Double 11 is coming, how can e-commerce platforms win the "volume war"?

This year marks the tenth year of " Double Eleven ". According to incomplete statistics, in addition to platforms such as Tmall , JD.com , and Suning.com , more than 100 e-commerce platforms have joined the Double Eleven promotion, such as social e-commerce platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Yunji, cross-border e-commerce platforms such as NetEase Kaola and Yangmatou , fresh food new retail e-commerce platforms such as Hema Fresh and MissFresh , as well as vertical e-commerce platforms such as maternal and child care, and travel.

E-commerce platforms have ignited the "Double Eleven" war one after another, and started the "volume war" with various tactics such as pre-sales of goods, price discounts, group purchase discounts, shopping subsidies, etc.

Price cuts, red envelopes and social networking: irresistible temptations and inescapable routines

As an e-commerce platform, GMV is the core indicator to measure the competitiveness of the platform. GMV= traffic conversion rate × average order value . This formula is applicable to almost all e-commerce platforms. Therefore, at the important time point of Double Eleven, each e-commerce company is making efforts to seize traffic, enhance conversion and increase average order value.

First of all, many platforms have chosen to extend the activity timeline to grab traffic.

According to public information, this year Tmall launched pre-registration for official activities such as Juhuasuan and Taobao Shopping in early October, and launched pre-sale activities such as pre-sale product promotion , coupon purchases, and deposit payments in mid-to-late October. The purpose is to intercept traffic in advance, because before Double 11, consumers have tightened their purse strings in preparation for the day of the event, forming a consumer reservoir, and everyone wants to open the valve first.

For example, pre-sales generally show great discounts, and the pre-sale deposit will be set at around a few dozen yuan, so many people will not feel anything. Seeing the inventory decrease or the price become cheaper, they will place an order on impulse. As the number of deposit orders increases, the average order value will also increase. At this time, everyone will understand how powerful the combination of paying the balance at 1 a.m. and not refunding the deposit is.

(Deposit payment terms)

Secondly, general e-commerce platforms will create demand for users in a variety of ways.

For example, the APP will launch category diversion sections divided by home appliance selection, fashion apparel, etc., and strategy diversion sections divided by beauty conditioning, slimming and body shaping, etc. In addition, with the advent of the big data intelligent era, content diversion mainly based on Internet celebrity products, word-of-mouth awards, and media awards has become the mainstream. This type of list-based content diversion is often the most effective way to stimulate users to make purchasing behavior when users have no demand or unclear demand.

Finally, we cannot avoid the creative and “fancy” ways that major e-commerce platforms have come up with to grab traffic. When WeChat friends who we haven’t contacted for years suddenly pop up, when WeChat is aggressively invaded by various codes and links, when we are inexplicably pulled into various groups, we realize that Double Eleven is here again.

(Picture from the Internet )

Taking Taobao as an example, this year it launched the Double 11 Partner Challenge to pool energy and share 1 billion red envelopes. You can invite 1-4 friends to form a team and complete four tasks issued by the system every day. You can also invite friends who meet the task requirements to help you. You can get corresponding energy by completing the tasks. On November 11, every 100 energy can be exchanged for a 1 yuan cash red envelope.

It can be seen that the 1 billion red envelope bonus is the basis for attracting participation, and teaming up to compete for popularity is a means of bringing activity to the APP by fully understanding the user's desire to win. This kind of "calculate, compare, and compare" gameplay has made many people not only indulge in the false happiness of "I have more friends than you", but also put their entire network into play, sparing no effort to use their social value to become active members of the traffic army.

(Double 11 Partner Challenge launched by Taobao)

The various "routines" are based on the careful "design" of technical schools

Although the marketing strategies of different e-commerce platforms are different, the essence of attracting attention and guiding consumption is always similar. So, in the “volume war” of Double 11, how do platforms compete for users?

Behind this issue is actually a competition between artificial intelligence and big data algorithms among e-commerce platforms. For example, when browsing an e-commerce platform, the personalized recommendations of “Guess you like” often make people want to take a second look. This is a way of trying to present the products that consumers are interested in or need. On the one hand, this method can convey that you know him well during the user's purchase process, thereby increasing user satisfaction, improving user experience , and enhancing user loyalty . On the other hand, it can recommend “valuable” products based on the user’s actual needs to facilitate purchases.

