Double 11 enters “middle age”

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Text / Wu Xianzhi

Source/Photon Planet (ID: TMTweb)

After Tmall and JD.com successively announced the Double 11 schedule, starting from the National Day holiday, platforms, brands, and even agency operating companies have quietly accelerated their work rhythms.

An employee of Ruoyuchen, a leading e-commerce operating company, told Photon Planet that from the end of the National Day to the four weeks of November 11, the original two-week holiday will be adjusted to a single holiday, and the adjusted four days can be used on Double Eleven. Compensation after completion. The administrative department, which is the logistics support of the entire company, will provide the team with afternoon tea, supper and other materials at four time points on October 26, 31, and November 10 and 11.

“Compared with the previous years, the work intensity is not so great, but the requirements of brand customers are getting higher and higher, so the work pressure has actually increased.”

In fact, like Ruo Yuchen, the brand side is prepared to cope with the pressure of work. For example, some employees put a camp bed on the workstation, and they also need to hold a budget that has not grown much and support high-growth KPIs.

It is obvious that this year’s Double 11 will be more special than previous years. In the past three years, people have developed the habit of hoarding goods. Under the combined effect of various uncertain factors, people are more rational and restrained in consumption, forcing platforms, brands, Generation operators adjust their thinking and respond to market changes in a timely manner.

The changes include the operational aspect of repeating purchases and regular customers, the logic of marketing with a large volume and favoritism, and locking in consumption budgets on Double 11. There is no doubt that live broadcast is still an important place, and its weight even exceeds that of the platform’s own channels, such as Juhuasuan.

The deeper difference lies in the fact that the two cats and dogs are going on a completely different road to promotion. Tmall has become a paradise for the pursuit of popular and non-standard products, while JD.com has become the main front for the pursuit of quality and standard products.

Brand and Industry Review Promotion

The big promotion is no longer a specific symbol of Double 11. From the brand’s point of view, the gap between the transaction peak and the flat peak is getting smaller and smaller.

A brand channel employee told Photon Planet that in the past, when the company made price gradients, it would be divided into daily sales price, flat promotion price, big promotion price, and targeted marketing. Now, “Juhuasuan has warmed up for two days and sold it for two days. The combined sales of the four days may be equivalent to 4.5 flat (daily) sales (volume).” The final result is that the Tmall brand has cut the flat promotion price. Align directly with Jingdong.

It is undeniable that the normalization of promotions and the return to rationality of the consumer market have made the explosion coefficient of Double 11 no longer so strong. The views of different industries on Double 11 are also gradually changing.

On the whole, most brands prefer repeat purchases rather than new ones. In the case of generally limited brand investment budgets, the cost-effectiveness of pulling new products is obviously not as good as operating old customers. A certain foreign cosmetics brand said, “It is not important to make profits for new customers. What we mainly consider now is how to maximize the customer orders of old customers. This is a solution that does not cost much and can help the business.”

The health care product market, which has grown steadily in recent years, can be roughly divided into two lines: domestic basic health care and overseas meals. Among them, many big brands in the overseas meal line put more emphasis on foodization and segmentation in this year’s Double 11. Coupled with fluctuations in the global supply chain, many products are raising prices.

A brand operator told Photon Planet that a leading overseas health care product brand has continued to increase prices this year due to supply chain reasons, and there is still a shortage of supply, such as calcium tablets and fish oil. Therefore, the market strategy does not give priority to new products. , but to revitalize and optimize existing categories.

Most of the domestic brands are concentrated in the basic categories. At present, the traditional brands and nourishing lines are growing more vigorously. The health care products industry is mainly dominated by this “blue hat”. Some sources point out that the “blue hat” share of the industry will reach more than 60% in the future. The so-called blue hat refers to the special logo for health food. “If there is a blue hat, the platform can ensure quality and compliance.”

Health care products are an important category in the rise of domestic products. On the one hand, the online rate is low, no more than 20%; on the other hand, the concept of nourishing is closer to the local consumption habits due to the guidance and assistance of macro policies. “Nowadays, health care products are incremental, and if others have not done it, it is easy to explode. Therefore, health care product brands with pharmaceutical company backgrounds will spare no effort to promote them, while some OEM brands will have a harder time.” .

Beauty has also changed significantly in recent years.

For a long time in the past, the “small sample economy” was almost the promotion killer of major brands. However, this year, the small sample is becoming a “big sample”. The above-mentioned brands told Photon Planet that in addition to the regular promotions on the platform and the full reduction of store memberships, there is only a buy-one-get-one-free discount on Double 11 this year, and the proportion of samples will gradually decrease.

Live broadcast has always been one of the important channels for beauty brands. In previous years, the Double 11 domestic products and foreign high-end brands were carnival moments, but this year, domestic brands may be inferior. In addition to the more attractive marketing strategy, the brand power and marketing investment are incomparable with domestic brands.

An insider revealed that Lancome launched Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya on Double 11 last year, and the sales on Double 11 reached 500 million to 600 million. And throughout the promotion period, Lancome’s sales exceeded 1.5 billion. The change of head anchor + sales strategy is very likely to further widen the gap between domestic and foreign brands.

The difference between cats and dogs is clear, and they talk to themselves.

