This year's Double 11, Douyin and Kuaishou don't want to be supporting roles anymore

This year's Double 11 battle is coming, and major e-commerce platforms are gearing up to compete. This year's battle is also changing. Unlike the situation of the three giants in previous years, e-commerce platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin have also joined the melee. Adjusting preferential policies and increasing preferential strength are bound to get a share of the carnival such as Double 11. Let's take a look at how they do it?

JD.com took the lead in opening pre-sales on October 20, and Tmall followed suit on October 24. This year's Double 11 e-commerce promotion has officially begun. Compared with previous years, the three e-commerce giants are less noisy and more calm. The overwhelming publicity offensive has weakened, and Taotian Group, JD.com and Pinduoduo have spent more energy behind the scenes to attract merchants and divert traffic, and build marketing links for merchants.

On the other hand, several new e-commerce platforms that have emerged on the back of live streaming have been active recently and their appearance rates have been increasing, and they seem to be poised to seize power - especially Douyin and Kuaishou.

Although Kuaishou and Douyin have participated in the Double 11 promotion in the past few years, their exposure and investment are not great. Douyin has always wanted to make the "818 Good Products Festival" its own signature event, and Kuaishou also has its own "616" promotion. Double 11 and 618 have always been regarded as the home courts of the "cat and dog fight" three giants.

Times have changed. This year, Douyin and Kuaishou seem unwilling to play supporting roles to the "Big Three". Traffic and cash subsidies are all available, and various marketing tools and exposure channels are also ready. This time, the Double 11 scene has become even more lively.

1. Kuaishou’s shift: attracting brands and focusing on consumer electronics and home furnishings

On the eve of Double 11, Kuaishou ushered in a major personnel change. On October 20, Kuaishou officially announced that Su Hua resigned as chairman and CEO Cheng Yixiao would take over concurrently. The adjustment will take effect on October 29. Although Su Hua's voting rights on the board of directors will not change, he has basically withdrawn from the front line of management, and Kuaishou has fully entered the Cheng Yixiao era.

As we all know, Cheng Yixiao has always attached great importance to e-commerce business, and even personally took charge of it. In a round of high-level adjustments in September last year, he transferred Xiaogu to the newly established local life business department, which integrated the original local life business team of the main site and the life service industry team of the e-commerce business department, and was responsible for developing local life business. The vacant position of the head of the Kuaishou e-commerce business department was personally taken over by Cheng Yixiao.

The 2023 Double 11 promotion, which has already begun, is the first big test after Cheng Yixiao replaced Su Hua as the chairman of Kuaishou. Cheng Yixiao undoubtedly wants to get a perfect score. Under his operation, Kuaishou's e-commerce preparation strategy has also undergone some new changes.

On the one hand, Kuaishou is no longer limited to white-label, cost-effective products. It has increased its investment promotion efforts and provided more subsidies to brand merchants and quality products.

The purpose of this move is very clear. Kuaishou wants to get rid of its own brand of sinking market and develop into a full-category e-commerce platform, especially to strengthen its shortcomings in high value-added categories such as consumer electronics, home appliances and home furnishings. Only three years after the pre-sale was launched, the GMV of Kuaishou's consumer electronics and home furnishing categories exceeded 2.2 billion. The top GMVs are all TCL, Honor, Haier, Dreame and other leading brands.

Compared with the past situation of relying on white-label products to build its business, the transformation of Kuaishou's e-commerce ecosystem has achieved initial results, but it is still a long way from being completed. This Double 11 is a good opportunity for Kuaishou to polish its brand again.

On the other hand, Kuaishou is also working hard to step out of the comfort zone of live streaming, build a shopping mall, and consolidate the supply chain.

This year, Kuaishou stretched its battle line longer than any of its competitors. Pre-sales started on October 18, and the first official sales period began on October 31. Promotional materials for "10 billion subsidies for big brands" were everywhere, and the marketing offensive was even more aggressive than the "cat and dog fight". In the early warm-up, live broadcasting still received high attention, but it was no longer the only protagonist.

