2019 Second Category E-commerce Promotion Insight Report!

The traditional e-commerce dividend has passed. In order to expand more new traffic, in recent years many small and medium-sized e-commerce advertisers have begun to use advertising platforms as a base to directly sell goods, and the direct-operated e-commerce model of product single page + cash on delivery has emerged.

The people who engage in direct-operated e-commerce are a new consumer group that makes low-threshold online purchases through methods such as cash on delivery, in addition to online payment platforms such as Tmall and JD.com. They are mainly distributed in third- and fourth-tier cities.

As super apps such as WeChat and Toutiao gradually develop the habit of using mobile Internet, the user scale is large, the online shopping experience is relatively small, and the willingness to buy is strong.

Overall, the mainstream users of direct-operated e-commerce are men aged 35-45 . We also learned that mainstream advertising platforms, including ByteDance and Tencent Advertising, have begun to pay more attention to traffic support for women's product categories in direct-operated e-commerce, and pay more attention to the " women's economy " effect.

As the elderly group has more access to the Internet, many of them have begun to spend more time on their mobile phones. Most of them have no financial burden and have a surplus economy, and they will also be high-potential users of direct-operated e-commerce.

In terms of product selection, the focus is on daily necessities, products that reflect identity, products with special functions, novel and popular products, and fashionable products of the season .

How should we select products and set reasonable prices to create a hit? Are there obvious differences in the types of products that are key sales items on different platforms? What market trends does the overall direct-operated e-commerce advertising present?

Based on the mobile advertising data of more than 670,000 direct-operated e-commerce companies tracked by Tencent Advertising and Bytedance from January 1 to May 31, 2019, we produced the "Tencent Advertising & Bytedance Direct-operated E-commerce Promotion Insights from January to May 2019" report to provide market analysis of mobile advertising for direct-operated e-commerce advertisers.

1. Overview of overall advertising placement for direct-operated e-commerce

1.1 Clothing, shoes and bags, catering and food, daily necessities, and digital home appliances are the key categories of direct-operated e-commerce

Based on our self-developed advertising algorithm, we segment direct-operated e-commerce advertising data into 12 first-level categories and analyze the proportion of advertisements in each category. On Tencent Advertising and Bytedance platforms, apparel, shoes and bags, catering and food, digital home appliances, and daily necessities are all among the top five first-level categories in terms of the number of advertisements.

It is worth mentioning that after the article about the "TikTok buying shrimp" incident in May attracted considerable public attention, the official control of catering food by Bytedance has become more stringent, ensuring the quality compliance of products.

1.2 50-100 yuan and 150-200 yuan are the key pricing ranges for direct-sale e-commerce

Extract the lowest average order value of the product displayed on the landing page, and count the number of advertisements corresponding to different pricing. 50-100 yuan and 150-200 yuan are the key pricing ranges of Tencent Advertising and Bytedance Advertising Platform, and the number of related advertisements accounts for the highest proportion.

Among them, more than 90% of the advertising products on Tencent’s advertising platform are priced between 50 and 300 yuan.

The pricing range of products on the Bytedance platform is relatively more dispersed, with advertisements with unit prices exceeding 400 yuan accounting for 18.02%. High-priced goods account for a relatively large proportion. It is speculated that this is related to the fact that the Toutiao App has a higher proportion of middle-aged male users and higher spending power.

There are more advertisements for products priced at 99 yuan, 199 yuan, 198 yuan, 299 yuan and 298 yuan, and they account for a relatively high proportion in their respective product price ranges. The 99 yuan effect is obvious . Advertisements with products priced at 99 yuan account for 32.55% of the total number of advertisements on Tencent’s advertising platform and 16.49% of the total number of advertisements on the Bytedance platform.

1.3 Merchants in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces have a high proportion of advertising

The province information of different advertising account opening companies was extracted, among which merchants in Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province placed the most advertisements .

Note: Direct-operated e-commerce accounts require a deposit, so most account opening companies are merchants themselves. For the convenience of analysis, App Growing defaults to the account opening company of the extracted direct-operated e-commerce landing page as the merchant, and further uses the company's data as the basis for merchant distribution analysis, the same below.

2. Product Selection Guide for Direct-sale E-commerce

2.1 Overview of advertising placement in each category

1) Among the key categories of advertising on Tencent’s advertising platform, merchants in Guangdong Province have placed the most

In the advertising of clothing, shoes and bags, catering and food, daily necessities and digital home appliances on Tencent advertising platform, Guangdong Province ranks among the top 5 provinces in terms of the cumulative number of advertisements placed by merchants.

2) In the apparel, shoes and bags categories on Tencent Advertising and Bytedance, merchants in Zhejiang Province have the highest investment

Among the advertisements for clothing, shoes and bags, merchants in Zhejiang Province have the highest number of advertisements on Tencent Advertising and Bytedance. It is speculated that this is because the clothing production in Wenzhou, Hangzhou and Jiaxing is relatively developed, so there are relatively more merchants in the corresponding regions.

2.2 Proportion of advertisements in each key category and sub-category

1) Clothing, shoes and bags: Shoes and men’s clothing are the focus of advertising

Among the clothing, shoes and bags advertisements on Tencent’s advertising platform, footwear advertisements are the main ones, accounting for 54.18% of the total number of advertisements.

2) Food and Beverage: Alcoholic beverages and fresh fruits are the focus of advertising, accounting for more than half of the total number of advertisements

On Tencent Advertising and Bytedance platforms, alcoholic beverages are the focus of catering and food advertising, accounting for more than half of the total number of advertisements. Further analysis revealed that tea items accounted for a significant proportion in the alcoholic beverage category, and some tea items were also ranked among the hot-selling items on the overall advertising platform.

