The Essence Of Returning To Retail Is That E-Commerce Platforms No Longer Focus On Turnover

At 0:00 on November 12, the annual Tmall "Double 11" Shopping Festival ended. Different from previous years, Tmall, JD and other leading e-commerce companies did not release the turnover data of this year's "Double 11", only indicating that the transaction scale was "stabilizing", which was the same as last year.

However, according to the relevant data of clothing categories released by major e-commerce platforms, this year's "Double 11" shopping festival also showed some changes different from the past in the word of "stability": the sales of several sub categories grew rapidly, and businesses paid more attention to consumers' shopping needs and experience; In addition, the new formats such as live broadcast with goods, which are in the ascendant in recent years, have also abandoned the disorderly expansion of the past "horse racing enclosure" and returned to the essence of commercial retail.

Since Taobao Mall launched the "Double 11" Shopping Carnival called "Singles Day Carnival" more than 10 years ago, every November 11 has become an annual drama of interaction and dance between e-commerce platforms, brands and consumers. Consumers are always "cutting their hands", brands and platforms are also busy, and the "Double 11" trading volume has reached new highs.

However, this year's "Double 11" activity has been less about the turnover.

Tmall did not release transaction data in the closing "war report" released in the early morning of November 12. It only said to the public that this year's "Double 11" was the most diversified session of participating businesses, with 290000 brands, millions of small and medium-sized businesses, and anchors participating, and more than 21 million kinds of products participating in the "Double 11".

If we review the "war situation" of this year's "Double 11" shopping festival, it is not difficult to find that the peak consumption of this year's "Double 11" shopping festival is not completely concentrated on November 11, but has ushered in a small climax from November 1.

"For this year's' Double 11 'event, the pre-sales of the' Double 11 'event on various platforms and some brands began in the middle of October." Miss Geng, who works for a headhunting company, told China Textile News that "although there was no' Double 11 'party on various platforms this year, various promotional information received on mobile phones has not stopped since the beginning of October."

"This year's' Double 11 'has two sales peaks, one is on November 1-3, and the other is a few days after November 11, which can be seen from the concentration of our logistics orders." The younger brother of Shunfeng Express, who is responsible for the logistics distribution in Shuangjing District, Beijing, told reporters, "Most of the orders in the past year were concentrated in the days before and after the' Double 11 '."

In fact, more than a month before the "Double 11" this year, JD, Tmall and other major e-commerce platforms and live broadcast platforms have begun to "warm up". In addition to the "kaleidoscope" like information about promotions, full sales, and buy and give away of constantly updated online channels, the city's supermarkets, shopping centers and even community stores have also begun to display various promotional signs, Even the bus stop signs in some big cities are full of posters of JD and Tmall.

For this year's "Double 11", JD and Tmall launched the first round of pre-sale and cross store full and reduced activities at 20:00 on October 20 and 20:00 on October 24, respectively.

According to the statistics from Tmall, 130 live broadcast booths with a pre-sale amount of more than 10 million yuan were generated in just 4 hours from the pre-sale of Tmall on the evening of October 24. As one of the main consumer goods of the "Double 11", the performance of clothing during the "Double 11" period has always been concerned.

Statistics show that Bosiden's pre-sale on Tmall started only 40 minutes ago, and its sales exceeded 100 million yuan. The men's clothing category has become a "dark horse", among which, the turnover of GAP (Gap) men's clothing in the first hour of pre-sale has increased by more than 200% compared with last year, and some new products of "YEEZY GAP Balenciaga" cooperation were sold out only one hour after they were put on the shelves of Tmall.

The pre-sale is full of harvest, which makes many brands satisfy the "addiction" of "Double 11".

However, it is worth noting that the consumption channels are increasingly diversified, and the rise of social e-commerce, interest e-commerce, and live broadcasting e-commerce has scattered the sales of traditional e-commerce platforms, such as Taobao Tmall and JD.

