Ali Group COO Zhang Yong: How To Make Fire Double Eleven

　　 Ali group COO Zhang Yong

Playing with new tricks

The first two days, MA (Ma Yun) asked me, what do you think of this year's "double eleven"? At this time, I usually keep a conservative opinion. Of course, there will be lots of interesting things inside us, such as some employees and even management, and do some simple guessing games. As usual, I do not attend. I will give out prizes. Whoever guesses the nearest absolute value from the final number will win the prize.

The focus of this year's "double eleven" is wireless, global and peaceful. More and more users are participating in the "double eleven" through wireless terminals, which is totally consistent with ours. This trend is irresistible. However, there is a big difference between user behavior in PC and wireless terminals. This is a new challenge for us. We will strive to adapt to this change this year. For Pad, mobile phones and other models have made plans, such as taking care of users in the weak network to open speed, content fluency, not only to PC things move to the phone, but let the wireless terminal has a unique experience. It also allows users to flow across multiple screens. This year's "double eleven" is Tuesday. The most likely scenario is that users are sitting in front of the computer in the daytime and using mobile phones on their way home from work.

As a platform, we also need more people to participate in the "double eleven" and liberate the productivity of businesses and partners. This year, hundreds of game developers have done a lot of interactive games, and we provide them with tools such as shops that fit into their stores. Including red envelopes, we want to do tricks every year, and this year we will disseminate some celebrities.

In terms of cross border logistics, we have sent the whole lot from abroad to bonded warehouses at several points such as Guangzhou, Ningbo and so on, according to the pre-sale situation. We support the "double eleven" globalization this year with the cross border pilot policy and bulk clearance.

"Double eleven" has gained a high reputation today. The brand reminders are very important when we spread this year. We also need to design some interest points to let everyone have the power to come back. We have also made some hot spots of "double eleven shopping strategy". The warm up activity is to let everyone feel that I am a part. I want to participate in this festival. This is very important.

In addition to low price attraction, this year's "double eleven" will have different ways to play different categories. For example, integration of cars, online and offline, including financial products. Some high-end cosmetics brands can't play half off, but they also take part in the "double eleven" actively. It was his decision to play, not my rule half off. This year, we are developing very fast in high-end brands. In turn, we should respect the rules and rules of their respective industries. We can not force the price half off because of the large scale of activities. The same goes for the fashion industry. Before 2012, UNIQLO did not take part in the "double eleven". I thought it was very good. This is the brand's choice. After 2012, UNIQLO would like to take part in it and take an active part in it, which is also their free choice.

It is not easy to move from one activity to the whole society. We should let the "double eleven" become the yearning of everyone. It's like a new year's day, but dumplings are also celebrated on New Year's Eve thirty. This kind of psychological anticipation of business and emotional stimulation is very important. We are now making the final warm-up and foreshadowing. The other side is the business, the enthusiasm of consumers is higher and higher, and businesses are more and more invested. Every year, new businesses are involved. They are real rookies. They have never been there before. They need to share some systematic experience. The atmosphere of the final formation has created the scale of the "double eleven" now. If the alternative mode is not the platform mode of Ali today, it is impossible for the Ali Co alone to form such a festival, which ultimately reflects the great value and potential of the ecosystem.

Last year, businesses were feeling tired, so this year we will pour cold water on businesses on many occasions. The fourth quarter is a very important time window for businesses, but we value the better combination of "eleven times" with "usual" rather than the amount of one year's completion on the "double eleven" day, which I think is abnormal. We hope that more businesses can look at this matter calmly. We do not expect businesses to prepare a lot of goods, but they will not be able to sell them at the end. Now we will guide businesses to treat this matter rationally.

　　 Six years of pain

The origin of "double eleven" is very simple. At the end of 2008, I was CFO of Taobao, and I was also the general manager of Taobao mall. The development of Taobao mall in April 2008 is not fast enough, and the entire B2C industry is also in the deaf mute stage. And we have a big problem, that is, Taobao is so famous that these two words are almost unknown. Taobao mall, as a new business, is poorly identified.

Let's talk about an event similar to the big Thanksgiving promotion in the US. We can let users remember us through an event marketing that allows everyone to participate. At the same time, we also let businesses pay more attention to Taobao mall. Finally, we chose November 11th from the fourth quarter of the peak season. In 2009, I didn't know what Singles Day was, but I was very interested in the 4 1, because my birthday was January 11th. Singles Day has nothing to do with people buying things online. It becomes a marketing gimmick. In the past few years, we all called "Singles Day promotion", but recently we all called "double eleven".

