This New Year's Festival, which e-commerce platform do merchants favor?
In mid-January, the flavor of the new year is getting stronger. For e-commerce platforms, what is stronger than the smell of New Year's is probably the smell of gunpowder.
At the beginning of January, Pinduoduo officially launched the 2024 New Year's Festival, becoming the first player among all e-commerce platforms to open the New Year's Festival, kicking off the prelude to the e-commerce New Year's Festival. At 8 p.m. on January 15, Vipshop, a special sale e-commerce company, officially opened the New Year's Festival on the platform, and announced that it would launch two limited explosive activities at 8 p.m. on January 17 and 8 p.m. on January 26. The two giants of traditional e-commerce** and JD.com chose to start the New Year's Festival on January 17 at the same time, and still set the tone of the event to be low prices throughout the year.
In fact, whether it is the last big promotion event of the lunar calendar year or the first big promotion event of the Gregorian New Year, the importance of the New Year Festival for e-commerce platforms is self-evident. Especially in view of the particularity of the New Year's Festival compared with ordinary promotions, it is mainly to meet the needs of consumers to purchase items during the New Year, such as food, beverages, gifts, etc., which provides a fulcrum for the specificity of the New Year's Festival.
At the same time, on January 18, the Ministry of Commerce, together with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the State Post Bureau and the China Consumers Association, jointly guided the "2024 National Online New Year Festival" kicked off. The support of the policy has also added more freshness to this promotion.
Source: Business Micro News.
In the past 2023, in the 618 and Double 11 of the traditional e-commerce promotion festival, none of the traditional e-commerce platforms have been cold, which is not only due to the macroeconomic depression factors, but also the strong impact of new e-commerce.
These platforms are all facing some problems to a greater or lesser extent, and which of them are bothering them? What solutions did they come up with in this festival? Compared with the past, what are the highlights of this promotion? Can you really get the right medicine?
Taotian Jingdong at the same frequency, cost-effective instead of low price into a keyword
Practical and cost-effective, it is obviously the impression that Taotian hopes to leave on consumers during this New Year's Festival.
Starting from January 17th, **Tmall officially opened this year's New Year's Festival, click on the **APP's New Year's Festival interface, "Official discount 8."5 folds" slogan hung at the top, not only that, but among the recommended products below, cheap goods such as "home textile fabrics", "storage daily use", and "accessories and watch glasses" are all ranked at the forefront of the recommended categories. "Low price every day", "low price of the whole network", "10 billion subsidies", "instant reduction of explosive products" ......The intention of "cheap and low price" to consumers has overflowed the screen.
If the pursuit of low prices in the sinking market is understandable, then Tmall, which is more inclined to high-end goods, also focuses on low prices, exposing Taotian's pursuit of low prices. "As low as 1 yuan" and "no need to wait for low prices every day" also flooded the main venue of the Tmall New Year Festival. Various slogans such as "1 yuan to grab limited New Year's gifts" and "1 yuan to grab big-name rights" hope to invade user cognition with "1 yuan".
This is completely reasonable, because in the past year, the traditional impression of the e-commerce industry is that the volume is low, with the continuous spread of the consumption downgrade atmosphere, the loss is put aside, only the volume of low prices to survive has almost become the industry consensus. From the slogan of "regaining low prices" shouted by Liu Qiangdong when he returned to Jingdong at the beginning of the year, to the "return to **" traditional shelf e-commerce proposed by Ma Yun in the middle of the year, the two giants have all shifted the focus of the whole year to low prices.
Source: Jingdong app
But with last year's 618, double.
Ten. 1. The difference between Double 12 and Double 12 is that although the "low price" is still singing the main theme, it is no longer possible to make a single definition of the operation of the whole platform. If you have to define it, "value for money" may be more appropriate.
In fact, just a few days ago, Alibaba Group's official information platform "Ali footprints" released the "2024 Chinese and foreign e-commerce market three **", which mentioned that in the e-commerce industry in 2024, "diversified and value-added consumption proposition" will be a major trend, it is reported that Daniel Zipser, head of McKinsey's consumer goods and retail business in Asia, pointed out to Ali that in the past year, Chinese consumers will choose e-commerce platforms and products according to the richness and affordability of goods. Rather than betting one-sidedly on low-priced products.
