Operational Practice: How to operate an e-commerce mini program from 0 to 1?

Entering 2018, the blockchain craze has cooled down with the footsteps of middle-aged women. Mini programs , which had been on the bench for a year, have attracted great attention from both inside and outside the industry as WeChat gradually opened up, and have become a hot spot. This is a good thing.

Okay, without further ado, let me introduce myself first:

I am the person in charge of the JD Books mini program. Our mini program has been online for half a year. So far, we have covered more than 250 official accounts (including those not displayed on the information page) and 35 million fans (the sum of the number of fans of all official accounts). I am sorry that I cannot disclose the actual user data for fear of being envied by some startup teams that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

Because the project still has many imperfections, and because we have only achieved "from zero to one", I can only talk about some experiences from zero to one. Please understand.

Now let’s get to the point. How to operate an e-commerce mini program from scratch?

To do something, first find the meaning

Within JD.com, I have conducted more than a dozen training sessions on how to operate mini programs, for everyone from vice presidents and directors to ordinary employees. The first point of each training session is always to ask: Why do we want to develop mini programs?

There are many different answers to this question. Some people say that Pinduoduo has succeeded, so I want to imitate it ; some people say that I want to make full use of WeChat Internet traffic ; and some people say that leaders should do...

Regardless of the answer, the first suggestion is: think about why you want to make a mini program.

Whether you have just taken over the mini program project and don’t know how to get started, or you have been working on it for a while, I still recommend that you think about why you want to do a mini program. It is much better to think clearly about the reasons and significance before doing it than to start blindly without finding the pain points.

In fact, it was during the process of doing it that I gradually figured out why I should develop mini programs.

For a large company like JD.com, especially an old business like JD Books that has been running for 8 years, the most important purpose of developing a mini program is to attract new customers .

We are not trying to snatch users from JD.com's main site and transfer them to the WeChat mini-programs . This does not conform to our value proposition. We are trying to attract new users by making full use of WeChat Internet for content and brand marketing , channel penetration, channel integration and even borderless retail, to cover users who have not experienced JD.com's services before and let them enjoy our high-quality services.

So for small companies, why do they need to develop mini programs?

In my opinion, there are two main points:

• First, make full use of the advantages of WeChat Internet and enjoy the fission growth benefits brought by its high-quality social relationship chain;
• Second, the cost is low and trial and error can be done quickly.

Only when you figure out "why we should develop mini programs", can you get to the point, match the corresponding resources, and decide whether to focus on attracting new customers, GMV, or something else in the future.

Also, it is important to note that your boss will not care about all the details, but when you have sorted out the entire process and told him your future work priorities, it will be amazing!

Clarify the scenario, this is the most critical step

At the WeChat Open Class in 2017, Zhang Xiaolong talked about a concept: "Use it and leave." In 2018, he added one more point: "You will come back after you leave."

I believe that many people in the Internet industry have heard of this view, but because it is too inconsistent with our mainstream product value of "retaining users as much as possible and letting them play for a while longer", some people feel that Zhang Xiaolong is talking without any concern. Your WeChat accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s usage time, so of course you can easily say that you will leave after using it.

But if you think about it carefully, it actually makes sense. Moreover, his views are surprisingly similar to those of other bigwigs, and that view is - scenario. When users enter the scenario you created or discovered, they will naturally use your product. When they have a good experience or can't leave you, they will come back and enter this scenario again to use your product. The scene here is about the scene in the business environment.

So, what exactly is the scenario mentioned in the so-called business environment?

Let me give a definition here: scenario is timely traffic in appropriate occasions.

This is easy to understand. You do what depends on the situation you are in. The next time you want to continue doing this, you will think of this scene again. This is the scene.

Let's analyze the sentence that the scenario is timely traffic in the right occasion . It is not difficult to conclude that there are actually two key phrases in it: "right occasion" and "timely traffic ".

In fact, they are two characteristics of the scene:

• First, the demand must be met in a timely manner. If the scene changes, the user will not want to buy anymore.
• Second, it must be an appropriate occasion. Selling flowers outside a restaurant for couples is appropriate, but selling breakup insurance is a bit dangerous.

Therefore, the way to play business in the future is to discover and create more user scenarios. Whoever finds the scenarios that are common, high-frequency, and will be used again by users will have the key to borderless retail or new retail.

Of course, this is my hindsight. In fact, we did not do this at the beginning, but gradually discovered and agreed with this theory through gradual exploration in actual work. But when we make mini programs based on the theory of scenarios, everything becomes very clear.

Originally, we wanted whatever others had. Others have group buying, so we have to do group buying; others have flash sales, so we have to do flash sales. Moreover, we cannot surpass our competitors in terms of user mind and product experience, so we are extremely passive in our actions.

