Small and medium-sized businesses "promotion fatigue"

Author/IT Times reporter Shen Yibin

Editor/Hao Junhui Sun Yan

Double 11 in 2024 came earlier than before.

At 8: 00 pm on October 14th, Taobao, Tmall, JD.COM and other e-commerce platforms started this year’s double 11 event, about 10 days earlier than last year.

This year, the eyes of various platforms are more focused on merchants. Taotian Group said that this time, double 11 will provide businesses with a more certain business environment on the premise of ensuring adequate supply of low-priced and good goods and consumer experience; JD.COM also said that it is necessary to make brand businesses sell well, grow and earn money. In addition to the "tens of billions of subsidies", Pinduoduo has offered "tens of billions of relief" to businesses.

Judging from the record on the first day of launch, the head brand took the lead, and the sales of home appliances and beauty brands such as Haier, Midea, Little Swan, L ‘Oreal and Xiulike rose sharply, exceeding 100 million.

However, for some small and medium-sized businesses, the frequent promotion frequency of major platforms this year has made them feel a little "aesthetic fatigue" towards double 11. A number of small and medium-sized businesses told the IT Times reporter that from the data on the night of the event, there was not much increase than before, and the effect of this "longest in history" double 11 remains to be tested.

This year, double 11 "belongs" to businesses.

On October 14th, the "longest in history" double 11 was fully launched.

Compared with last year, this year’s low-price war in double 11 is a little lighter, and common propaganda words such as "the cheapest" and "the lowest price in the whole network" have disappeared. Interconnection has become a hot word this year: Taobao can place orders directly on WeChat, and Jingdong Logistics can be used for delivery and return. Meituan Takeout and Meituan Hotel officially settled in Alipay applet; Merchants have become "fragrant cakes" again, especially Taobao, which has launched a series of measures to "reduce the burden" for merchants.

The first optimization is "refund only". At the end of last year, Taobao launched the "Refund Only", but it was constantly adjusted due to the carnival of the Wool Party. After eight months of implementation, Taobao revised the "Refund Only" rule, so that merchants with an experience score greater than or equal to 4.8 can negotiate on their own, and the platform does not interfere with the received refunds. At the same time, Taobao launched the "Refund Only" recognition model. Up to now, it has intercepted more than 400,000 unreasonable "Refund Only" orders on average every day.

At the same time, Taobao launched an upgraded version of "Return Treasure" for freight insurance, aiming at reducing the return cost for merchants. According to Taobao’s calculation, during the period of double 11, "returning treasure" can bring up to 58% cost reduction for some businesses. In addition, for all Taobao live broadcast merchants, Taobao will also reduce the one-year live broadcast technical service fee.

These measures made Lin Yun (pseudonym) feel a lot easier. Lin Yun (pseudonym) is an e-commerce boss who works as a body-building sportswear in Tmall International. Every year, double 11 participates. "We belong to Tmall International, and the freight insurance rate for returning goods is generally 1%~3% of the price of goods. The cost of overall freight insurance generally accounts for 3%~5% of sales."

This year, the platform will no longer charge freight insurance. For Lin Yun, where the return rate and the risk rate are not high, this part of the cost is a proper profit.

However, Lin Yun hasn’t felt the dividend of interconnection for the time being. The target customers of sportswear he runs are basically young people and middle class, while the groups that Taobao "lacks" in WeChat are more elderly people and sinking people who only use WeChat and WeChat to pay, which is more beneficial to businesses covered by Pinduoduo.

Or because of this, Pinduoduo, which has always been "partial" to consumers, has also increased its preferential treatment for businesses on the Double Eleven this year. The "10 billion reduction and exemption" plan will reduce the promotion service fee, technical service fee and deposit of high-quality merchants in the coming year. In addition, Pinduoduo also exempted the transfer fee for logistics in remote areas, and the technical fee for all orders after use was reduced from 1% to 0.6%, and the store deposit was also reduced from 1000 yuan to 500 yuan.

Some businesses can’t afford "the longest in history"

Besides connectivity, "the longest in history" is also one of the most important labels in double 11 this year.

Simply combing, at 10: 00 a.m. on October 14th, Vipshop will take the lead in "off-peak" sales. On that night, Taobao and JD.COM launched the double 11 Promotion simultaneously. As early as October 8, Pinduoduo took the lead in announcing the opening of double 11 activities; On the same day, Tik Tok also announced that it would enter the pre-sale promotion (pre-sale), while Aauto Quicker e-commerce launched the pre-sale promotion on October 10th.

Changing the promotion season from week to month, and then to longer, means that platform merchants spend more and more time participating in activities, and the price should be kept low for a long time, which makes some small and medium-sized businesses a bit unbearable.

Zhu Ling (a pseudonym), a Shanghai e-commerce boss who makes high-priced clothes, gave up this year’s double 11. She told the IT Times reporter that although the platform released many preferential policies this year, it still benefited big businesses. "We are engaged in clothing, and September to November is the peak season. If we don’t participate in double 11, we won’t be anxious about traffic. On the contrary, we won’t cause sales pressure because of activities."