In the opinion of Qu Jing, Vice President of Huimei Fashion Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huimei Group"), the original "Double 11" was the only dominant platform on Taobao Tmall. Today, the participation of multiple platforms, such as JD, Vipshop and Tiaoyin, not only makes the participation more diversified, but also gives rise to some new marketing models in private domain, anchor and shop broadcast.

"The consumers are still those consumers, but there are more purchase methods and channels to choose, so the sales of a single specific channel will decrease." Li Shengchao, the brand director of Minan Cashmere Clothing Co., Ltd. in Qinghe, Hebei, told reporters in China Textile News, "In addition, consumers pay more attention to product design, personalization and quality than price."

In addition, through the release of the sales data of "Double 11", it can also be found that today's "Double 11" is gradually giving up the "deal only theory" that was valued in the past, which also marks the development stage of the clothing consumption market from quantitative to qualitative, and the growing diversification of clothing consumption methods and channels.

Just after the first sales peak of this year's "Double 11", Fang Jianhua could not wait to announce the good news of Inman's success in the first battle in his circle of friends: Inman's "Double 11" turnover increased by 59% year on year, gross profit margin increased by 10 percentage points, hitting a new 12 year "Double 11" high, and high-quality and quantitative growth is our pursuit.

In fact, including this year, the clothing category has achieved good results in the "Double 11" over the years.

According to the statistical data from Tmall, as of 0:00 on November 12, Uniqlo topped the list of clothing categories with sales of more than 300 million yuan, followed by Bosden and the underwear brand Jiaonei with sales of 196 million yuan and 123 million yuan, respectively. UR, Evley, Sema, Youngor and ubras also rank among the top ten brands in Tmall's clothing sales.

It is worth noting that among the clothing categories, some of the sub categories that are not concerned show a "blowout" trend of development this year, such as the sales of the "second dimension" antique clothing increased by more than 800% year on year, and the sales of men's national clothing increased by more than 700% year on year.

Such "achievements" have already been shown in the pre-sale period of "Double 11" this year. Just 10 minutes after the "Double 11" pre-sale of Jiaonei, the sales volume exceeded the first day of pre-sale last year, and the turnover exceeded 100 million yuan 90 minutes later. The sales volume of women's designer brand INSIS FEMME on the first day of the "Double 11" pre-sale this year increased by 159% year on year; MaxMara's first day pre-sale turnover increased by more than 150% year on year; The sales volume of COACH's overseas flagship store exceeded the sales volume of the whole day of last year in only 15 minutes from the start of pre-sale; The pre-sale sales of several new brands, such as Chongpu and Shuyang, increased by more than 200% year on year.

In addition, this year's "Double 11" has witnessed new changes in the thriving live broadcast e-commerce. The popularity of shop broadcast business has overshadowed some head and waist anchors, becoming a highlight of clothing brand sales this year. Data shows that 4 hours before the first sale of Tmall's "Double 11", the sales volume of more than 1000 clothing brands exceeded 500% year on year; The sales volume of more than 2000 clothing brands, such as UR, Yalu, Dialogue, ELLE Women's Wear, increased by 100% year on year.

"During the" Double 11 "period this year, the turnover increased by 66.69% year on year, and the gross margin increased by 5.9 percentage points year on year." Like all major platforms, Inman did not post specific turnover data in its "Double 11" war report. "Nowadays, Inman pays more attention to customer repurchase rate, refined operation and brand performance, and the turnover is not the most important," Fang Jianhua said.

In sharp contrast to this year's "Double 11", on the eve of this year's "June 18 Shopping Festival", Fang Jianhua once chose to "lie flat" on his public account with an article "Lie flat on June 18 this year, don't play anymore".

In Fang Jianhua's opinion, Inman's "lying flat" at that time was not really "lying down", but no longer only regarded sales as the only indicator of brand development.

"For clothing brands, they need to pay more attention to long-term development and not advocate vicious discounts and blind pursuit of sales," Fang Jianhua said, "The simple and crude discount and price reduction has long been abandoned by current consumers. During the" big promotion "period, we should focus on products and users, and think about how to create emotional links with tens of millions of customers through product experience and services."