But when I think from a scenario perspective, what I think about is: in what scenario do I satisfy the users, whether I satisfy the users in a timely manner, and whether my users will use my product in this scenario next time.

Let me give you a specific example: Should I still do group buying?

Yes, we have to do it, because group buying is a scenario of social e-commerce. If a friend in a group recommends a book or a product, and I’m interested in it, I will want to buy it immediately. If there is a link at this moment, that would be perfect. I won’t remember to buy it again a week later, because by that time I will be rational and don’t want to buy it anymore.

Therefore, clarifying the usage scenarios of the product and exploring and creating more scenarios that are more versatile, easier to impulse purchase and can satisfy users in a timely manner are the fundamental ways for mini programs to grow bigger and more widely.

Next I will talk in detail about how we can apply this theory into practice.

Scenario 1: Cooperate with influencers and public accounts to recommend books

I believe many people have heard of the “people, goods, and place” theory in the retail industry. For example, searching on JD.com is people looking for goods, and searching for things based on categories is also people looking for goods. It is easy to find examples of the popular reconstruction of the people-goods market. Unmanned shelves are about goods finding people, and group buying is also about goods finding people.

Next, I will talk about our example of goods finding people.

The first wave of traffic for most mini programs comes from official accounts, and we are no exception. However, others realize the first wave of traffic diversion by binding the official account to the mini program. After that, the product generates its own traffic, so there is no need to use the official account to divert traffic.

Our situation is a bit special. When the project started, the mini program was in a low period. No one was optimistic about it, and we didn’t have our own R&D team. It has always been a personal interest in R&D, so we wanted to take advantage of some R&D resources. This sentence determines that our product is definitely not very attractive, and it cannot generate traffic on its own.

What should I do then?

I am the person in charge of this product. I watched it being born. I am like its father. I definitely won't want to let it die. Since the product cannot generate traffic by itself, I will find a suitable scenario for it to bring it traffic.

So I analyzed the advantages and disadvantages, and took stock of the resources I had at hand, and found that my only breakthrough was the official account. I have a good relationship with some of the big accounts, and a pretty good relationship with suppliers. Their public account operators are basically all netizens, so it should be no problem to break through through this channel (of course, these are all excuses I made up afterwards, and I actually felt guilty)!

So I tried to talk to suppliers and big players, and by good luck, I actually met them. At that time, Fei Yeliang, the partner of Wumanlanjiang, was coming to our company to discuss cooperation. I went to talk to him with an attitude of giving it a try, and then it really worked out.

In cooperation with the weekend column "Lanjiang Academy" of the public account "Wu Man Lanjiang", the content of Luo Zhenyu's 2018 New Year's Eve speech was accidentally revealed, which also caused Mi Meng to wave her hand and every employee and assistant in the company was given a set. With over 40,000 readers, we sold more than 4,000 books, with a conversion rate of over 10% of the readers. The five recommended books were sold out directly and had to be pre-sold.

After this experience, cooperation with other public accounts became much smoother. After that, we successively cooperated with suppliers such as Zhonghua Book Company, People's Literature, Guomai, and New Classics. Each official account brought a steady stream of traffic to the "JD Books" mini program.

After that, I copied this experience to other places and secured key partners. After that, other partners came naturally.

In fact, many public accounts related to culture and life and art have the need to recommend books. In the past, they simply recommended books or put a link for reading the original text. When reading the original text and then putting a link to jump to other apps, the loss rate is extremely high. I have tried it. Even with the latest version of iPhoneX, it takes at least 6 seconds to jump to JD.com. However, if a mini-program card is embedded in the text, users can jump to the product details page in 2 seconds at most, and can continue reading the official account after purchasing the product.

In fact, we let our goods - books, find people - readers in the official account. Inadvertently, we have completed the reconstruction of "people and goods" in the "people-goods-place". Users no longer have to look for goods after reading the official account, but the goods will actively find you!

In the above article, I have answered why the JD Books Mini Program needs to cooperate with official accounts. Of course, you may have new questions: Why should the official account cooperate with JD Books Mini Program?

Of course, the brand potential of JD Books is indispensable, but there are others. I put here a negotiation template that I often use with suppliers and public accounts for your reference.

When negotiating a partnership, I will make a list in my notebook 10 minutes in advance, listing the contents of our discussion based on the following four points:

1: What can I give you.

2: What I need.

3: What benefits can our cooperation bring to both parties.

4: Do you have any other needs?

I will briefly list 2-3 points for each point. The amazing thing is that since I did this, I rarely encounter direct rejection. I am sure this can help you as well.

Scenario 2: New product launch

The launch of new products is actually also a scenario where goods find people, but I also drew on the experience of JD.com’s “Three Supers” . The so-called three supers refer to: Super Brand Day, Super Category Day, and Super New Product Day . By building a super series concept, an atmosphere is created inside and outside the site to influence users' minds, satisfy users in a timely manner, and complete purchasing behavior!

