, but some users’ Taobao homepages have already seen this channel.

On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, some users displayed the revised related pages. Some homepages had entrances to Taobao Live, 99 Special Sales and Taoxianda channels, while others only had entrances to Taobao Live and 99 Special Sales channels. One user told E-Commerce Online that Taoxianda service had not been opened in his area before, so there were only two channels on the homepage.

N yuan 3 pieces mode

Click to enter 99 Special Sale, and you will find that the channel is mainly composed of white-label products, which are mainly divided into three sections: Special Sale Selection, Morning 9 Market and Evening 9 Market. All the products are low-priced and free shipping.

The 9 AM Market and the 9 PM Market are mainly based on flash sales and rush purchases, where consumers can snap up low-priced goods at 9 AM and 9 PM every day. In the special sale selection channel, the main models are the N Yuan capped price and the N Yuan 3-piece model.

The price range of "N Yuan Capped" ranges from 4.9 yuan to 19.9 yuan, and the highest price of the goods will not exceed the capped price. In the N Yuan 3-piece mode, 3 pieces of goods can be purchased for 3 yuan or 9.9 yuan, and free shipping is provided.

Browsing the 99 Special Sale Channel, you can find that the main products are still concentrated in categories such as daily necessities, toiletries, food, and 3C accessories. In addition to simple product picture displays, short video displays are also interspersed, which can more intuitively present the details and characteristics of the products.

Linlin, who lives in Zhejiang, bought a sweatband, a shoe brush and a storage bag at the 99 Special Sale and only paid 3 yuan in the end. "Before, I had to pay about 3 yuan for a shoe brush, and I had to collect 20 yuan in that store for free shipping. In the 99 Special Sale, 3 yuan for 3 items with free shipping is really a good deal."

However, Linlin also said that although the prices were cheap, it took her a long time to choose. "There were not many items to choose from. Things like hooks, clotheslines and puzzles are not used in daily life. It took me a long time to choose three items."

The 99 Special Sale Channel, with its low prices and free shipping, easily reminds people of the previous Daily Special Sale and Tao Factory Channels. The products in the 99 Special Sale Channel are shown to be from the Daily Special Sale Factory Store. It is not difficult to see that the 99 Special Sale Channel is inextricably linked to Daily Special Sale and Tao Factory.

Daily Specials and Tao Factory

Tiantian Special Sale and Tao Factory, which have been running for a longer time, have official live broadcast rooms, but 99 Special Sale does not have a related live broadcast room yet.

Although it is still uncertain whether the 99 Specials will completely replace the Daily Specials, it currently appears that the 99 Specials already have the biggest difference from the Daily Specials – the location of the traffic entrance.

Compared to the daily specials that need to be found or searched on the second floor of Taobao, the 99 specials appeared in a key position on the Taobao homepage during the gray testing phase, running parallel to Taobao Live and Taoxianda, replacing the former Juhuasuan, Youhaohuo and other channels. It has a larger and more certain traffic entrance, and can occupy a stronger traffic advantage in the entire Taobao ecosystem.

2. Low price, but no price war

Price power is a topic that every e-commerce company or platform related to e-commerce cannot avoid, and consumers will also prefer products that are more cost-effective and cheaper.

Pinduoduo launched the "10 billion subsidy" in 2019, and then normalized the 10 billion subsidy. When going overseas to do TEMU, it also constantly emphasized "low price"; Douyin launched a 9.9 yuan free shipping special sale area on the mall homepage at the end of 2022. On traditional e-commerce platforms, the manifestation of "price power" may be an entrance, a battle, or a business direction throughout the year.

JD.com’s 10 billion yuan subsidy made it to the front page

At the JD.com management training meeting at the end of 2022, Liu Qiangdong emphasized, "If you don't reflect on the price and just complain to me about the traffic, then you should reflect on it. No one should talk to me about traffic in the future. It's not that the traffic is low, it's that your price is not attractive enough." JD.com then launched the "10 billion subsidy" to attract consumers with high-quality products and low prices.

