The most "volume" 618 in history is coming. Do consumers pay the bill?

As the first big promotion after the recovery of consumption, this year's 618 seems to have a stronger smell of gunpowder than before. Continuing the trend of last year's Double Eleven, the traditional e-commerce platform and the live e-commerce platform directly point to each other's hinterland, and a melee is underway.

On May 18th, Aauto Quicker took the lead in launching the 618 pre-sale; On May 23rd, JD.COM followed closely, and other e-commerce platforms, such as Taobao, Tik Tok and Xiaohongshu, began to pre-sell 618 one after another. The month-long promotion has tested various platforms and brands in terms of price, traffic and content.

"Low price" and "profit-making" have become unavoidable topics in this year's 618 th National Congress. Some platforms shouted "the biggest investment in the history of 618", and some platforms said that it was "the biggest consumer welfare in the history of 618", while some platforms and brands that participated in 618 for the first time expected to fight for a place in the tide of consumption recovery.

Although the year-on-year growth of the total retail sales of consumer goods in the first quarter exceeded expectations, and the consumption of goods and services has been well restored, due to factors such as the previous epidemic, major e-commerce platforms are still facing greater growth pressure this year.

Under pressure, industry insiders revealed that this time, the "618 Great Promotion" has improved to some extent in terms of the types, quantities and services provided, especially in terms of discounts, and some of them have reached the level of "Double Eleven".

In fact, in the economic recovery cycle, the e-commerce industry that entered the stock era this year is the most "volume" in history.

The most "volume" in history is 618.

Throughout this year's performance of various e-commerce platforms before the 618 promotion, they all highlighted the "most" signboard. Almost every platform held a launching ceremony for the public on the eve of "618" to publicize its core advantages, either by investing the most or making the most profits, trying to make a name for itself.

The newly established Taobao Tmall Group was announced by CEO Dai Shan at the kick-off meeting of 618, which will be the "biggest investment" in history. It has repeatedly emphasized content and expanded the user scale for merchants. It is expected to achieve over 60 billion exposures in the whole cycle of 618, and it will also provide 2.3 billion yuan of red envelopes to bring billions of traffic support.

JD.COM, another representative of traditional e-commerce, announced the launch of ten billion subsidy day, super new product day, super live broadcast day and other activities. After the "coaching change", the first big promotion led by Xu Ran, CEO of JD.COM, was called "the biggest investment in the whole industry, focusing on more, faster, better and cheaper".

At the same time of the "cat-and-dog war", other e-commerce platforms are not to be outdone. This year, Pinduoduo, Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker, VideoNo. and even Xiaohongshu all joined the "618 Promotion" and started all-round competition in terms of price, traffic and content.

Judging from the user's gameplay, the overall rhythm of this year's 618 is not much different from previous years. It lasts for about one month, starting from the middle and late May and officially selling in June. Judging from the discount strength, there are full reductions, which is equivalent to a 20% to 8.5% discount. From the perspective of merchants, the data of third-party platforms shows that Daqiang pays more attention to improving the viscosity of core users, and Taobao subsidizes 10 billion yuan to reduce the commission rate; JD.COM has implemented "10 billion subsidies" and the 618 plan has increased investment for businesses by 20% and reduced operating costs by 30%; Pinduoduo and a number of e-commerce platforms carry out a number of promotional activities such as subsidies.

In May, the founder of beauty cosmetics observed that taking the beauty industry as an example, this year's 618 competition was obviously more intense. She mentioned that according to industry news, there are more than 20 brands with over 100 million pre-sales in Li Jiaqi Tmall. In addition to Tmall merchants, Taobao merchants have also implemented large preferential strategies simultaneously, and the integration of Tmall and Taobao has intensified competition; JD.COM's 10 billion subsidy policy was implemented in the first half of the year, and the intensity of this 618 was further increased. In addition, larger anchors from other platforms such as Luo Yonghao were introduced; The live broadcast e-commerce platform is one step ahead. The official launch of Tmall JD.COM 618 starts from 8: 00 to 24: 00 on May 31, while Tik Tok starts at 0: 00, and the threshold for preferential strength is lower, and the threshold for 150 yuan is fully reduced.

In fact, this session of 618 is not only a big promotion in the traditional sense, but also a big test after the organizational structure challenges and personnel changes of various platforms.

At the beginning of May, shortly after Alibaba launched the "1+6+N" organizational change, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Taobao's establishment, the new Taobao Tmall Group made its debut. At the same time, JD.COM also ushered in major personnel changes, CFO Xu Ran took over as CEO of JD.COM Group; A month ago, Pinduoduo also welcomed Zhao Jiazhen, the third CEO in history, focusing on supply chain management and business operations in China.

Zhuang Shuai, founder of Bailian Consulting, told China Newsweek that the consumption growth is less than expected from the existing data, and all major e-commerce platforms are looking forward to a larger growth this year. In this year's 618, it can be observed that in addition to the traditional JD.COM and Ali, platforms such as Pinduoduo, Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker and Meituan are all increasing their investment and actively participating. Each platform has surpassed the past in terms of profit-making for consumers and the scale of business participation, and has made great organizational and personnel adjustments.

Cui Lili, executive director of the Institute of E-commerce, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that the great promotion is the key moment to test leadership and organizational synergy, and it is also the time to see the most results. After e-commerce enters the stock competition, the trace of striving for high-quality merchants based on its own supply chain capability and resource empowerment is becoming more and more obvious, behind which is the competition of platform strength and the ability to jointly serve the terminal market with high-quality merchants.

The logic behind the price war

For consumers, the routine of e-commerce promotion is no stranger. But what is different this year is that major e-commerce platforms use the card of "low price" as winning numbers.