There are two types of new product releases: one is the pre-sale of new products, and the other is the first launch of new products. Since the two types have the same front-end performance in the mini program, I will call them new product releases.

Similarly, let's first solve why we want to launch new products:

For suppliers:

• The prime position on the JD.com site is very rare. Although the traffic of the JD.com book mini program is not as large as that of the main site, there is still some traffic. If this traffic is fully utilized, it can also produce good results. This is one of the reasons and also the inside story.
• Secondly, from a cosmetic perspective, suppliers’ new products will be recommended on the homepage of JD Books Mini Program, where they can be displayed in front of tens of millions of fans, and it is also a very prestigious thing to report to superiors. What’s more, when new products are released, we will also post recommendations on our official public account to support them!

For authors (other categories may not have this aspect):

• On the one hand, JD.com’s strong support is also a manifestation of the platform’s emphasis on its own works. Writers are a profession with a strong sense of self-esteem. Books may not sell well due to market conditions, but due respect should still be given. After all, he can write books but I don’t have that ability.
• On the other hand, the same principle applies to suppliers: the more resources the better, and we welcome all who come;
• Also, if the author has a public account or has his or her own public account operation team, they will definitely understand that embedding a mini-program in the text to jump directly is much more effective than reading the original text and jumping to another App.

For us:

• On the one hand, we need some new products to support and enrich the entire mini program page;
• On the other hand, we can make full use of the author’s popularity and traffic to attract traffic for us. If the author also has a public account, that would be great!

So what pain points does it solve for users?

According to the scenario theory we mentioned earlier, it is obvious that it means satisfying him in a timely manner under the right circumstances.

Let’s take an example below – the pre-sale of Mr. Yi Zhongtian’s new product “Yi Zhongtian’s Chinese Classic Stories”. There is no need to explain Mr. Yi Zhongtian’s popularity and traffic, and he also has his own public account.

When I learned from our partners that Mr. Yi Zhongtian was going to release a new book, they had actually already sold a round of copies a few days ago, and the main book promoted by Yi Zhongtian's official account at that time was "Yi Zhongtian's Chinese Classic Stories". However, our classmates were very supportive of Guomai's connection, and when Yi Zhongtian gave a speech in Beijing on "How to Read Chinese Classics", they won the support of the public operation team (the official account operation team was also very supportive), and used our mini program to host the new book.

Hence the following screenshot:

This time, the WeChat official account entrance alone brought in more than 1,000 orders (even though the product had already been sold once the previous week), and it also brought more than 20,000 new users to our WeChat mini program. Similarly, on the homepage of the mini program, we placed Mr. Yi Zhongtian’s new book in the key banner position and author recommendation section for a week.

As the influence of the project grows, our position in the launch of new products is becoming more and more important. An important example is that the pre-sales of the new book done with Tao Lixia have almost reached half of all JD.com channels! And the cooperation model has also been fixed.

We use the prime position on the mini program homepage + WeChat and other media channels to promote resources in exchange for authors and suppliers using and only using our mini program book recommendations + other media channels to expose the JD Books mini program. A more cross-border example is that Gao Jiacheng of QiPa Conference simply bound us and embedded the menu bar in his official account, and he knew that orders were being generated today.

Scenario 3: Supplier Brand Day

This scenario is very similar to the second scenario above, except that this scenario covers a larger scope. Similarly, it draws on the concept of "Super Brand Day" of JD.com's three super stores. We hold a small brand day for suppliers. During the brand day, I open the homepage of the mini program to suppliers, and put all the suppliers' products on the homepage. From the atmosphere rendering to the page selection, it gives users a strong impact and stimulates purchases.

On the supplier side, since all the homepages this week belong to them, they will also help us attract many public accounts to direct traffic to us.

For example: On our "Brand Day" with Guomai Culture, Guomai Culture mobilized the official accounts of authors including Zhang Haochen, Yi Zhongtian, Ding Ding Zhang, etc., covering nearly 5 million fans, all to build momentum for their Brand Day. Users can enter the Brand Day interface by clicking on the mini-program card through the official account, satisfying users very timely.

In this way, the suppliers complete their sales tasks. Secondly, for us, mobilizing more suppliers to help us with brand exposure and attract new customers is much better and more effective than me fighting alone.

Scenario 4: SNS mini games

If what we have done before is based on the cooperation and upgrades between suppliers and official accounts, then the next part will be the part with the product’s own and self-generated traffic.

First of all, let’s talk about why we need to create such a scenario and embed SNS mini-games into mini-programs. Today, e-commerce’s hunger for traffic has reached the point where it will do anything. So as long as there is something that can alleviate the thirst for traffic, I believe that major e-commerce companies are willing to try it no matter how difficult it is.