What makes her a little tired is that the effect of "the longest 618 in history" in the first half of the year is not ideal. This year’s "618 Promotion", also known as "the longest in history", has been going on for nearly a month since it was launched on May 20th. Although Zhu Ling’s store participated in the activity, although the traffic increased, the return rate also increased, and the overall sales volume was even less than that in a normal month. In addition, endless returns and after-sales made her stores in short supply even more stressed.

Lin Yun still participated in this year’s double 11, and the activity strategy is that all commodities can be fully reduced, and individual commodities participate in the pre-sale. However, the first day of Tmall’s booming data has nothing to do with him.

According to the data of Tmall platform, in the first 30 minutes after the sale at 8: 00 pm on October 14th, 20 brands of Tmall beauty brand exceeded 100 million yuan, and 8 single products exceeded 100 million yuan. The turnover of 42 brands including Xiaomi, vivo, DJI and Fuji doubled compared with the first day of pre-sale last year. However, although the store traffic in Lin Yun has increased a lot, there is little difference from the pre-sale volume in peacetime, and most buyers just look at it.

"Tmall International has promotional activities almost every month, and daily sales and activities have consumed a lot of users’ purchasing power. Moreover, the previous strategy of raising prices by SKU and then lowering prices to participate in activities is no longer feasible, but there is no traffic and no profit without lowering prices." Lin Yun is quite annoyed.

"The double 11 cycle is best shortened to 7 to 10 days." A month-long promotion means that stores in Lin Yun should keep their prices low for a whole month. If there is not enough sales, Lin Yun is worried that the overall profit of the stores will drop.

Reporter’s observation: although the "lowest price" is not seen, it has become a dark battle.

Although the "lowest price" disappeared in the whole network this year, all e-commerce platforms have tried their best to attract businesses and attract consumers, but in any case, price is still the most effective weapon.

In their respective non-dominant projects, Taotian and JD.COM are fighting each other.

This year, the number of commodities participating in JD.COM’s 10 billion subsidy has increased fourfold, especially "non-dominant" commodities such as clothing and beauty cosmetics, and many international brands such as Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and MONCLER have settled in JD.COM. In terms of clothing, JD.COM offers 50% discount coupons for clothing, and enjoys full 300 yuan minus 50 yuan when shopping across stores.

Taotian, on the other advantageous projects in JD.COM, such as 3C and household appliances, issued a number of stall concessions, such as "3C Digital Voucher" with 980 yuan minus 100 yuan, "Home Appliances Premium Voucher" with 2980 yuan minus 300 yuan, and "Home Appliances Premium Voucher" with 5980 yuan minus 600 yuan.

In the most important channel of low-priced products-factory direct sales, both sides also compete for "good quality and low price". A week before the opening of double 11, Taobao launched the "Amoy Select" column, which was built into the App in the form of a self-operated flagship store. Its positioning was to provide a dedicated traffic window for cost-effective sources, and the presentation form and target users of the page were similar to those of Amoy Factory.

JD.COM has launched a "factory goods subsidy of 10 billion yuan", which not only has the support of merchants’ flow and price subsidies, but also the number of goods in the 9.9 package channel in factory goods logistics has increased by two times compared with that in double 11 last year. In addition, JD.COM announced that it will recruit at least 10,000 purchasing and marketing personnel in the next three years, and bring back more cheap and high-quality products.

The live broadcast is also an important channel for price competition of e-commerce platforms. Taotian’s strategy is still to rely on Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao and other head anchors. When you turn on Taobao Live, you will find that the words "Red Packet Rain" will appear in the upper right corner of many live broadcast rooms, ranging from 10,000 yuan to 100 million yuan. Li Jiaqi Live Room only distributed 500 million yuan red envelopes on the first day after the launch of double 11 from 14th to 15th.

JD.COM, which has no big live broadcast, seems to be "infatuated" with the digital people live broadcast track. During double 11, the digital people created by JD.COM will be open to brand merchants for free. The most explosive thing is that the "JD.COM Purchasing and Selling Staff" who played a public contest with Li Jiaqi played again, and the JD.COM supermarket purchasing and selling live room announced that it would broadcast live simultaneously with Li Jiaqi, and then offered a 10% discount on the price of the Li Jiaqi live room.

Zhuang Shuai, founder of Bailian Consulting, believes that the "price war" of e-commerce platforms is indeed continuing. However, in the long run, major e-commerce platforms will re-examine the differences in category advantages, experience and services, and increase investment with emphasis to form differentiated competitive advantages beyond price.