No longer fully focused on low-priced goods, which is even more evident in the case of its old rival JD.com.
Like Taotian, this New Year's Festival, Jingdong also takes "low price" as the main publicity theme, but at the same time, "good and cheap", "good things buy at low prices", etc., emphasize the quality of goods in addition to low prices.
In terms of categories, unlike **Tmall, which chooses to focus on practical small objects, Jingdong still chooses to focus on its best field - 3C electronics. Laptops, desktops, computer power supplies, mobile phones, etc., as the main force, occupy the most conspicuous drainage entrance.
In addition, JD.com is also trying to regain its former advantage - user experience by making efforts in logistics. It is reported that Jingdong Supermarket announced the launch of the "Gift Delivery on Time" service during the New Year's Festival, covering the launch of the "Gift Delivery on Time" service during the New Year's Festival, which has covered more than 10,000 products in 9 key categories such as rest food and water, wine, grain and oil, and fresh food.
The reason why the two giants chose to stop betting on low prices at the same time comes from the bleak reality of high investment but low return that they tried last year.
Source: HR Real-Name Club.
In November 2022, Liu Qiangdong returned to JD.com and angrily criticized JD.com for losing its "low-price advantage".
Subsequently, in the past year, Jingdong has made many adjustments, and has successively launched a series of measures such as JD.com's 10 billion subsidy channel, the single-piece price function, the double compensation service for buying expensive, and the adjustment of the freight threshold. The low-price strategy continues to be implemented, but the effect is small.
In the first three quarters of 2023, JD.com's revenue growth rate will only be 37%, which is not only far behind Pinduoduo's 75%, but also inferior to Alibaba's 82%。Since the beginning of 2023, JD.com's stock price has even fallen by more than 50%, and its market value has evaporated by more than $70 billion.
Similarly, Ali's year was not easy, after the 1+6+N adjustment in March, **Tmall Group appeared in front of the public for the first time as a whole, and the goal of the first battle was of course a good start.
However, after Ma Yun emphasized that Taotian needs to "return to **", whether it is 618 or Double Eleven, under the quiet consumption atmosphere, Taotian has not been able to post a battle report as in the past when the big promotion festival was the hottest, but remained low-key and silent.
Obviously, quiet and cold have become undoubted keywords, which directly forced ** to give up the propaganda of "Double Twelve". By the end of the year, Ali's market value was even surpassed by Pinduoduo, and the former "Iron Throne" was also shaken and threatened like never before.
The biggest winner is the first to start, Pinduoduo set fire agricultural products
As the biggest winner in the e-commerce war last year, Pinduoduo's performance last year was remarkable.
On the evening of November 29 last year, the U.S. stock Pinduoduo once rose by more than 4%, with a market value of $192.1 billion, once surpassing Alibaba and becoming the largest Chinese concept stock in the United States.
In Q3 2023, Pinduoduo's revenue will be 688400 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 94%, while Alibaba's revenue was 2247900 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%, and JD.com's revenue was 247.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17%, in terms of revenue growth, Pinduoduo and the two giants are no longer at the same level. From the perspective of net profit growth, Pinduoduo's non-GAAP net profit in the third quarter increased by 37% year-on-year, Alibaba increased by 19% year-on-year, and JD.com's data was only 6%, Pinduoduo is still far ahead.
However, even so, in this year's New Year's Festival, Pinduoduo is still the first to start.
Unlike ** and Jingdong that opened the New Year's Festival on January 17, Pinduoduo officially launched the New Year's Festival from the beginning of January. JD.com's New Year Festival will run until Feb. 9, while Pinduoduo ends on Jan. 28. It can be said that compared to the former, the treasure is bet on the eve of the Chinese New Year's EvePinduoduo chose another route: to seize the opportunity with speed play.
Unlike other products, agricultural products have distinct cyclical characteristics, and the harvest months are usually concentrated in September and October. Theoretically it should have been a continuation of the double.
