New "Arena": The Competition Between Live Broadcast And Short Video Is Intensifying

On June 20, 618 e-commerce promotion officially ended.

This is the second year that Taoshi E-commerce has not announced 618GMV. JD has previously announced the amount of orders placed by 618 (including orders placed but unpaid). This year, 618 has not announced its results, but only announced a faster than expected growth rate.

As the promotion of * * * e-commerce after the recovery of consumption, this year's 618 "platform battle" is particularly strong. It not only triggered a price war and a "10 billion subsidy" war, but also increased short videos and live broadcasts on Taobao Tmall, JD and other e-commerce platforms to attack the content field, while content platforms such as dithering, fast hand and small red book accelerated e-commerce. The two sides attacked each other in the hinterland and engaged in close combat.

618, as the "mid year match point" of the growth battle of all major platforms, is the "most voluminous in history" this year.

What is the real war situation? Judging from the transcripts released by various platforms, consumption power and consumer confidence have recovered, and new demands and track highlights have emerged, but the overall situation is slightly flat.

According to the star map data, the total sales of 618 network this year was 798.7 billion yuan, up 14.7% year on year, slightly higher than last year.
The total sales of traditional shelf e-commerce was 612.4 billion yuan, up 5.4% year on year, saying goodbye to the rapid growth. The sales volume of live broadcast e-commerce was 184.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28%. Compared with the sales growth of 124% last year, this year's sales volume was somewhat eclipsed.

At a time when online retail sales are becoming more stable, it is inevitable that platform growth will slow down and competition will become more intense.

　　 In the "whole network * * *" war, which one is stronger in consumption growth?

Looking back at the just concluded 618, the "price war" returned again, and the platform began to compete "cost performance".

JD launched a "10 billion subsidy" in March. The slogan of "more, faster, better and more economical" is marked with the key word "province". During 618 this year, Jingdong's money saving advertisements were plastered all over the bus stations in the first tier cities, which were hard and hard. And Pinduoduo has launched the banner of "618 every day", making the e-commerce price war evolve from a surprise war to a lasting war.

As the 618 * * * of Taotian Group after its independence, the battle of Taobao Tmall is also very big. "Price power", one of the five strategies decided at the beginning of the year, has been thoroughly implemented. The traffic of the platform inclines to the commodities of "good goods and good prices", which for the first time drives small and medium-sized businesses to focus on operation. During 618, the most focus of the home page was also given to the channel of "Taobao Good Prices". (For details, please refer to the article "618 front home page" Taobao good price "online! Dialogue No. 1: focus on the pain, forget the battle".

Diaoyin also has low prices. This year, Diaoyin launched a "commission free commodity card project" to more shelf e-commerce businesses, allowing businesses to reduce operating costs as well as commodity prices. In addition, in the traffic logic of the live broadcast room, the GPM (thousand exposure GMV) indicator is replaced by the OPM (thousand exposure order volume), and the subsequent traffic distribution will weaken the GPM and emphasize more on the order volume. This means that Ditto needs more sales, lower prices, and easier for users to place orders.

The curtain will fall on 618 in 2023, and relevant information will also be announced on major platforms.

Alibaba Mama and Liu Bo, President of Marketing Public Relations of Taotian Group, said at the media conference that this year, 618 Taobao Tmall's data in the three dimensions of "transaction size, number of purchasing users, and number of daily visiting users" has ushered in an overall positive growth. He said that, especially driven by the "Taobao Good Price Festival", as of 0:00 on June 18, 618 transactions of more than 2.56 million small and medium-sized businesses this year exceeded the same period last year, and 1.18 million small and medium-sized businesses reached a breakthrough of "10000 yuan transactions" - 68000 of them had joined Taobao less than three months ago.

JD announced that the growth rate of JD 618 in 2023 was higher than expected, creating a new record, although the expression of "growth rate" was also rather ambiguous.

On June 20, Diaoyin E-commerce also released the transcript of "Diaoyin 618 Good Things Festival". Data shows that from May 31 to June 18, the overall sales volume of Tiaoyin E-commerce increased by 66% year on year. Among them, the sales volume of the shelf scene Tiaoyin Mall increased by 177% year on year.

When GMV has become a thing of the past, platforms are now striving for users' intelligence and stickiness, but they are facing more and more rational users and more and more similar playing methods.