Before the pre-sale started, Kuaishou launched a first-level entrance to the mall on its main website, instead of categorizing it in the exploration column as before. After clicking into the mall page, there are two entrances at the top: "Big Brands and Big Supplements" and "Live Selections", followed by products displayed in the form of information flow. The page design is very similar to traditional e-commerce apps such as Tmall and JD.com. Big brands and malls are exactly the two dimensions that Kuaishou pays the most attention to during this year's Double 11.

There is no doubt that after Cheng Yixiao took over, Kuaishou's e-commerce performance has made great progress. In the second quarter of this year, Kuaishou's e-commerce GMV increased by 38.9% year-on-year to 265.5 billion yuan. When almost all e-commerce platforms are very secretive about GMV, only Kuaishou is the most honest and directly discloses various indicators in its financial reports. This is not only in consideration of the attention of internal senior management and external investors, but also a manifestation of confidence.

Cheng Yixiao, who holds great power, hopes to fight the next tough battle well.

2. Tik Tok accelerates: fully betting on the mall, can the dual engines of content + shelves be launched as scheduled?

Similar to Kuaishou, Douyin also wants to go beyond the live broadcast circle. As early as last year, developing a shopping mall and replenishing products were written into the first column of Douyin's e-commerce agenda, and it is still the case now.

One of the most important tasks for Douyin e-commerce this year is to build the mall into a traffic entrance parallel to live streaming and realize the dual-engine drive of content + shelves. Double 11 and other major promotion festivals are windows of opportunity that must be seized. Judging from the subsidies and traffic diversion strategies that have been announced, Douyin has also given more resources to the mall this time, rather than live streaming or short video fields.

First of all, the change in focus can be seen from the name. Last year, the official name of Douyin's Double 11 promotion was "Douyin Double 11 Good Products Festival", and this year it was changed to "Douyin Mall Double 11 Good Products Festival". The name change does not mean that the live broadcast room will not participate in the promotion, but the platform intends to increase the exposure of the mall.

Secondly, the platform has also developed more diverse promotion methods for the mall. In terms of preferential policies, Douyin has changed the previous various forms of subsidies such as cross-store discounts and category coupons, and launched a simple and crude official discount. For the shelf e-commerce field, the platform has also launched subsidies and support measures such as super value purchases, low-price flash sales, and increased exposure of key products, and even imitated JD.com and Taobao to launch a paid membership service "Douyin Mall Gold Card".

Douyin Mall also spent a lot of time on venue setting and product display. In addition to the eye-catching label of "Official 15% discount", many products are also labeled "same price in live broadcast room" to build consumer confidence; the Double 11 sub-venue entrance is added at the top of the mall main interface to simplify the traffic diversion link.

During last year’s Double 11, the mall still relied on live streaming to provide exposure channels, and Douyin Mall was just a component of the entire global interest e-commerce ecosystem. This year, the mall has become the traffic leader and shouldered the heavy responsibility of conquering cities and strongholds.

However, focusing on the mall and moving closer to traditional e-commerce will also bring some new challenges. In the live broadcast room, users are more or less inclined to impulse consumption, their emotions are easily affected by the anchor's words, and they are still pursuing the ultimate cost-effectiveness. When they come to the mall, without the consumption atmosphere created by the live broadcast room, consumers have more time to think - they not only think about cost-effectiveness, but also pay more and more attention to after-sales and logistics, and compare Douyin with Tmall, JD.com, etc.

Over the past few years, Douyin e-commerce has always insisted on light asset operation and was unwilling to invest too much resources in building a supply chain. At that time, users favored Douyin's high cost-effectiveness, the entertainment added value of live broadcast rooms and short videos, and also accepted the platform's shortcomings in after-sales capabilities and regarded it as a certain degree of equal transaction. After focusing on the mall and introducing a large number of branded products, the shortcomings of after-sales and logistics can no longer be avoided.