Ten. 1. During the Double 12 period, there is a best-selling market, but consumers are more inclined to buy products with higher usual ** and greater brand influence during the big promotion. At the same time, agricultural products often require faster logistical transportation and storage conditions to guarantee freshness and quality. During large-scale festivals such as Singles' Day and Singles' Day, logistics systems can be under pressure due to the surge in orders, making it difficult to meet the requirements for the transportation and storage of agricultural products. Therefore, Pinduoduo chose to stagger the time.
Not only this year, but also the New Year's Festival that has been turned forward for several years, agricultural products are the main direction of Pinduoduo. Compared with the comprehensive full-category play of ** and JD.com, Pinduoduo has chosenThe main chips are betting on agricultural products, mainly because Pinduoduo is from an agricultural background.
Pinduoduo was founded in 2015. At that time, the domestic e-commerce led by **Jingdong has experienced several rounds of fighting such as C2C, B2C, O2O, etc., seeing that ** takes clothing as the main selling point, Jingdong has 3C electronic barriers, and when the network is anchored in the book, Pinduoduo found that there is very little room for their own choice. As a result, Pinduoduo chose the most difficult agricultural fresh food as the main breakthrough.
From 2018 to 2021, the GMV of agricultural products on the Pinduoduo platform was 65.3 billion yuan, 136.3 billion yuan, 270 billion yuan, and 420 billion yuan respectively.
From the demand side, during the Spring Festival, fresh fruits, nuts and cakes and other agricultural products often become an important part of the New Year, and people's demand for these products naturally increases.
From the perspective of the supply side, the deep participation of e-commerce platforms in the trading of agricultural products is of greater significance to farmers than general commodities.
This is because there are more intermediate links in the traditional agricultural product sales chain, which mainly include farmers, buyers, wholesale markets, retailers, etc., farmers often lack sufficient market information, can not accurately understand market demand and changes, so they are in a disadvantageous position in pricing and sales. The multi-level transmission between farmers and consumers also makes farmers have a low sense of participation in the distribution of benefits, and single farmers or small-scale farmers usually have weak bargaining power and difficulty in protecting their rights when facing buyers.
The emergence of e-commerce platforms, directly connecting farmers and consumers, through the "direct origin" model to greatly reduce the intermediate links, this model not only shortens the sales chain of agricultural products, but also improves the transparency and efficiency of the entire industry, helps farmers to obtain more profits, and is also conducive to allowing consumers to enjoy fresher, high-quality agricultural products.
However, Pinduoduo also has some problems that need to be addressed.
First of all, the consumption trend follows the criterion of "cost performance is king", and as a category with a low degree of standardization, the cost performance of agricultural products is difficult to quantify, after all, more subjective factors such as "taste" and "appearance" are important attributes in the agricultural product trading market.
Secondly, although agricultural e-commerce has been started for nearly ten years, on the whole, the online rate of agricultural products is still very low, and the circulation link with the highest online rate is only one of the links after all, and Pinduoduo still has a large blank area in other fields.
Finally, although Pinduoduo started as an agricultural product, it is currently facing a strong impact from new agricultural e-commerce companies such as Dongfang Selection, which currently has its own APP, which carries out live streaming through "agricultural products + local culture", which is more conducive to driving the sales of special products in various places. The nature of interest and content also has a strong impact on consumers' minds, which poses a direct threat to Pinduoduo.
Can Dou Kuaishu play the brand marketing of the Spring Festival and activate the shopping festival?
In recent years, with the rise of live broadcast e-commerce, content e-commerce platforms represented by Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, etc., have gradually become players that cannot be ignored in major shopping festivals.
During the New Year's Festival, Douyin launched a special session of "15% off one piece", which lasted from January 13th to January 28th, creating a total of four theme scenes: trendy New Year's goods, reunion New Year's goods, flavored New Year's goods and welfare New Year's goods, and a number of head live broadcast rooms launched a large number of exclusive preferential products on the basis of the platform's discounts.