3) Digital home appliances: Tencent’s advertising categories are not clearly differentiated, and Bytedance’s advertising is mainly focused on home appliances.

In the advertising of digital home appliances, there is no obvious difference between the advertising of each sub-item of Tencent Advertising, and the market is basically divided into three parts. On the other hand, Bytedance mainly focuses on advertising for home appliances and 3C digital products.

2.3 Hot Product Promotion Ranking

1) Tencent Advertising’s hottest items from January to May: Men’s leather shoes are popular

Further statistics on the advertising of specific products of Tencent Advertising are as follows: Among them, men's leather shoes were on the monthly Top 5 list in January and March-May.

Further analysis of Tencent Advertising’s hot-selling ads for men’s sports shoes and men’s leather shoes in May is as follows:

① Analysis of Tencent Advertising’s men’s sports shoes advertising in May, with RMB 138 and RMB 139 as the key pricing ranges

138 yuan and 139 yuan are the main prices for men's sports shoes in Tencent advertising, accounting for 68% of the number of advertisements. 10% off/limited to 2 pairs/buy one get one free are the promotional methods often mentioned in its advertising copy.

In May, the Aviator brand of sports shoes were hotly promoted on Tencent's advertising platform, with the main selling points being that they prevent smelly feet, do not peel off, are wear-resistant and non-slip, and are trendy and fashionable . The main pictures of the related popular products are as follows.

② Analysis of Tencent Advertising’s men’s leather shoes advertising in May, with RMB 199 as the key pricing

The average customer spending on men's leather shoes is mainly set at RMB 199, with buy one get one free and two pairs for RMB X being the main promotional methods. The merchants of men's leather shoes are mainly located in Zhejiang, and the number of related merchants accounts for 61.74%.

2) Inventory of hot items from January to May on ByteDance, men's T-shirts and shirts are hot

We have counted the advertising situations of each product of Bytedance, and sorted out the top 5 products with the most advertisements in each month as follows. Among them, men's T-shirts were on the top 5 list of monthly advertising volume from February to April. With the arrival of summer, I believe men's T-shirts will continue to be a high-potential item .

Further analysis of Tencent Advertising's hot-selling ads for men's T-shirts and shirts in May is as follows:

① The main price range of men's T-shirts is RMB 159-299, and merchants in Zhejiang Province have high advertising efforts.

The main pricing range of men's T-shirts is RMB 159-299, and the corresponding merchants are mainly in Zhejiang Province .

② 198-298 yuan is the main price range for men's shirts, and left-right symmetrical material layout is more commonly used

198-298 yuan is the main price range for men's shirts on the ByteDance platform, with 10% off and buy one get one free being their common promotional methods, and Zhejiang Province is also the key area for merchants.

Handsome, fashionable, casual, breathable and stylish are the important promotional points of the advertising copy of men's shirts on the ByteDance platform. The left-right symmetrical composition is more commonly used in the advertising materials of shirts.

2.4 Inventory of high-selling products in each key category in May

We also extracted the sales data of single ad landing pages of Tencent Advertising and Bytedance’s direct e-commerce platforms, and based on the new sales of the corresponding landing pages in May, we counted the best-selling items in key categories on each platform in May as follows:

2.5 Recommendation of potential products

Based on the inventory of hot-selling and high-selling items in May, App Growing has sorted out the potential items in the following key categories , hoping to provide a reference for direct-operated e-commerce advertisers.

3. Analysis of common promotional points for direct-sale e-commerce

In general, direct-operated e-commerce advertisements focus more on the core functional points of the products and directly reflect the prices and promotions. In the presentation of advertising materials, only the most core functional points are presented, with large-font titles, which are simple and clear at a glance.

Secondly, in the overall advertising content planning, cash on delivery, direct sales from manufacturers, and promotional activities are also three common promotional tools.

Cash on delivery can dispel worries, direct sales from manufacturers explain the reasons for low prices, and promotional activities make users feel that they are getting great value for money and place orders as soon as possible. Due to the high advertising costs, it is difficult to make a profit if the average order value is less than 100 yuan. In fact, buy-and-get-one-free activities are bundled sales, which increases the average order value per user.

Compared with e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, direct-operated e-commerce does not have a collection or shopping cart mechanism, so it is also more important to create a sense of urgency and encourage users to place orders as soon as possible.

IV. Interpretation of Direct-sale E-commerce Industry Trends

In recent years, with the introduction of relevant policy supervision, the tightening of platform review, the withdrawal of non-compliant or inferior products such as the five black categories, counterfeit and copycat products, direct-operated e-commerce has bid farewell to the era of brutal and profiteering customer acquisition, and the market environment has gradually developed in a benign manner.

However, the direct-operated e-commerce industry is also facing more new challenges. Overall traffic is becoming more expensive, there are more and more products, fewer and fewer popular products, the product life cycle is getting shorter and shorter, and the competition is becoming more and more fierce .

Under the current trend of consumption upgrading, the previous extensive operations are no longer applicable, and the direct e-commerce industry will also be fully upgraded to enter the 2.0 era of refined operations.

Merchants not only need to understand industry trends in a more real-time manner, but also need to predict the direction of hot products in a more forward-looking manner, ensure information symmetry, and improve the efficiency of overall operations. Many direct-operated e-commerce companies have begun to pay more attention to after-sales services and conversions, promoting deeper repurchases and improving ROI.

Relevant advertising platforms will also pay more attention to the sinking market of direct e-commerce, and help advertisers find the right people and sell the right products more efficiently and at a lower cost by continuously improving algorithm recommendations and service-side support. Refined operations will be the winning strategy for direct-operated e-commerce in the future.

In addition, the advertising platform of direct-operated e-commerce will also achieve personalized product information push through more refined user portrait analysis and intelligent creative push functions that are tailored to each individual.

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Author: App Growing

Source: App Growing