Source: Interface News
Author: Li Biao, Cheng Lu
This year's Double 11 was swiped by the "lowest price".
"The lowest price of the whole network", "real low price", "the bottom price of the entire network" ........ Same slogan slogans, plus various "buy expensive compensation" and "low -cost guarantee" policy,Put the entire Double 11 advertising position without gaps.The lowest price on the entire network has undergone a viral transmission.
Ding Jia has been in the e -commerce industry for more than 10 years.In 2012, he entered the industry after graduating from college.In September of this year, Ding Jia returned to his hometown of Zhanjiang to open a Taobao shop for his own, specializing in selling rice cookers.
The low price is no longer the result, but the means -this is the first time Ding Jia has participated in the Double 11 as a merchant this year.In the past, if in accordance with the promotion policies of various e -commerce platforms, the merchants only needed to launch the "coupon+gift" and paid promotion, which can also have a good effect.However, this year is completely unreasonable. Double 11 will not only cut prices at first, but also compare the price throughout the process.Not only is the platform compared, but also the merchants are compared.
In the downward spiral of "price reduction, price comparison, and price reduction", who has made the lowest price on the entire network, and what has changed the lowest price on the entire network is already a complex issue that involves consumers, merchants, and platforms.
Who has a low price, there is a traffic
Double 11 has the most valuable part that it creates a peak of traffic.
Different from the double 11 of the previous two years, this year's e -commerce platforms have no effort in marketing.Weibo's latest financial report captured this change. In the third quarter of this year, Weibo's advertising revenue increased by only 3%. Management attributed it to the fourth quarter because of the overall market as a whole.Because management has noticed that this year's Double 11 e -commerce platform competition is fierce and active.
Interface Journalists interviewed the ecological person in charge of an e -commerce platform that the head players in the industry have established different platform ecology based on different traffic distribution rules.
In the past, the three major e -commerce platforms of Taobao, Pinduoduo, and JD.com have their own significant characteristics.For example, Pinduoduo most resolutely regards the price as the unique leverage.Regardless of participation in any marketing activities, merchants can get traffic as long as the price reduction.
Taobao attaches importance to sales most. Merchants often invest in advertising to make sales more, and then obtain platform traffic with sales, and finally create explosive models through drainage.
JD.com has two types of businesses: self -employment and POP. The former is mainly brand merchants, and the latter is mainly small and medium -sized third -party merchants.The original distribution of traffic was to give priority to self -employment. Later, internal reforms for compulsory demanding the gap between self -employment and POP.
But in Double 11 this year, when the lowest price on the entire network became a competition that was put on the table, the original mechanism was no longer effective.Each platform has launched a price comparison tool, and the price has become the highest priority traffic password.
Ding Jia's Taobao store is not large, it belongs to the "white brand" commonly used in the e -commerce industry.He participated in the business strategy adopted for the first time, and he was simple and rude: he was unable to make explosive products, so he stared at several of the largest rice cookers products on the platform, and then reduced the price.As long as the same models are below Tmall stores, they can be recommended by the system after being captured by the system.
After getting a five -star price recommendation, the platform's traffic resources are prioritized to it, and the performance of the small shop directly takes off.Visitors of a single product have soared from 1000 to 4,000, and sold more than 400 a day. This is already a very considerable result for small and medium businesses.
According to Ding Jia's plan, if the volume of sales orders in a single month rose to 10,000 units at one time, you can purchase 30,000 units from the manufacturer at one time.Get higher discount discounts.Calculating, although the price reduction has made the profit space of the single product, the overall cost of the shop can be reduced by 10%to 15%, and you can also make money.
No matter whether a large merchant or a small business, who has the lowest price, there is a traffic.Ding Jia regards this change as the simplest business logic of the double 11 return: price competition is cruel enough, but it is also fair enough.
Who is making the lowest price on the entire network?
Double 11 Shopping Festival has reached the 15th year, and it is not as great as the initial to consumers.
International Consulting Institution Bain's latest Double 11 report statistics, the agency chose to conduct a sampling survey of 3,000 Chinese consumers and found that it was a sharp contrast with the enthusiasm of the e -commerce platform to participate in the promotion.Introduce this year's "Double Eleven", far below 76%of 2021; 77%of consumers plan to reduce consumption expenditure or maintain the same level as last year in "Double Eleven" this year.Consumers are more inclined to rational consumption, sensitive to price perception, and more enthusiastic about the price comparison of different platforms.
In this environment, the pursuit of low prices has become an industry consensus. The lowest price on the entire network has even been directly written into the marketing theme of the three major e -commerce companies this year.Tmall and Taobao clearly announced that the KPI of the Double 11 this year is "the lowest price on the entire network"; JD this year will set the theme of this year as "really cheap", and the merchants have called for "really low prices";Clarifying the platform's low -cost strategy is "official subsidy throughout the year+the bottom price of the entire network".
Interface News learned that each of the preparation for Double 11 has strengthened its own price mechanism.Even JD.com, which rarely initiates the lowest price of the entire network in the past, has promoted the price comparison tools in various departments this year.Even special categories of products in some departments can only rely on artificial comparison in the short term, and they are also required to have the lowest price of the entire network as soon as possible.