It is reported that the GMV of the first day of the Kuaishou e-commerce fresh food industry New Year's Festival (January 13) increased by 31% compared with the first day of last year's New Year's Festival (December 24, 2022), breaking the historical peak of the industry.
Source: Kuaishou app
Looking back at last year, 618, Double 11 and other big promotions continued to cool down, and ** directly canceled the Double 12 event and set up another flag, which reflected the gradual decline of traditional e-commerce in the traditional shopping festival. In fact, out of interest in the attributes of e-commerce, compared to double.
Ten. 1. Double 12 and other shopping festivals, the New Year's Festival has more room to play.
This is because the New Year Festival is backed by the most solemn traditional festival in China, the Spring Festival, as the most important festival of the year for Chinese, with the deepest cultural genes, the strongest consumption willingness and potential consumption capacity, together with the longest statutory holiday of the previous year, it provides consumers with the best consumption soil, and the consumption desire of Chinese people is much higher than usual. With the blessing of cultural elements, the added value of goods can be increased. For example, mooncakes are sold during the Mid-Autumn Festival and zongzi are sold during the Dragon Boat Festival, and during the Spring Festival, this range of products will be expanded to almost all categories of specialty products.
At the same time, by integrating traditional cultural elements into product design and marketing strategies, brands can establish a unique image and cultural connotation, and also help to enhance brand image and differentiated competitive advantages, so as to stand out in the highly competitive market. Brands are also more willing to launch various ** activities and preferential policies to attract consumers' attention and desire to buy.
During the Spring Festival, people will socialize through New Year's greetings, gatherings, etc. In the process, they may share new and quirky items they have purchased or good things they recommend to friends and family. This kind of social interaction can drive more traffic and leads to e-commerce platforms.
For interest e-commerce companies such as Dou Kuaishu, the underlying logic is mainly based on the form of short ** and live broadcast, attracting users through content creation and social interaction, and then promoting product sales. Nowadays, the festive atmosphere stimulates the creativity of users, whether in terms of quantity, quality, or social communication, which helps to achieve a qualitative leap in the creation of content covering life, entertainment, education, etc.
At the same time, during the approaching Spring Festival, users' leisure time increases, which is also conducive to making full use of fragmented time Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu to infiltrate their minds, using advanced algorithm technology to recommend content and products that users may be interested in according to their interests, behaviors, social relationships and other data, which is more in line with the atmosphere of the festival itself.
In other words, whether it is from the perspective of consumption environment, consumption willingness, product design, marketing planning, and all aspects, the New Year's Festival will be a stage for interested e-commerce platforms to show their talents.
It is reported that Douyin has set up a special area for a 15% discount on the venue, and has offered various consumption coupons, red envelope rain and other activities, while Kuaishou has launched a "10,000-person group" gameplay, hoping to select "hot goods".
Obviously, as a new force that has entered the e-commerce battlefield, the main planting power of content e-commerce may be the key to re-leveraging the fulcrum of the shopping festival.
Write at the end
As the pace of the Spring Festival is getting closer and closer, the e-commerce New Year Festival is also coming as scheduled, bringing consumers a rich shopping feast. From traditional New Year's goods to emerging cultural and creative products, from online discounts** to offline experience activities, the e-commerce New Year's Festival has undoubtedly added more color and fun to our lives.
After a year of a dismal promotion festival, the New Year's Festival has also been pinned on by the e-commerce industry to become a new starting point.
Whether it is an established chess player like Tmall and JD.com, or an impactful backbone like Pinduoduo, or a new player like Douyin and Kuaishou, they are all committed to using festival elements and cultural genes to attract consumers' attention and desire to buy.
At the same time, major platforms are also facing their own problems that need to be solved. Whether it is facing the pressure of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, or the rise of competition in the same industry, shelf e-commerce has not yet been able to find the key to solve the problem, and the rapidly rising live broadcast e-commerce is changing the industry pattern, but after all, it is at a late-mover disadvantage, and it is difficult to play an influential role in promoting changes in the industry atmosphere for a while.
With the rendering of the atmosphere of consumption downgrade, in the coming 2024, e-commerce platforms still have a long way to go.