(For different groups of people, the “Guess You Like” recommendations on e-commerce platforms are different)

This mode of operation is based on the analysis and application of user data, which includes common data statistics, such as daily browsing patterns, consumption habits, and user preferences. Based on the data, we can not only establish a user portrait system to understand users, but also establish a data-based operation system to achieve refined operations such as feature-based recommendations and user-based recommendations.

However, the data resources of most e-commerce platforms have certain limitations. They mainly rely on the data accumulated by users' searches, browsing, purchases, etc. in the APP. They have vertical depth but a single dimension, and it is difficult to gain a deeper insight into users through the correlation and extensibility of the data.

Different e-commerce platforms have their own solutions to this problem. For example, 88VIP, which was previously all over the news, can actually be interpreted as a solution provided by Alibaba to deeply tap into user value.

In addition to enjoying the discounts of the original shopping platform, 88VIP also brings together the rights and interests of Youku VIP membership, Ele.me super membership, Taopiaopiao national card, Xiami super VIP, etc. The opening up of this account system actually establishes a connection between all-round daily life data such as eating, drinking, playing, buying, living, traveling, etc. These diverse data dimensions are also constantly enriching and improving user portraits, so as to further understand users, realize refined operations, and maximize user value.

Of course, in addition to connecting their own data resources, many e-commerce platforms also choose to cooperate with third-party big data companies such as Getui. This type of big data company usually has a large amount of data, strong data capabilities, and a complete service system. Based on the e-commerce platform's own data, it can supplement the data of user portraits such as interest tags and scenario tags, as well as industry comparisons, uninstall analysis and other application statistical data, etc., to provide effective service support for the overall operation of the e-commerce platform.

Making "silence" explode is the winning formula for achieving growth

It is not difficult to find that today's Double 11 is no longer a one-day event of "11.11". If an e-commerce platform wants to detonate sales on this day, it generally needs to accumulate user traffic through three stages: warm-up period, accumulation period and activity period to achieve an explosion.

Generally speaking, the warm-up period is the best testing period for hot products before a big promotion. E-commerce platforms can find hot products through a large amount of material testing and accumulate crowd packages of different categories to lay a solid foundation for later conversions. During the accumulation period, e-commerce platforms can reach users, conduct market bidding environment tests, and guide attention. The activity period is the outbreak point for traffic competition and user orders. E-commerce platforms can make full use of the hot product materials and crowd packages accumulated previously to accurately reach users and ultimately achieve volume.

However, "how to achieve accurate reach to different users" has become a difficult problem that e-commerce platforms encounter in actual operations.

This involves the concept of user stratification, such as active users and inactive users, ordinary users and paying users , etc. Users at different levels have their own characteristics, and the value they place on e-commerce platforms also varies.

For e-commerce platforms competing for traffic during the Double Eleven promotion, using active users to promote conversions is the basis, while tapping into the value of inactive users to promote conversions is the winning point for achieving growth. For example, users who gave up purchasing because of the high price before, users who are about to become parents, etc. Unknown inactive users always bring unexpected surprises.

Of course, not every inactive user is valuable, and not all inactive users are worth spending the same amount of resources to reach. Therefore, we need to rely on in-depth analysis of big data to accurately identify inactive users of different degrees and conduct targeted awakening. Many e-commerce platforms have also made attempts in this regard. For example, text message notifications of coupons to be collected can be understood as a means for e-commerce platforms to promote activity.

However, apart from the fact that this method is relatively simple, there will also be problems with the accuracy of reach and the suitability of content due to the inability to understand the user's current situation in real time. Therefore, e-commerce platforms also tend to cooperate with third-party companies to solve this problem. For example, Getui, a big data company that has served many e-commerce platforms, uses its big data capabilities to gain in-depth insights into traffic scenarios and user behaviors behind the scenarios, and then intelligently matches appropriate media to help platforms formulate more accurate and targeted operational strategies, avoid wasting resources, and effectively improve conversion rates.

(Diagram of the product and service of Getui’s “Geti”)

The competitive environment of the e-commerce industry is constantly changing. It can be said that Double Eleven is the military parade ceremony of the e-commerce industry. It tests the services, processes, and technologies of the e-commerce platforms, as well as the accuracy of the e-commerce platforms’ insights into users and the operational capabilities of the platforms. So how will e-commerce platforms perform in this year's "war for volume" with "all online and offline scenarios and new players entering the game"? The answer will be revealed after the war.

Source: Shrimp Operation