As the two major players in the promotion over the years, Tmall and JD.com have gone from falling in love with each other to parting ways. Now, in the eyes of brands and consumers, Double 11 actually has two appearances.

Tmall has established a solid moat at both ends of B and C in the non-standard field. A domestic first-line brand said, “No matter how fierce Douyin is, for us, it is just a channel for growth. We still have to find Tmall for promotion and continuous operation, not to mention that the people from Ali Beauty were the first to enter the game. People, all of them are human beings, and they know all the ways.”

JD.com is an outlier in the entire e-commerce field, and is now the main front for a considerable number of standard products. For example, 3C home appliances, milk powder and other categories that value “quality and efficiency”. In addition, for some commodities with high timeliness, the variables brought about by the epidemic, JD.com’s inherent impression on the supply chain cannot be shaken.

A few days ago, Tmall and JD.com successively announced this year’s Double 11 schedule. Tmall shortened the Double 11 schedule and postponed the pre-sale date to October 24, while JD.com still continued the tradition of previous years, starting from October 20. An insider said that JD.com is not very concerned about whether Tmall is shortened. Anyway, we will start a wave on the 20th. This also indirectly confirms that the cat and dog dispute has been eliminated.

In response to the complicated problems of the Double 11 gameplay in the past, some optimizations have been made this year. For example, the full discount will not be issued in the form of coupons, but will be deducted by default at the time of settlement. The complicated gameplay in the past may only be reflected in interactive games.

“In the past, users’ staying time on Taobao was not enough. Especially after the rise of interest e-commerce such as Douyin, it is necessary to find new ways to increase stickiness.” Tao generally relies on four actions: live broadcast, short video content, social networking and mini games. The only real effective ones are live broadcast and mini games.

The live broadcast once allowed Hand Tao to regain the lost time. What I didn’t expect was to make the head anchor bigger and have a great say. On October 20 last year, when the double 11 pre-sale opened, the number of online users in the live broadcast room of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi was close to 400 million, which made the platform fearful. With the withdrawal of Sydney and Wei Ya, although the problem that the head and tail are too big has been solved, it is difficult to directly compete with Douyin in terms of traffic by relying on their “little partner” and the solitary king Li Jiaqi alone.

It is not exaggerated to say that small games should be the most successful means of hand shopping nowadays. Multiple games are connected to each other and linked to the brand, thus making the game itself a crossroads of goods and brands. Whether it was throwing candy last year or building a building by stacking cats, collecting energy, and raising cats in the cloud, it has indeed continued its strength for hand Taobao.

A practitioner believes that Taobao is not just as simple as using games to retain users, but at least three considerations. First of all, use the “interactive PK” of gangs and factions to activate users. Secondly, when the game task is set, it will increase the store browsing, thereby increasing the brand exposure. In addition, the setting of add-on collections further improves conversions. “These tasks point to some indicators associated with the store.”

Functional applications and entertainment applications were once passive with the entry of Pinduoduo’s purchases and Douyin’s interest e-commerce. However, Double 11 is still the home of cats and dogs anyway. The reason is very simple. For more than ten years, people have become accustomed to the centralized consumption of Double 11. In the past two years, the habit of stockpiling goods has continued to increase, and the operation has become more refined. These changes are obviously It is not enough for entertainment applications.

An operator of Ruo Yuchen mentioned that there has been a solution for regular monthly shipments in response to the stockpiling itself for the goods that are expired and cannot be stored, and the goods shipped every month are the latest factory time, so there is no need to worry about expiration. . “In fact, it is also to match the big brand promotion strategy, so some optimizations have been made.”

Rediscover the big promotion

This year’s Double 11, consumers are not only rational, but also direct. People are far less concerned about the full reduction and red envelopes than whether the price is really cheap.

Brands and consumers have similar demands: when the budget is limited, the brand will no longer make detours. For example, when doing the Double 11 project, if a company does not agree with the operation, it will go through the procurement process and find another person.

According to an employee of Ruo Yuchen, after the launch of the price comparison function on Tmall this year, the brand owner’s requirements for the agency operation have also increased. For example, it is necessary to set a promotion plan based on the price of the past 6 months.

For the agency operation, it is necessary not only to understand the brand, understand the traffic, have clear logic, excellent text ability, but also have strong data analysis and market insight capabilities.

The platform is also changing, especially the cats and dogs. A person familiar with the matter revealed that since Ali’s e-commerce system and digital marketing Alimama are two different departments, each has independent KPIs. This makes Tmall’s marketing more volatile than JD.com, so it is easy for brands to break out, which is suitable for non-standard products. For standard products, it is more uncontrollable.

In terms of JD.com, the e-commerce and marketing departments are not separated, and marketing is generally more stable. This may be one of the reasons why some brands that want to pursue certainty and stability prefer JD.com.

In addition, Photon Planet has learned from several industry insiders that the current platform, brand, and agency operation seem to have realized that Double 11 itself is not just a cycle covered by the big promotion, but anchored to next year’s consumption as much as possible Budget – This objectively explains why many fast-moving consumer goods are reluctant to fight price wars, but are promoted in an increased amount.

“Anyway, after this Double 11, can’t you still think about next year’s 618?”

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