Alibaba also reflected its thinking on price power in its financial report. At the merchant exchange meeting on May 20, 2022, Dai Shan did not mention how to gain user growth, but instead emphasized that Alibaba has 1 billion domestic AAC (annual active consumers), and "deep user penetration is my first choice." In February this year, Alibaba even defined "price power" as one of its five major strategies.

Alibaba launched the 99 Special Sale Channel. On the one hand, it was responding to the price power strategy by transferring the Taobao Special Ecosystem, which had previously created a rich low-price advantage, to Taobao through the 99 Special Sale Channel. On the other hand, the Internet has entered an era of competition for existing users, and the number of users has reached a certain threshold. People are no longer competing on MAU/DAU (monthly/daily active users) growth, but instead are competing on ACC and focusing on operating existing users.

The launch of Taobao's 99 Special Sale Channel is also a platform that leverages its supply chain advantages to conduct a more explicit "goods" competition and provide consumers with better and lower-priced goods in terms of the three elements of "people, goods, and places".

In a conference call in February this year, Zhang Yong said: "In fact, price subsidies are not a new thing. Every once in a while, someone will take the initiative to provide some price subsidies, hoping to change the situation and gain an advantage. But if you look at history, you can see that no (company) can change the situation through its own continuous price subsidies. In fact, the ultimate change in the situation still depends on technology, including innovation in business mechanisms, to truly change the situation and truly make merchants willing to give their consumers the best products and the best prices."

Daily specials need to be found on the second floor of Taobao

3. New opportunities and new challenges

The 99 Specials channel is on the homepage, alongside Taobao Live. The most direct signal may be that Taobao is directing traffic to more affordable items, and is also motivating manufacturers and merchants through new entrances to provide new traffic. In 2021, after Taobao added a first-level entrance to Taobao Live on the Taobao homepage, it brought hundreds of millions of public domain traffic to Taobao Live, supporting Taobao's content ecology.

Taobao has previously reached C2M (factory direct to consumer) models and fully managed agency sales models with many manufacturers through Taote and Taochang, thereby reducing manufacturers' costs to obtain lower product prices and enhance supply chain advantages.

This time, we launched the 99 Special Sale on the homepage, starting from the industrial belt, providing manufacturers with a first-level traffic entrance on the homepage, and also allowing many manufacturers and merchants to see new possibilities.

Xuansheng, business manager of Lehuo Shoes in Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, said that Taobao's M2C model reduces the ability of e-commerce operation, which they are not good at, and allows them to concentrate on production and good products. They will also have more confidence in the new channel on the homepage.

Cai Yi, the founder of the Fruit and Vegetable Garden brand operated on Taobao, also said that they had officially entered the 99 Special Sale Channel on March 23. Their main products are laundry beads and laundry detergent. The factory has stockpiled goods worth more than 3 million yuan, and has also prepared a 3-person live broadcast team and 3 large smart warehouses to ensure delivery. "We have established a professional customer service and after-sales team to quickly help buyers solve after-sales problems. We also have a stable supply chain to ensure fast shipment. We hope to create a big hit in the 99 Special Sale Channel as soon as possible."

"Price power" is a topic that every platform cannot escape, but apart from low prices, the operation of users and merchants is the most important link.

The 99 Special Sales will bring the manufacturers and merchants behind Taobao Specials to the Taobao homepage and gain more traffic, but merchants and platforms also need to offer better products and better services in addition to low prices to meet consumer demand and use "good products and good prices" to effectively convert traffic.

How to make the 99 Specials bring new growth will be a topic that merchants and platforms will continue to explore.

Author: Wang Zhan; Editor: Si Wen

WeChat official account: E-Commerce Online (ID: dianshangmj), see sharpness and insights, and focus on innovative media on the Internet and new business.