In 2009, the first "double eleven", only 27 merchants in Taobao mall, including Lining, Lenovo, PHILPS and so on, participated. But beyond everyone's expectation, the transaction volume of the whole platform was 52 million yuan, which was 10 times the daily transaction. We did not think that businessmen did not think the convergence power of the Internet was so great. In the morning, the goods sold almost, and many businesses temporarily replenish the goods under the line, and even the chairman's approval slips directly from the dealer's ground store temporarily to sell on the Internet.

There was no present time. logistics Scale, but the total of 52 million yuan is not very large, and it has no sense for them. In second years, the turnover reached 936 million. This figure is not small. Logistics is beginning to feel pain. The logistics of "double eleven" in 2010 is the most painful. Later, we summed up our experience and did not coordinate with our logistics partners in a timely manner, so that they were fully prepared to take orders, including their own businesses. Storage There was also a problem.

What we did in 2011 was that the technology platform, including Alipay's payment system, could sustain a huge amount of eruption. Over the past few years, our pride is not in numbers. The most important thing is that our entire technology platform is the most fluent system in the world that supports real-time transactions. Last year's "double eleven" peak, we could make 17 million people rush into the stadium at the same time, generate 50 thousand orders per second, and the system remained calm. It is necessary to have some technical details.

In the first two years, double eleven will bring the system to Raman. As our technology level and preparation become more and more sufficient, in turn, the technical team will challenge us. "How well did you prepare? Why did you not blow us off?" the successful completion of double eleven is also the result of many teamwork within Ali.

But during the period, we also felt a lot of pain. The accumulation of technology is a process. In 2012, "double eleven" was oversold because of some technical problems. This should be avoided in large-scale activities. Although today's pattern determines that we do not own inventory, we still need to do our business well for inventory accuracy. The first cloud of Ali is the electricity supplier cloud. Now the orders of Taobao and Tmall are running on our pagoda, providing real-time data processing and computing power to the merchants. Last year, "double eleven" about 200 million of the number of orders, we achieved zero oversold.

In recent years, the opening of "double eleven" has been spent with the technical team, even though I don't know the technology. The most important thing to start is whether the technology system can support the opening up, and some timely decisions are needed. It's hard for you to imagine that in the first year, "double eleven", we even made black and white backup plans for websites, but later we didn't use them. It is very natural to say that there is no need for black-and-white plans now. Usually after midnight half past two, the first wave is over. At this time, I will rest for about one or two hours. After the morning, my personal habit is to keep quiet, to have time to study data changes in various dimensions, to get macro market data and information, to find abnormal problems in order to make judgments.

I used to say that when you rush through a big number to achieve a business goal, everyone is happy. But the happier you are, the more calm you will be. As long as the "double eleven" day is not over, there may be abnormalities at any time and place, so we must remain calm. But there are times to relax. In 2012, I was sitting on the balcony of my previous office and I was taken a photo. At that time, they went to "street", they knocked on the trash cans and marched on the whole corridor. They must let me go. I say you can give me a break. I ran to the balcony outside the office, sat down on the steps and smoked a cigarette.

Before 2012, more was changed from Taobao mall to Tmall solo dance. In 2013, all the companies in the electricity supplier industry were mobilized, and they all joined in this event and became a big day in the whole industry. Many offline department stores are doing the same thing. Last year, Tmall and Yintai made O2O attempts. Everyone's understanding of e-commerce is changing. The two O of O2O is already a O.

Everyone has a process of understanding the "double eleven" and began to think it was just a promotional activity. A few years later, it was not only simple sale. Consumers are more and more recognized that "double eleven" has become a holiday. The theme is not only a discount, but also a variety of gameplay and interaction. For businesses, service providers, logistics, in fact, the industry is a big training. In the period of rapid development of electricity providers, this year's peak is the constant next year.

　 　 Online retailers The future

Over the past few years, we have energetically promoted Taobao's wireless technology and invested a lot in Alipay's wallet. This is closely related to changes in user behavior. I have to admit that our team has been very large. There are more than 10000 people in this park and more than 30000 people in Ali. How to ensure a fast and flexible organization mechanism is also a matter of great concern to us. Second, forget about PC. Because you have many successful experiences on PC, there will be many solidified ideas. In the past few months, Taobao Mobile has been developing rapidly, because we have been cutting in the organization, and the infinite team only focuses on wireless, only based on the innovation of mobile phones. Do not always think about balancing PC and wireless. Maybe it will lose some inheritance, but it will gain more space and quick response.

In the past 12 months, Taobao has 307 million active users, more than the entire US population. I remember when I was listed on the road show, someone asked me if Taobao was selling cheap products, or just meeting the needs of some users.