Typesetting/Ji Jiaying

Photo/Taobao JD.COM Oriental IC

Source/IT Times WeChat official account vittimes

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1905 movie network news China, starring, released the ultimate preview and poster for the first blockbuster movie of deep sea monsters. In the preview, many tourists spend their holidays on the seaside island and enjoy the summer carnival party. The atmosphere is very happy. Unexpectedly, sharks are everywhere. Suddenly, Megalodon, the overlord of the ocean, breaking the waves, launched a desperate pursuit for people on Happy Island, and the sense of tension and excitement was full. Jason Statham and Jason Wu fought hand in hand, shocked and confronted the deep-sea monster, and launched a summer deep-sea adventure war, which made the adrenaline soar and the summer fitness was full! This summer vacation, the whole family sneaked into the world of deep-sea behemoths and started a deep-sea carnival adventure this summer! In the final poster released at the same time, Jason Statham and Jason Wu led the expedition team, and all the staff gathered in waves. There are many crises under the sea and the sea, and the deep-sea monsters are full of tension.

A few days ago, starring Jason Wu came to Chengdu Road Show to exchange and interact with the audience. The atmosphere was warm and interesting. "The whole process is exciting", and the audience at the scene expressed their attraction to the super-cool adventure in the film. As for Jason Wu, who is constantly exploring new types of movies, a college student even praised Jason Wu as a "pioneer" who can always bring surprises to the audience. At the scene, enthusiastic audience in Chengdu also shared food such as "Spicy Rabbit Head" and "Fish Head with Chopped Pepper" with starring Jason Wu, saying that the film was as hot and enjoyable as Chengdu cuisine, and the scene was very lively. The film will be released worldwide on August 4, and the pre-sale has been started.

Jason Statham, Jason Wu Island extreme rescue, hand in hand against behemoths.

The hottest day, watching the fiercest shark, a summer blockbuster suitable for children!

The people on the island in the forecast are immersed in the leisurely atmosphere of summer vacation, without paying any attention to the coming of fatal danger. Zhang Jiuyuan, played by Jason Wu, urgently called, "Don’t go into the water, there are sharks in the water!" Megalodon sharks go forward at top speed, open the Kog ‘Maw the Mouth of the Abyss, launch a sudden attack on tourists in the water, Jason Statham and Jason Wu carry out extreme rescue, and a deep-sea war is imminent in summer. Jason Statham rode a motorboat against Megalodon sharks, and Jason Wu helicopter jumped down to fight giant octopus, which was extremely thrilling and refreshing.

On the hottest day, watch the fiercest shark and experience the coolest deep-sea adventure! At the scene of the road show, many small audiences were impressive and expressed their curiosity about the world of deep-sea behemoths in the movie. Parents who watched the movie together also said that they felt very exciting after watching the movie. "Decompression is cool, very suitable for taking their children to the cinema this summer. A summer blockbuster! In addition to entertainment, unlock children’s ocean curiosity. " One of the small audience who came to the movies with his mother even said that he was completely attracted by the deep sea world during the movie watching process, and his mother’s hands were all red, which made people laugh. Regarding the shocking presentation of the deep-sea world, Jason Wu also said that the movie "has popular science, ocean and monsters", which is very meaningful for teenagers. If you don’t come to see Megalodon, the summer vacation will be over!

Jason Wu talks about "complementary tacit understanding" with Jason Statham, and blockbusters have to watch the excitement on the big screen!

Audience: The deep-sea behemoth world is shocking and exciting, and the whole process is thrilling.

In the roadshow, Jason Wu, who is full of enthusiasm for the special movie for college students, said that he, as a filmmaker, should grow and progress together with the students. Among them, college students said that they were very impressed by the prehistoric "three consecutive meals" in the film, saying that Megalodon’s bite on Tyrannosaurus Rex was "too strong" and lamented that "Meg 2 must watch it in the cinema, and the blockbuster has to be watched on the big screen to stimulate it!" Some college students also expressed their love for the scenes of Megalodon’s deep-sea battle, saying that their nervous and exciting emotions continued until after the film was shown, and their "stamina" was full.

At the roadshow, some viewers expressed their curiosity about the cooperation process between Jason Statham and Jason Wu in the filming process. Jason Wu revealed that because both of them had the experience of cooperating with Hong Kong action directors in China, they had a tacit understanding during the filming process, and said that "action" was an "international language". At the roadshow, Fu Zihang, Jason Wu’s adopted son in Shifang, Sichuan, also made a surprise appearance, and brought special products from his hometown to Wu Jing. Jason Wu also lamented, "When filming outside, no matter where you wander, a pot of thick hot pot will always have a taste of affection".

In the interactive exchange session after the screening, Jason Wu, the leading actor, mentioned that the word "Four Seas Youlong" appeared in the film, which was actually written by Hong Houtian, vice chairman of Sichuan Calligraphers Association. Jason Wu also revealed that he found Master Su Quan to discuss the presentation form of this calligraphy work. Finally, he chose to use China modern calligraphy to show the world audience the lifestyle and language expression habits of China people today. Master Su Quan, who came to the scene, was also sincerely happy with the China culture presented in the film. Jason Wu also expressed the hope that in the future, he would show more essence of China culture to the world audience.

Megalodon 2: Abyss will be released worldwide on August 4, and the pre-sale is in full swing.