According to public data, at present, in the live e-commerce platform, the categories with obvious growth involve home appliances and 3C. Since last year, in these categories with higher customer unit price, the competition among platforms is particularly fierce. Shi Songpo, vice president of Locke Capital, pointed out that on the one hand, household appliances, mobile phones and other categories with higher customer unit prices are affected by the economic downturn, on the other hand, product innovation is not strong, and consumers' desire to change machines is weak. Whether it is home appliances or mobile phones, the overall sales volume in the domestic market continues to decline. This kind of brand benefits consumers, and it is helpless to exchange more for price.

In fact, since last year's Double Eleven, after e-commerce entered the stock market, the growth of various e-commerce platforms slowed down and began to control the prices of businesses and commodities more obviously than before. "Don't say a few tens of dollars, even the price difference of a few dollars can't exist on all platforms." A category head practitioner told China Newsweek that some platforms, such as JD.COM, are conveying the consumer perception of "cheapness" in elevator advertisements and various publicity this year, and the competition between platforms is definitely intensified.

QuestMobile data shows that last year's "Double Eleven" continued the rhythm of two waves. The first wave occurred in late October and early November, and the DAU of the industry was about 800 million. The second wave occurred on the day of the Double Eleven, and the DAU of the industry exceeded 900 million. In these two outbreaks, DAU increased by about 100 million compared with last year. During the promotion period, when the first wave of final payment was placed, the number of users of Taobao, Pinduoduo and JD.COM reached 36.21 million, up 6.1% year-on-year. At the same time, the number of overlapping users in Pinduoduo and Taobao reached 126 million, and the number of overlapping users in Pinduoduo and JD.COM also exceeded 55.74 million. The overlap between users of live e-commerce and traditional e-commerce is also getting higher and higher.

In May, it was believed that price competition was the result of high consumer overlap. In fact, the consumer overlap of mainstream platforms in the industry has exceeded 60%. Pinduoduo's 10 billion subsidies are taking advantage of price power to grab business with the inherent platform-based e-commerce; The live broadcast of Tik Tok's Talent follows the same pattern, and the facts also prove that users will change their consumption habits because of the price power factor; Ultra-low-priced products and channels such as 9.9 yuan are also launched to lower the threshold and expand new users. Competition in the price dimension will be the focus of the robbery drama.

But it seems more difficult for consumers to buy it than before, especially when it comes to complicated promotion rules. "618 doesn't want to spend a lot of time calculating, and I don't want to find a strategy." Some consumers expressed their feelings on social media. Up to now, 618 has not spent money this year.

Cui Lili pointed out that low price is a drainage strategy, but the flow may not be translated into real sales. As far as the specific situation this year is concerned, the overall market situation is really inactive, and the platform began to "subsidize 10 billion yuan" earlier. On this basis, further mentioning low prices may be more effective for some products with seasonal or improved demand. The key point of a good promotion is the real drop rather than the routine drop. One common demand of everyone is that the platform can be clearly discounted.

Promote and cool down again?

Judging from the pre-sale situation this year, many brands did not participate in the pre-sale, but only started the promotion when they were officially sold.

Shi Songpo observed that although 618 is the only big promotion in the whole year, the competition faced by businesses is also very great, the homogenization of products is serious, and the traffic cost and operating cost are high, which makes it difficult for brands with weak products and brands to stand out, so some brands choose to withdraw from pre-sale.

In fact, the voice of "promoting decline and death" has appeared frequently in recent years. Traditionally, e-commerce shopping festival is for brand competition and sales growth. But at present, these brands are aiming to transform and precipitate users in the shopping festival through pre-planning, and finally realize planting grass and pulling weeds. From the consumer's point of view, the frequency of these shopping festivals is getting higher and higher. From double 11 to 618, there are platform subsidies for large and small festivals every month, so it is not new for consumers not to be too cold about a particular shopping festival.

It was observed in May that compared with the past two years, brands paid more and more attention to Japanese sales, which was caused by the appearance of live broadcast. In addition, consumers' enthusiasm for the big promotion is also decreasing, and the superimposed consumption situation is not ideal, and the whole promotion is cooling down. "For the big promotion, the brand will actively respond, but it will not be as crazy as before. The inflated GMV will not bring much brand power improvement, nor can it create much profit, "she pointed out.

"We found that users' minds are still biased towards traditional e-commerce, such as Tmall and JD.COM. The traffic of some short video platforms is relatively low. If you don't spend a lot of money to bid for traffic, it is not particularly good for businesses that don't rely too much on' buying volume'." Yi Zihan, founder of Songxian Fresh Brand, revealed that the brand is still strict in price control, and the competition between such platforms is now accustomed to businesses, but in the long run, if you exchange low prices for the first place,"We will never be involved in the muddy water of price war again, and we will not be led by the nose. The future trend is to brave the scalp and practice internal strength, and we must have very strong operational capabilities on multiple platforms," she stressed.

However, Zhuang Shuai pointed out that price has always been the core competitiveness of the retail e-commerce industry, or price competition drives the development and progress of the industry. Secondly, for each e-commerce platform, if it can't gain differentiated competitive advantage in an invincible position in the price competition, it will be easy to be eliminated in the next competition if it achieves qualitative improvement in business scale, commodity richness, user growth, organizational efficiency, service ability and technical strength.

He further emphasized that different brands have different strategies for big promotion. Pre-sale requires brand businesses to have strong organizational power and service capabilities to match, and brands also need to seek a balance between user experience and sales growth. For e-commerce platforms, consumers still have expectations for big promotion, but with the emergence of consumption stratification, e-commerce platforms need to organize more goods to meet different levels of consumer demand; Secondly, the shopping methods are also diversified, which requires the platform to enhance the user experience through various modes.