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Source: Alphabet
Douyin and Ele.me officially announced their cooperation yesterday, and a long overdue “marriage” finally came to fruition. Regarding this cooperation, Alphabet made an accurate prediction as early as 18 months ago in the article “Only Zhang Yiming Can Save Hungry?” Now, the vision of the alphabet is finally a reality.
The official announcement cooperation between Douyin and Ele.me, coupled with the joint venture of Meikuai at the end of last year, means that the battlefield of local life has been further expanded, from simple takeaway to local e-commerce; from single combat to “2V2” group combat.
Ele.me’s public relations told Alphabet that the specific form of cooperation will be realized through the Ele.me applet within the Douyin app. As for the specific participation and entry methods of merchants, Douyin and Ele.me will further release them.
It is worth noting that Douyin has also quietly adjusted the weight of the applet recently, and the “My applet” function has obtained the same secondary entry as the Douyin Mall. Since the cooperation between the two parties is at the level of small programs, the alphabet list guesses that Ele.me is likely to get a fixed booth in the “My Small Program” discovery column, which is equivalent to a three-level entrance.
The “My Mini Program” interface of the Douyin App is slightly different from the WeChat Mini Program. It is more like a combination of the WeChat Mini Program and the Jiugongge function. There are both private domain and user-used mini-program entrances, and public domain, fixed booths similar to Jiugongge. According to the actual measurement of the alphabet list, the same applet is displayed in the “discovery” column of different users.
Chen Liteng, an e-commerce analyst at Netease, believes that Douyin and Kuaishou both hold huge traffic pools and have the possibility of multi-dimensional transformation, not only in catering, but also in e-commerce, tourism, etc. There is potential for value mining. The four companies of “2V2” are all leading companies in their respective fields, and the cooperation between them also forms their own battle lines, which are both attack and defense.
But for the four companies, finding good teammates may be just the beginning. The giants have their own ways of doing things and interest demands, and the success rate of cooperation is not high. JD.com has cooperated with Kuaishou and Douyin before, but the results are not significant. Regarding the results of the cooperation between Meituan and Kuaishou, both parties expressed inconvenience to disclose.
The vision is beautiful, and the two sides of the cooperation also have complementary advantages, but the difficulties and concerns to be overcome by both parties will only be more. After the official announcement, how deep is the in-depth cooperation between Ele.me and Douyin, and how open Douyin’s open platform can be, is the real focus of the follow-up of this “2V2”, and for Douyin, conspiracy It’s not just about “selling water”, making Ele.me a pioneer, and building a business ecosystem that combines mini-programs and Jiugongge, so as to further catch up and surpass WeChat. This is probably the final destination of Douyin’s strategy.
A
The key to this cooperation, and also the suspense, is how much traffic Ele.me will get on Douyin.
The two sides did not disclose too many details of the cooperation. According to the current information, the cooperation between Douyin and Ele.me will be “based on the Douyin open platform and using mini programs as the carrier”.
At the beginning of 2020, Meituan and Ele.me launched small programs on Douyin, which can be accessed through the search portal. Douyin also allows them to place ordering portals on the brand homepage, and users can click to jump. However, this cooperation did not achieve the expected results. At present, the Ele.me applet still retains the ordering entry, but after entering, it shows “product function under construction”, and Meituan has already withdrawn the ordering applet.
To reflect the depth of cooperation, Douyin gives at least a higher entry weight than the search entry.
At present, Douyin’s local life business does not have a first-level entrance, but is under the first-level entrance “same city”. Users need to pull down the same-city interface to find several second-level entrances such as “nearby food” and “leisure and entertainment”.
Recently, the first-level entrance of Douyin App has changed frequently. Judging from the imagination of the local life market, the outside world is looking forward to having a first-level entrance in Douyin App in the future.
But can Ele.me, an external partner, get a share of the growth of Douyin’s local life and gain a third-level or even a second-level entry? Chen Liteng believes that how to transform each sub-scenario, whether it is done through cooperation or in person, depends on the consideration of the company’s own strategy.
Even if Douyin opens an entrance under the “same city”, Ele.me may not be satisfied: some users’ Douyin interface does not have the same city entrance.
Such a form may not be conducive to the construction of the small program ecology in Douyin.
Alphabet noticed that Douyin has recently adjusted the fixed display position of the “I” interface. The “My Mini Program” function, which was originally hidden in more columns in the upper right corner, has obtained a fixed display position, which is located next to the Douyin Mall. .