Fortunately, some changes are quietly taking place during this year's Double 11. At the same time as the official launch of the "Douyin Mall Double 11 Good Products Festival", it also launched a "home delivery, or compensation if not delivered" service for fresh food, food and beverages, pet supplies and other categories, while beauty and personal care products are promised to be delivered within 24 hours.

Although these two services do not cover all products in the corresponding categories, they are enough to show the efforts of Douyin e-commerce. No one can become a fat man in one bite, and consumers can also give Douyin more time.

3. The era of creating festivals for all people has come to an end, but Double 11 is still irreplaceable

In general, Kuaishou and Douyin have devoted more energy and resources to this year's Double 11 promotion, and the importance they attach to this traditional event is increasing day by day. The reason for this change is the end of the myth of e-commerce creating festivals, the decline of the overall environment, and the loss of user attention.

Two years ago, online traffic had not yet gone from a growth period to a drying up period, and e-commerce platforms were all rushing to stake out territory and create their own signature events. Double 11 and 618 bear the distinct imprints of Tmall and JD.com respectively, while Douyin and Kuaishou successively launched "818" and "616", replicating the trajectory of the rise of 618 and Double 11, spending money and traffic to expand their momentum.

The idea of ​​Douyin and Kuaishou is to build "818" and "616" into their own brands, integrate their own characteristics, and make their own rules, instead of following the pace of "cats and dogs fighting". For example, Douyin's "818" focuses on keywords such as trends, fashion, and domestic products, while Kuaishou's "616" focuses on quality e-commerce and celebrity live broadcasts, and investment and traffic are all based on these themes.

The idea is beautiful, but it is a pity that it was born at the wrong time. Kuaishou's "616" quality shopping festival started in 2020, and the first Douyin "818" was launched in August of the same year - at this time, the e-commerce market was very close to turning from prosperity to decline and the competition for users entered the stage of stock competition.

Missing the bonus period has dealt a heavy blow to the festival-building campaigns of Douyin and Kuaishou. Due to their short history, Douyin's "818" and Kuaishou's "616" are unlikely to become as popular as 618 and Double 11, and their influence on both consumers and merchants is insufficient.

In 2021, Douyin's "818" set many records, including a 4-fold increase in GMV, a nearly 5-fold increase in order volume, and a single live broadcast with a maximum sales amount of 130 million yuan. But just one year later, Douyin stopped promoting GMV and instead emphasized the growth rate of new product sales and sales of individual categories such as household appliances and household goods.

The more turbulent the environment is, the more e-commerce platforms need the exposure window of Double 11, which is also their best opportunity to boost performance at the end of the year. With user attention constantly being distracted and the cost of acquiring customers for e-commerce platforms continuing to rise, it is better to make the Double 11 pie bigger than to fantasize about creating the next big promotion festival.

With this in mind, it is not surprising that Douyin and Kuaishou have increased their investment in Double 11. However, this will further deepen the involution of Double 11, and it is still unknown whether the cake can be made bigger. What's more, Taobao Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo will definitely step up their preparations to resist the "invasion" of Douyin and Kuaishou.

Fortunately, the rules of the e-commerce industry are now very mature, and major platforms will not fall into the internal friction of price wars and subsidy wars like in the early days, but pay more attention to protecting the rights and interests of merchants and consumers. In the past two years, even though "10 billion subsidies" were flying all over the sky and Double 11 repeatedly shouted the slogan of "the largest investment in history", they did not use all the money for marketing and traffic diversion. They still did not forget to subsidize small and medium-sized merchants, and even increased their support year after year.

Perhaps there is really no easy business in the world anymore, and Double 11 and the entire e-commerce industry can never return to their golden age, but there is still hope. The success of Douyin and Kuaishou also proves the vitality of this national carnival. It is the common task of all players in the industry to make Double 11 shine again.

Source public account: Lei Technology (ID: leitech), focusing on technology and life.