The same model of "Crazy" is selling like hot cakes, Taobao wins big

In the Internet age, hot topics always come one after another. How to carry these hot traffic and then turn the traffic into real sales is the goal that every e-commerce practitioner has been pursuing. After the Spring Festival Gala this year, many celebrities' same clothes became hot searches, and Taobao successfully harvested hot searches again. What is the secret behind it?

The Spring Festival Gala has been held for 40 years since 1983. Although the audience’s complaints about the Gala are getting louder and louder, it is still the “top stream” and has unexpectedly become a “live streaming show with goods” with a very wide coverage.

Take this year's Spring Festival Gala as an example. Since 8pm, many celebrities' same-style clothes have appeared on the hot search list. Netizens said, "It's too much to watch. I can't keep up with them all." After the Spring Festival Gala, Qin Lan's same-style green cardigan, Zhao Liying's same-style red skirt, Yang Zi's same-style coat and same-style women's shoes ranked 1-4 on Taobao's hot search list.

In addition to the Spring Festival Gala, many peripheral products in this year's Spring Festival movies have also been targeted by the audience. Take "The Wandering Earth 2" as an example. The planetary engine, exoskeleton armor, door frame robot and mechanical dog Benben that appeared in the movie have all been targeted by the audience.

Among the "hot selling" products, the total amount of crowdfunding for three peripheral products related to "The Wandering Earth 2" on the Taobao crowdfunding platform has exceeded 100 million yuan, becoming the fastest film and television IP derivatives to exceed 100 million yuan. In addition to the canvas bags, key chains and other peripheral products on Taobao that have obtained official IP authorization, the sci-fi trend of "The Wandering Earth 2" has been directly transformed from a traffic code to a wealth code on Taobao.

The hit drama "Kuang Biao" has become the "king of sales" recently. "The same style as Gao Qiqiang" "The Art of War", "the same style as Brother Qiang" dragon bone bracelet, "the same style as Sister-in-law" earrings and coat almost dominated the top few hot searches on Taobao recently. On February 1, 3 of the top 5 hot searches on Taobao were related to "Kuang Biao".

Why can Taobao successfully harvest hot searches again and again? What is the secret behind it? What challenges does Taobao face while converting the secret of traffic into the secret of wealth?

1. JD.com and Pinduoduo have difficulty snatching Taobao’s hot search business

The history of successful livestreaming of Spring Festival Gala sales can be traced back to the skit by Niu Li and Guo Donglin in 2010. In the skit, Niu Li successfully attracted thousands of viewers with her pink coat. However, since domestic e-commerce was still in its infancy at the time, the audience could only discuss with each other on Tianya Forum, and finally posted a message to confirm the purchase channel of "Niu Li's same coat".

In the more than ten years since then, domestic e-commerce has developed rapidly, which has also led to an increase in the types of products that have been successfully promoted during the Spring Festival Gala. For example, the fluorescent lipstick of host Li Sisi, the purple eyeshadow of Nigmat, and the Spring Festival Gala co-branded masks of Wuling, etc., are all e-commerce "hot items" that have appeared in the Spring Festival Gala in the past few years.

Although the types of goods brought have increased, the clothing category is almost the biggest winner of the Spring Festival Gala every year. For example, during the 2022 Spring Festival Gala, "Zhang Xiaofei's same coat sold out in 10 minutes" became a hot search during the Spring Festival Gala, and the white sweater worn by Zhang Xiaofei was wildly recommended on major Internet platforms. According to the Star Compass data, Zhang Xiaofei's influence index on goods brought during the 2022 Spring Festival Gala reached its peak.

Not surprisingly, most of this traffic was taken away by Taobao, because from a category perspective alone, clothing is not JD.com's advantage.

Consumer Chen Lina told us that she liked to buy clothes for herself and her family on Taobao at first, but when vertical e-commerce platforms such as Vipshop emerged, she switched to these platforms. Later, platforms such as Vipshop, Mogujie, and Meilishuo gradually disappeared, so she had to return to Taobao. However, if she wanted to buy home appliances and 3C digital products, she would first consider JD.com.