In addition, this year, small and medium -sized merchants like Ding Jia are becoming an active target of e -commerce giants.Compared with brand merchants, small and medium -sized merchants do not have brand advantages, and depend on platform traffic, and correspondingly cooperate with price reduction, which has become the main force of the platform to play low -cost battles.
Compared with Pinduoduo's advantages in the number of small and medium -sized merchants, Taobao and JD.com's previous ecological resources are not here, but this year, they have been actively expanding and absorbing small and medium -sized merchants.Whether Liu Qiangdong shouted internally at the end of last year, Jingdong "regained low -cost weapons" or Ma Yun called on Alibaba to "return to Taobao" at the internal communication meeting, and vigorously supporting small and medium businesses is an important part of its low -cost strategy.
An insider of JD told the interface journalist that the share of the sinking market of e -commerce is mainly occupied by small and medium -sized white card merchants, including 3C digital and daily department stores.Competitors Pinduoduo, Taobao.But with the intensification of competition, they are now in turn to become the object of competition.
This Double 11, the number of JD participating merchants increased by 1.5 times compared with last year, most of the newly added small and medium merchants.In addition, JD.com ’s“ no pits and universal commissions ”mining and sale live rooms have also opened up additional traffic support for small and medium -sized merchants.JD.com revealed at the Double 11 media opened today that the cumulative number of viewers in the live broadcast room of JD.com have exceeded 320 million, and the single volume of new merchants has increased by more than 5 times the same period last month.
Competitors have also come up with the same strength. This year, Double 11 is also the largest number of Tmall small and medium -sized merchants.As of 0:00 on November 11, the war reported that more than 2.2 million small and medium merchants had doubled the turnover on the Tmall platform.
New power is also actively involved in low -cost competition.Douyin e -commerce directly launched a 100 billion traffic support plan and put into subsidies to ensure that the product is "officially reduced".Quick -handed e -commerce invested "unprecedented resources", including 18 billion traffic dividends and 2 billion subsidies.Live broadcasting e -commerce has been a new stroller in recent years.According to the calculation of Bain Consultation, last year, last year, the GMV (total product transaction) of the traditional e -commerce platform increased by only 3%, while the live electricity of Douyin and Kuaishou representedThe GMV of the business increased by 146%.
Merchant involved in the vortex
In order to support the lowest price of the entire network, e -commerce platforms monitor the price of merchants in real time through the price comparison tools and dynamically allocate traffic.
After the performance rose sharply, Ding Jia soon discovered that after the platform's priority increased its priority, the lowest price turned into a goal that could never be achieved at any time.
Once the price of similar products of friends and merchants is reduced by 1 to 2 yuan (RMB, S $ 0.19 to 0.38), the traffic of its own shop will start to decline directly, and the five -star price power recommendation will be snatched by the other party.At first, all parties could also control the profit comparison price, the more they came to the back like a pure price war.
Ding Jia himself is also increasingly tangled, because the profit margin of small and medium -sized merchants itself is low, and sometimes knowing that the opponent is selling at a loss, but for traffic, he can only bite his teeth to follow up the price.
The lowest price of the lowest price of the entire network between the platform is even more heated.To support the platform to achieve the target of price reduction, merchants need to cooperate with profit.Compared with large brand merchants with multiple platform channels, small and medium businesses rely on deeper support for single platforms, and they have weaker discourse rights when the platform is reduced.Once the lowest price out of the network becomes a vicious price war, "price reduction, price comparison, and price reduction" will become a dead cycle of mutual snapper.
The "Hai's Boom Boom JD.com" incident, which started the first shot of Double 11 this year, was completely exposed to the public in the public.
First of all, Hai's prosecution platform as JD.com ’s business merchant to follow up with the“ lowest price on the entire network ”breach of contract to change prices without authorization, infringe on brand pricing power and cause damage to the benefits."Subsidies for price reduction" and involved the base price agreement between Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room and merchant.The unreasonable JD.com and Hai's "dispute between pricing power", Li Jiaqi's "lowest price on the entire network" of the live broadcast room changed "the bottom price on the entire network" has become the iconic event of the price war of the Double 11 platform this year.
However, some merchants have decided to put themselves away.Ye Xu and her leather goods shop did not participate in Double 11 this year. This is the third consecutive year that she has not registered.Her leather goods shop used to be a tag seller who sold over one million in Taobao in Taobao.
According to her own observation, the store traffic during the Double 11 period this year was half less than the usual peak period, but the overall sales did not decrease.Seeing other merchants with platforms get more traffic and sales, Ye Xu did not regret his choice.In her eyes, the era of fast -to -sales of Double 11 traffic has passed. She does not think it is a rational choice to cater to the platform to engage in price war.
Although Ye Xu has the courage to jump out of the low -priced "vortex" stirred by the platform, a large number of merchants are still actively or passively involved in it.Faced with more and more cautious consumers, they must cooperate with the platform's performance. It is really possible to make real money from consumers.
(The requirements of the interview, Ding Jia and Ye Xu are a pseudonym in the text)