　　 New "arena": the competition between live broadcast and short video is intensifying

In addition to price power, the live broadcast with goods is another important arena of 618.

In 618 this year, Taobao Tmall focused on the layout of short video and live broadcast of two major tracks, and announced that it would go far beyond the past investment to promote content. Users can feel that the video content has significantly changed in Taobao. For example, "browsing" has become a full screen information stream, similar to the dithering video; Watching the video to get red packets is very similar to the way Fasthand used to cultivate users' browsing habits; In addition, this year Taobao "dug" star anchors and opened popular brand live broadcast rooms, such as "TVB identify goods", Coconut Group, Tmall Apple Store official flag live broadcast rooms

Fasthand is the platform on which * * * opened 618 scenes this year. In the first 618 live broadcast, its head anchor Simba launched more than one million online people, and the sales volume of the whole live broadcast with goods exceeded 1.6 billion yuan.

Ditto, as always, has made great efforts to increase its content and bring goods to live broadcasts. The head anchor has continued to create records. According to the transcript released by Guangdong couples, its 618 GMV has reached 1.36 billion

This year, with live broadcast as the cut, more platforms joined the 618 war.

JD, which had previously lagged behind in live broadcast e-commerce, made friends with Luo Yonghao and accelerated its pursuit. In Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast show on May 31, the sales of the live broadcast room for making friends exceeded 150 million yuan, and a house worth two million yuan was "shot in seconds" on the shelves. The marketing implication was thick. This stunt was a full debut, demonstrating JD's determination to increase its live broadcast.

In addition to Luo Yonghao's trump card, according to the incentive policy documents circulated by MCN insiders, JD has continuously increased its daily support for content anchors this year. If the anchor can enter the top 25 of the daily list, theoretically * * * may get a cash reward of nearly 70000 yuan/month.

In 618 this year, Xiaohongshu's live broadcast story wrote a new starting point. * * * Xiaohongshu, which participated in the promotion of competition, ran out of Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, two "dark horses" with goods. Star live broadcast, shop broadcast and other ways led a wave of brands to settle in.

In May, the video number announced the latest brand incentive plan to support merchants in terms of traffic, services and other aspects, and officially announced the opening of the 618 Good Food Festival on May 31.

The platform's desire and competition for traffic, with Messi as the node of "carve up", has become extremely hot.

On June 12, Fasthand said that Messi would appear in the Fasthand studio, but finally released a 50 second video recording, which was criticized by many people; Then, Taobao Live invited Macy to enter the Taobao Live Studio of Yuanwang's anchor Li Xuanzhuo, without bringing goods directly, but the studio was inseparable from commercialization. Within 15 minutes of Macy's appearance, Hengyuanxiang, Avita and other brand advertisements appeared in turn above the live studio.

Although Messi was not invited, Little Red Book hosted an offline meeting of the Argentine team in Beijing; Dithering was even more powerful, and simply bought the right to broadcast the game

The wave of live broadcast e-commerce has been running for seven years, and the industry has gradually become normalized. Today, there are platforms that extend horizontally in content, platforms that build shelves, and platforms that choose matrix operations.

Judging from the transcript: the performance of Taobao live broadcast has increased, and the quick hand of dithering has become more and more important, and the new talent is still rising.

In the afternoon of June 18, according to the data released by Taobao Tmall Group, during the 618 period of this year, the number of businesses that publish short videos on Taobao every day increased by 55%, and the number of people who reach the goal increased by 200%; The daily average number of users watching short videos on Taobao increased by 113%, and the number of views and viewing duration also doubled accordingly.

On June 20, Diaoyin E-commerce released the consumption data of "Diaoyin 618 Good Food Festival". During the period from May 31 to June 18, the total live broadcast time of dithering e-commerce was up to 42.02 million hours, and the short videos linked to shopping carts were played 130.9 billion times, with an overall sales increase of 66% year on year.

　　 Logistics "roll" to * * *, "hour to hour" as standard configuration

Before 618 this year, logistics enterprises had already seen a big growth. According to the monitoring data of the State Post Office, as of May 31, China's express business volume in 2023 has reached 50 billion pieces, 27 days ahead of 2022.

The battle of 618 platforms has also spread to logistics. In order to compete for users, it is not only necessary to sell more and lower prices, but also to deliver faster than competing.