Behind this choice of consumers, it actually reflects the differences in operating strategies among platforms. Taking the sales of various e-commerce platforms from January to November 2022 as an example, JD.com's sales of digital products are even higher than the sum of Tmall and Douyin, while its sales of clothing and accessories are less than one-fifth of Tmall's.

Data source: Jiuqian Middle Platform

Similarly, the various peripheral derivative products similar to those in the movie "The Wandering Earth 2" are not JD.com's strengths. Consumers' shopping decisions in different categories cannot be reversed in a short period of time, so JD.com will naturally not steal Taobao's hot search business.

At the same time, compared with Pinduoduo and Douyin, Taobao also has advantages that these platforms cannot replace. First of all, as the earliest e-commerce platform in China, Taobao has always been the winner of the Spring Festival Gala hot search for a long time.

For example, during the 2014 Spring Festival Gala, the colorful sweater that Shen Teng wore during the gala could be found on Taobao half an hour later. During the 2019 Spring Festival Gala, the wine jug that Liu Qian used in his magic show was also quickly available on Taobao.

This advantage is good for Taobao because, firstly, hot search products themselves require "speed to counter speed", and Taobao's many years of experience have also allowed it to accumulate strong experience in resource integration, internal cross-departmental coordination, and timely communication and operation of merchants. These experiences are not something that Pinduoduo and Douyin can simply copy.

Second, it cultivates the user's mind, so that when users see hot search products, Taobao is the first thing they think of. As consumer Zhang Liang said, when he sees hot search products, he will open Taobao immediately. Otherwise, if he wastes too much time on other platforms, it is easy to cause the products to be sold out and he will not be able to buy them.

Finally, the main labels of each platform are also different. Pinduoduo gives people the impression of "cost-effectiveness", JD focuses on white-collar consumption, and Douyin relies on algorithms and the competition is "goods find people". The same clothes worn by stars on the Spring Festival Gala are mostly high-end custom-made by a certain brand, which requires e-commerce platforms to have certain strengths in search and supply chain links.

Take this year's Spring Festival Gala as an example. Qin Lan wore a green blended cardigan from Ganni, Zhang Xiaofei wore a rabbit ear sweater from LANVIN and PRONOUNCE, and Yang Zi wore a classic Max Mara Manuela red coat. Obviously, the tone of these brands of clothes does not match Pinduoduo very well.

2. Why do merchants choose Taobao?

Based on the above characteristics, Taobao has naturally attracted a large number of high-quality brands. As for small and medium-sized businesses that sell "celebrity-style" products, they are more inclined to choose Taobao rather than Douyin and Pinduoduo.

The reason is that the biggest difference between hot-search products and other products is that the life cycle of hot-search products is too short, which requires that the products sold by merchants on e-commerce platforms must be sold out in a short period of time so that merchants can hedge multiple costs and achieve profitability.

However, judging from the operation of Pinduoduo and Douyin, they are unable to meet the requirements of merchants. Lu Yong, who has been engaged in Pinduoduo operations for many years, told us that according to Pinduoduo's existing rules, after a product is put on the shelves, merchants need to rely on supplementary orders, comment optimization, and large investments in direct train fees. The whole process can take as short as 7 days and as long as 15 days before there is a possibility of a surge in orders.

More importantly, even when faced with similar products, Pinduoduo is more inclined to give traffic to merchants with relatively lower prices.

As Lu Yong said, although the "Yang Zi Spring Festival Gala coat" is still on sale on the Pinduoduo platform, the overall sales volume is not high. If we consider that the merchants have made up the orders, the actual sales volume may not be high. Obviously, Pinduoduo's platform rules determine that if merchants sell hot search products on the platform, they need to bear inventory risks, cash flow risks, etc.

The same situation also occurred on Douyin. Zhang Zichen, a Douyin clothing merchant, told us that currently, for each order completed in the Douyin clothing category, the cost of Qianchuan advertising is at least 50-80 yuan. However, if there is no investment in traffic, it is difficult to increase the number of viewers in the live broadcast room.