After clicking to enter “My Mini Programs”, the upper column is the recently used Mini Programs, which is similar to WeChat, while the lower “Discovery” column gives some Mini Programs larger and relatively fixed display positions. The alphabet list believes that Douyin is likely to give Ele.me a fixed display position in “discovery”. In this way, Ele.me is equivalent to gaining a third-level entrance in Douyin and getting the much-needed traffic.
For Douyin, through the high-frequency opening of the Ele.me applet, it will actually become a grip for Douyin to educate users to develop the habit of using the applet, which is equivalent to the Ele.me applet itself helping Douyin Small program ecological drainage.
At present, the Douyin version of Jiugong Ge, “Discovery”, already has small programs for merchants including Yihetang and Qunar Travel, covering scene services such as education, hotel arrival, and wine travel.
Another problem with this cooperation is how much Ele.me has to pay in order to obtain this traffic entry.
Although Ele.me can supplement Douyin’s offline service system and contract performance capabilities to a certain extent, and even help Douyin to liven up the mini-program ecosystem, there is no free lunch in the world. If Douyin gives Ele.me a higher weight entry, this The traffic fee is definitely not cheap. In Ali’s second quarterly report this year, Ele.me’s unit economic efficiency has just turned positive, and it can’t stand the toss.
Refer to the previous agreement between Douyin and Taobao. In June 2019, media reports said that Douyin and Taobao signed an annual framework agreement of 7 billion yuan, 6 billion yuan in advertising, and 1 billion yuan in commissions, but Douyin said the data was untrue.
B
For Douyin, this cooperation can be said to kill three birds with one stone.
First, regardless of the depth of cooperation, Douyin can earn a traffic fee for “selling water”. A large number of food and grass content accumulated on Douyin, if it can be converted into orders through cooperation, then whether it is charging traffic fees or sharing accounts, or exchanging resources with Ele.me, Douyin can get real benefits. Interests.
In addition, more importantly, the intention of Douyin and Ele.me to cooperate to expand local e-commerce has surfaced.
The cooperation news mentioned that the two parties will “bring a new local life experience of ‘see, click, and reach’ in the video era”, which also proves that Douyin is not staring at the small cake of takeaway, but local e-commerce. This big cake with huge potential.
Starting from 2020, with the disappearance of the Internet demographic dividend and the slowdown in economic growth, people have tightened their wallets and consumed rationally. The 20-year high-speed growth of the e-commerce industry has come to an end.
Instant retail has become one of the few bright spots for growth in the e-commerce industry. Previously, it was Meituan Ali and JD.com who cut this cake, but now there is a vibrato behind them.
According to 36氪, the GMV of Douyin’s local life in the first half of 2022 was about 22 billion yuan. In just half a year, Douyin’s local life business surpassed last year’s failure to reach the GMV target for the entire year. At the same time, Douyin has begun to try to realize this business. Since June this year, Douyin has increased group purchase commissions according to the profit rate of different categories.
Such rapid growth has allowed the outside world to see the potential of Douyin in this field. Sitting on a huge content pool and traffic pool, it has accumulated a lot of Douyin from merchants. What is lacking is the ground push and distribution network required for instant delivery. Ele.me can just make up for this shortcoming.
In this market, Douyin’s biggest rival is Meituan, both of which adopt the logic of “content acquisition”. It’s just that Douyin has accumulated a large number of short videos of planting grass, and it is hoped that users will complete the transformation within the Douyin system and realize a closed loop from planting grass to consumption, while Meituan is just the opposite.
There is a view that this gives Douyin and Meituan room for dislocation competition. But in fact, the traffic brought by short video grass planting is more obvious, and the public comments that the scene and content form are solidified are the weaker side. In the era of short video, Meituan’s advantage is no longer. Therefore, with the help of Kuaishou, it has become the best choice for Meituan.
In addition, it is worth noting that the cooperation will be launched through Ele.me’s Douyin applet. The cooperation announcement also highlighted the importance of the Douyin open platform.
Douyin and WeChat are currently the only two super business ecosystems, and Mini Programs are the underlying architecture of this system. Alphabet has mentioned in previous articles that Douyin should follow the example of WeChat Jiugongge to liven up the mini-program ecology and further improve its diversion efficiency.
At present, WeChat’s mini-program ecology is obviously more prosperous. In the process of the rise of new giants such as Meituan, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, the traffic of WeChat mini-programs has contributed greatly.
In the Douyin business system, the platform e-commerce part of the public domain has been relatively prosperous; while the small program part of the private domain, whether it is a small game or high-frequency services such as local life, has been tepid. How to do this part is a major topic of Douyin at the moment.