Putting SNS mini-games into mini-programs can greatly help solve the problem of traffic hunger. WeChat is a natural place for fission and attracting new users. User retention of mini-programs has always been its Achilles' heel. SNS games that add friend PK elements can solve the problems of attracting new users, retention , and traffic at once. If the elements of Traveling Frog are integrated into the shopping environment like Taobao , the conversion problem can also be solved.

Here is an example:

During last year’s Double Eleven , JD.com’s shopping mini program launched the “Everyone Grabs the Lucky Bags” SNS game. During the 10-day event, the cumulative number of participants was 8.08 million, the number of participations was 18.56 million, the number of people who shared was 3.08 million, the number of shares was 5.53 million, and the sharing rate was 40%.

During this year’s 618 , JD.com’s shopping mini program launched the “Catch Red Envelopes with Full Fire” campaign. With the popularity of the entire mini program environment, I don’t believe its data will be worse than the “Everyone Grabs the Lucky Bags” campaign during last year’s Double Eleven period.

We have also done things in this regard. Because our R&D capabilities are really limited, we basically match the games that the department is about to launch. For example, during the JD Fun Festival in March this year, we launched a game similar to "Brain King". Although it was cut down to only the PK function and was delayed for a long time before it was launched, and only a floating icon was placed, it still had a significant increase in traffic and directly attracted nearly 20,000 new users for us!

Scenario 5: Boundaryless Retail

I will not argue here about the differences between borderless retail and new retail, nor will I argue about who is right or wrong. The reason why I use the term "boundaryless retail", in addition to the fact that I am a JD employee, is because "boundaryless" is the best word to describe the current retail industry.

As a mini program practitioner, I am really tired of distinguishing between online and offline. It is as ridiculous as the distinction between "online" and "offline" after the emergence of WeChat. Everything in the future of retail will be borderless, and WeChat is the "culprit" that flattens and blurs the boundaries.

Six years ago, Zhang Xiaolong said:

The entrance to PC Internet is in the search box, and the entrance to mobile Internet is in the QR code.

There may have been some skepticism in the past few years, but now, more people agree with it. The feeling brought by scanning the code is basically the same as scanning the code on WeChat. So I will focus on how we plan to use the mini program QR code to direct offline users to online (I really don’t want to distinguish between online and offline, but for the sake of making everyone understand, I endure it!).

Because we don’t have any particularly outstanding actual cases yet, I will directly talk about my understanding of borderless retail.

For example: We are going to a conference to attend a lecture. The speaker is very awesome and famous. He doesn’t want to start talking right away, so he arranges a small segment. Before the speech, scan the mini program code to play a game. What game should we play?

Play a quiz game about his experience. The game time is 30 seconds. The first 10 people who pass can get a signed book of his, and the rest of you can get a book coupon, which is a discount for buying his books!

For example: I went to a home expo to see washing machines and refrigerators and wanted to experience them on site. But the on-site experience is not enough, I also want to read people’s comments, user experiences, and service evaluations online. What should I do?

Just scan the mini program code on the body to enter the product details page, where you can see all the above information. If you think it is suitable, place an order and it may arrive when you get home.

The pit that flowed through

Finally, it’s time to talk about the pitfalls I’ve encountered. The experience of success is important, but the lessons of failure are also painful. The above experience may not be applicable to readers due to their industry or category attributes, but I hope you can learn from the following painful lessons.

1. Not having my own product and R&D team is the biggest pitfall I have ever encountered. This made me extremely passive in the project process. The functions I wanted to implement were not always met. In addition, large companies are bloated and cross-departmental communication is extremely difficult. Even if he wants to do the product and R&D work for you, he won't be able to resist the boss assigning him other work. Therefore, it is really important to master your own product development resources. I have only recently run the product development team for the entire project.
2. I can’t find the meaning and purpose of making mini programs. If you don't think through the meaning of doing something and just do it for the sake of doing it, it is easy to fall into a passive situation. You don't know what you want or what the project needs, and you can only execute passively, and you will be dissed by your leader. A clear benchmarking target allows you to clearly know where you and your project should go and what kind of efforts you need to make.
3. The number of users cannot be increased. This may be because you have not added the fission factor, or you have not identified the user's pain points, or your product is too difficult to use.
4. User retention is difficult. Maybe you should think about whether you have found the right scenario, and whether there are more or more universal scenarios.
5. You must grasp the user's pain points and cut out all self-satisfying functions and ideas. You can set up a cemetery for them on the notebook. A year later, you will find it full of corpses, but maybe they can be used again in another scenario.
6. Be sure to pay attention to communication and upward communication. If your leader doesn't support you and your colleagues don't follow through, and you can't convince them, nothing will work.
7. Comply with WeChat platform rules.

The author of this article is @学长胡来 and it is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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