For hot-search products, it is necessary to complete the integration of the supply chain in a short period of time, and the difficulty it faces can be imagined.

For merchants who truly have supply chain advantages in hot-search products, after gaining traffic advantages with the help of Taobao hot searches, they can not only save a lot of promotion costs and increase the possibility of product hot sales, but more importantly, they have a greater say in the pricing of products and their own profits can be better guaranteed.

From this perspective, it is not difficult to explain why Taobao has a large number of merchants and products related to hot topics, and these merchants also provide the driving force for Taobao to complete the hot search harvest.

It should be pointed out that no matter what kind of hot search products are, they are actually the product of joint promotion by multiple parties. Fashion buyer Qian Nana told us that since the same clothes worn by celebrities during the Spring Festival Gala every year can drive sales growth, people often use their own connections in the circle and the celebrity Spring Festival Gala Reuters photos to predict the hot-selling categories that may appear during this year's Spring Festival Gala.

These forecasts are then passed on to upstream clothing companies, requiring them to purchase relevant raw materials in advance.

On the night of the Spring Festival Gala, once a star attracts attention during his performance, everyone can basically complete the pattern design of the star's clothes after the star's show. After that, after going through the processes of pattern making, cutting, sewing, etc., a piece of clothes of the star's style can be made, and the whole process is very fast.

Taking the same coat as Yang Zi as an example, if the pattern making of this large item starts at 12 o'clock on the Spring Festival Gala, it can basically be mass-produced on the morning of the second day of the Lunar New Year, which also ensures the timeliness of the platform's delivery.

Therefore, Taobao's traffic support, the continuous efforts of merchants, and the continuous cultivation of consumers' minds have also allowed Taobao to enter a positive cycle in hot-search products, completing its crushing advantage over similar platforms.

3. Sober thinking under the heat

In fact, from Qian Nana’s description, it is not difficult to see that behind Taobao’s crazy harvest of hot searches, it also faces considerable challenges.

On the one hand, in order to catch up with the hot spots and launch products in a short time, merchants have to greatly compress the clothing production process. Behind the compressed process, there will also be problems such as poor workmanship, substitution of materials, and inconsistent patterns.

As mentioned above, many of the clothes worn by celebrities are high-end, designed and produced by major clothing companies. Some businesses directly copy the designs for profit, which may lead to certain infringement risks. If the photos of celebrities are used directly, it may also infringe the portrait rights.

On the other hand, there are also loopholes in the supervision of e-commerce platforms. The same products on the Spring Festival Gala went from being popular to disappearing in a short time, which resulted in Taobao and other platforms not having enough time to complete random inspections of product quality. Even if the platform wanted to conduct random inspections, it would be caught off guard if the merchants took the products off the shelves too quickly.

In fact, it is not just about product quality supervision. Based on past experience, if merchants add "Same Style as the Spring Festival Gala" in front of their products as a traffic attractor, the search volume and inquiries for their products will soar.

This has also led to many businesses making up stories out of nothing, misattributing products, and attracting traffic by using the same products as the same products. For example, last year, Li Sisi's fluorescent lipstick became a hot topic, and some businesses quickly changed the names of their products, with the non-fluorescent lipstick costing 9.9 yuan and the fluorescent lipstick costing 41.9 yuan, artificially creating scarcity. However, many consumers reported after receiving the products that there was no obvious difference between the two products, which were four times the price.

Therefore, Taobao has to consider how to regulate these short-term hot-selling products in the future. If the regulation is still not in place, it is likely to affect the reputation of the platform and even create the risk of losing users.

Nowadays, hot spots are always emerging one after another. How to carry the traffic from these hot spots and then turn the traffic into real sales is the goal that every e-commerce practitioner is pursuing.

In the short term, Taobao can indeed harvest users with the help of hot search products. But in 2023, facing the invasion of more competitors and competition from live streaming platforms, how Taobao can continue to grow its platform performance, increase merchants' profits, and stabilize users may be what really needs to be thought about in depth.

*This article is based on public information and is only for information exchange purposes and does not constitute any investment advice

Author: Return

Source public account: Value Planet