Zhang Nan, CEO of Douyin Group, said that in the future, we also hope to create greater value for users through Douyin’s open platform and work with more partners. The cooperation with Ele.me is obviously a good test field for creating a small program ecology.
C
Previously, there was a view that Douyin’s push to grow grass was imitating Xiaohongshu.
However, the commercialization process of Xiaohongshu is relatively slow. Douyin is developing the group buying business while promoting the grass, and it is eating the cake of Meituan.
In addition, this cooperation is not the first time Douyin has tried the food delivery business. In July last year, Douyin piloted its self-operated “Heartbeat Takeaway”. According to Caijing 11 people citing people familiar with the matter, Chengdu was selected as the pilot city for the project, but it was eventually removed from the shelves due to the difficulty of building a logistics distribution system.
With Douyin and Ele.me joining forces, the takeaway business is making a comeback, and local e-commerce will also be on the agenda. The battlefield of local e-commerce will be upgraded to “2V2” group battles, and the camp and direction will gradually become clear.
The strong alliance is only the first step, and Douyin’s opponents are not just Meituan and Kuaishou.
One is the user’s mentality. Whether it’s Douyin group purchases or later takeaways, many users place orders with an early adopter mentality.
A Douyin creator told Alphabet that the best time to publish Douyin works, that is, the peak traffic is generally from 12:00 to 13:00 noon, 18:00 to 19:00 in the afternoon, and 21:00 to 22:00 in the evening. Corresponding to lunch break, get off work and bedtime respectively. The lunch break and bedtime correspond to the after-dinner scene.
Supper may be a category that can open up the situation. Douyin user Su Su said that he often reads food content on Douyin at night, and then transfers to other platforms to place orders. Susu thinks that if Douyin can reach it with one click, he is willing to try takeout at Douyin.
Even if there is a content advantage of short videos, it is necessary to give benefits to users in the beginning. “Maybe I will go to other platforms to compare prices.” Susu said. Due to the existence of red envelopes and other factors, the takeaway of the same merchant fluctuates to a certain extent on different platforms at different times, and many takeaway users are highly price-sensitive and have become accustomed to the “price ratio of three”. To change the minds of users, the platform needs to bear the cost of both time and money.
The above-mentioned impact of Douyin on the local e-commerce market is based on the premise that the cooperation model between Douyin and Ele.me can operate smoothly. The ultimate goal of this cooperation is the market share of local e-commerce and the prosperity of Douyin’s internal mini-program ecosystem. This not only tests the strategic planning and specific operational capabilities, but also the greater test lies in the cooperation between the two parties.
There are few successful cases of cooperation between giants. Horse racing competition is the norm on the Internet. The cooperation between Pinduoduo and Gome, Douyin and Taobao Jingdong is a lesson from the past. “Before Douyin cooperated with Taobao and JD.com, did it have any impact on Pinduoduo?” a Meituan publicist said, “The track is very wide, and there is no either-or relationship.”
In the local e-commerce track, since the cooperation was announced in December last year, Meituan and Kuaishou have not announced the progress of cooperation on other occasions. Now opening Kuaishou’s Meituan applet, you can still only find services such as group buying, and cannot provide services such as take-out.
Li Chengdong, founder of Dolphin Think Tank, believes that cooperation may be divided into different stages. In the early stage, Douyin gave Ele.me traffic, while Douyin can complete closed-loop transactions, liven up the B-end merchant ecosystem, improve service capabilities, and cultivate user habits. Later, you will consider whether to do your own logistics. “They only consider the interests of different stages, and the demand points are different.” Li Chengdong said.
The enemy of the enemy is a friend. In terms of local life and business, Meituan is the common enemy of Douyin and Ele.me. But when Douyin develops to a certain extent, it will also compete with Ele.me itself. Not to mention that at the group level, Douyin and Ali compete in some businesses, some businesses cooperate, and some businesses both compete and cooperate.
The giants have their own interests and demands, and cooperation is mostly a matter of concern. “For example, the cooperation between Jingdong and Douyin Kuaishou is very small. Because Douyin Kuaishou wants to do e-commerce business, it is in conflict with Jingdong, so it is particularly difficult to cooperate deeply.” Li Chengdong said.
That is to say, how long the “2V2” pattern can last, and even whether “2V2” itself is established, still depends on the depth and breadth of the follow-up cooperation.
At present, neither Douyin nor Ele.me has disclosed more details of the cooperation, but judging from the reactions of all parties, cooperation is obviously a win-win direction. Merchants, users, and market observers are all happy to see the “2V2” competitive situation. “Fortunately, it is 2 to 2, otherwise the variables of the market pattern may increase.” An industry analyst told the Alphabet.
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