618 Tmall launched pre-sale products to achieve "minute level" delivery as soon as possible, and provided the service commitment of "payment in the morning and delivery in the afternoon, payment before sleep and receipt after sleep" in more than 300 cities across the country.

In addition, Tmall Supermarket and Cainiao provide "half day access" in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major cities. It is reported that by the end of this year, the half day service of Tmall Supermarket will cover 20 cities nationwide, including 100% of cities with a population of more than 10 million.

JD, which focuses on the timeliness of logistics, also proposed that "goods can be delivered in the fastest minute per hour". The instant retail order delivery is shortened to one hour, and the fastest first order delivery only takes 9 minutes. Jingdong's official war report shows that this year, Jingdong has joined more than 380000 offline physical stores in more than 2000 counties, districts and cities across the country to participate in Jingdong 618, * * * logistics performance.

Although there is no logistics foundation of Tmall and JD.com, the "player" of Dajinxin has further expanded the pilot scope of "hourly delivery" service from Shenzhen, Guangzhou to Wuhan, Tianjin and other cities.

　　 Boost small and medium-sized businesses, and all major platforms compete for "ant heroes"

Expanding the richness of small and medium-sized businesses has also become a major focus of the platform 618 this year. Home appliance businesses have launched various incentive and support policies to attract small and medium-sized businesses to settle in and participate in the promotion.

These "ant heroes" in the business ecosystem mean the richness of supply, the differentiation of goods, the attraction of users and their attention, and the generation rather than consumption of traffic, which is just what the current major platforms need.

At the "618" business conference, Taobao Tmall announced the establishment of a small and medium-sized enterprise development center, changed the logo of "Tmall 618" in previous years to "Taobao Tmall 618", and opened a special venue for small and medium-sized businesses - "Taobao Good Price Festival". It is reported that the Taobao Good Price Festival lasts for about 10 days. There is no threshold for merchants to settle down, nor does it take GMV as the assessment standard, but it depends more on the number of purchases made by consumers.

In addition to the exclusive venue, Taobao launched an initial advertising subsidy of 2 billion yuan for small and medium-sized businesses, giving them greater preference in short video, live broadcast and other content traffic. A number of head broadcast agencies also launched exclusive traffic support, commission reduction, special broadcast and other measures for small and medium-sized businesses.

This year, small and medium-sized businesses really brought an increase to Taobao Tmall, with the turnover of more than 2.5 million small and medium-sized businesses rising year on year.

In terms of JD, after the equality of rights between self run stores and POP stores (third-party businesses), the introduction and support of small and medium-sized businesses are also increasing. At the beginning of the year, JD announced the "Spring Dawn Plan" for merchants, and the number of new merchants increased by 240% year on year in the first quarter. Before 618, JD launched the "burden reduction and income increase" gift package, promising to increase investment for all merchants by 20%, help merchants reduce operating costs by 30% on average, and double the sales growth of small, medium-sized and micro businesses.

Jiang Jiandong, the head of the Ecological Department and Ecological Strategy Department of JD's retail platform, said to the media earlier that in 618 this year, JD provided more traffic for low-cost goods, including setting up low-cost marketing fields, allowing third-party merchants to participate in traffic operations independently, and giving more exposure opportunities to more low-cost and high-quality stores. The core channels on the home page of JD APP, such as 10 billion subsidies, cheap package mail and JD Seckill, are also open to all businesses, allowing businesses to achieve independent reporting and fair bidding.

On the other hand, Diaoyin draws on the successful path of Taobao, focuses on the industry belt merchants, strengthens the low price mentality of "Diaoyin Mall" with the help of the supply chain and low price advantages of the industry belt, and supports the positioning of Diaoyin e-commerce with a global interest. We can see from the official WeChat official account of Diaoyin E-commerce, "Diaoyin E-commerce Marketing Observation", that Diaoyin has dug up and vigorously supported factory businesses in Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Cangzhou, Zhengzhou and other places.

As a big promotion in the middle of the year, 618 has been long enough and should not be longer, and the GMV rate of each platform will not be announced again. It has gone from emphasizing the promotion of GMV to the existence of centralized sales. Although the functions it carries have changed, it is still valuable. For brands, small and medium-sized businesses and platforms, it is still an opportunity for sales explosion, while for consumers, it is an opportunity to get good services and good prices. The 618 without GMV is returning to the essence of a big promotion.