This sentence not only expresses the aspiration of garment people, but also reflects the "original intention" of garment brands and enterprises to achieve orderly, stable and high-quality development.

"What I consider is not only the price discount, but also the product quality and brand awareness." Fashion photographer Xiao Wu told China Textile News that the impulse consumption of "shopaholics", which used to be "hot in the head, quick to cut hands", is being replaced by new consumption habits, The proportion of "hoarding" type of panic buying is also getting lower and lower.

"What you see is what you get" is still not available for clothing products on e-commerce platforms. If you buy products with poor quality or dissatisfaction, it will be troublesome to return them. Therefore, I prefer to choose some brands with good reputation. "Ms. Jiang, an English teacher in a middle school in Beijing, told China Textile News, "I bought a Masefield overcoat and a down jacket from Phillip. The price of" Double 11 "is 40% to 50% off as usual, and the quality of the brand is also better than that of small brands."

However, it is easier to buy more than to settle accounts. The various promotion methods of major e-commerce platforms still make many consumers worry a lot when clearing shopping carts.

"I intended to buy only one pair of ECCOs (Aibu) However, in order to make up for the "full reduction" of the platform, I couldn't help adding several pieces of underwear to the shopping cart. After adding, I found that if I bought two pairs of pants, I could make up for a higher amount of "full reduction" discount. In this way, the original order of more than 900 yuan has become more than 4000 yuan. " Xiao Peng, the department head of a convention and exhibition company, told reporters, "After all the tricks, we still haven't escaped the" routine "of merchants."

"What you buy is not as good as what you sell. What consumers expect most is' simplicity+inclusive '." This is the resonance of many "hand cutters".

"If you want to get the most discounts, you need to stack different discounts, red envelopes and rebates according to different categories. You feel that you have been forced to become a 'mathematician'." Xiao Zhang, a loan officer working in a bank, jokingly told reporters, "In Tmall and JD, the full screen is filled with various full discount discounts such as' 300 minus 50 'and' 299 minus 50 ', as well as task red envelopes, password red envelopes, and various shopping lists and rebates. Some full discount can cross stores, while others can't, which makes people dazzled. Even I, a credit worker, sometimes can't figure out which discount to use to save money."

"I have seen various money saving strategies in various channels before, but I was still at a loss when I finally paid the bill." The wife of credit officer Xiao Zhang also felt the same way. "It is also a clothing product with a total price of more than 5000 yuan. I spent more than 200 yuan more than my colleagues when I paid the bill, and I really can't understand the settlement rules on the platform."

"It would be great if the e-commerce platform could automatically accumulate the discounts according to the established procedures when settling accounts, so that consumers can automatically maximize their benefits." Xiao Zhang said, "It would not be necessary to use a calculator to do arithmetic when shopping."

Compared with the online e-commerce's "chaos is becoming more attractive", offline physical stores' "Double 11" promotions are more pragmatic, so many consumers prefer offline shopping channels.

"For products like clothing, shoes and hats, I prefer to buy in the supermarket. The price tag and discount of the supermarket are very direct, so I don't have to account for rebates and full discounts, and the price is not much different from that of the same clothing purchased by neighbors on the e-commerce platform." Mr. Jiang, a resident of Xicheng District, Beijing, told reporters, "For clothing products, I still like 'what you see is what you get'. When I see a piece of clothing in the store, I can buy it if it fits. Although e-commerce can return and exchange goods for free, it is not convenient in the store. Especially middle-aged and elderly consumers are more accustomed to offline shopping."

"For consumers, e-commerce platforms need to focus on how to improve consumers' purchase experience, and meet consumer demand in multiple ways through different means and services, so that consumers can buy with confidence, happiness and satisfaction," said Weng Yi, senior researcher of the Digital Economy Think Tank.

Ouyang Rihui, vice president of the China Internet Economy Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and Economics, also believes that, from the consumer side, this year's "Double 11", consumers' consumption concept is more rational. Therefore, whether for online e-commerce platforms or offline stores, today's "Double 11" shopping festival is not only a "eye catching" marketing activity, but also an effective means for clothing brands to build core competitiveness.

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