Analysis of DianTao VS Douyin e-commerce live streaming competition

As the cost of acquiring customers on major e-commerce platforms continues to rise, traditional e-commerce needs to find a new traffic channel. The rapid growth of live streaming e-commerce during the epidemic has allowed people to see its broad market prospects. Among them, Diantao and Douyin e-commerce , as the leaders, both have their shining points. The author of this article has analyzed this and shared it with you.

1. Background description

Since its birth, traditional e-commerce has gone through the birth period and growth period, and has now become mature in all aspects. The various existing means of introducing traffic have also been developed to near saturation. According to iResearch Consulting, the growth rate of China's e-commerce transaction volume has begun to slow down since 2016, and the customer acquisition costs of major e-commerce platforms have continued to increase. Traditional e-commerce needs to find a new traffic channel.

Data source: 2020 China Video Content E-commerce Industry White Paper

In 2019, after the exploration period, the video content industry entered a period of rapid growth. Short-term frequency became one of the hottest forms of entertainment. At the same time, it also reached the stage where monetization was needed. At this time, live streaming e-commerce came into being. According to iResearch Consulting: In 2019, the overall transaction volume of live e-commerce reached 451.29 billion yuan, accounting for only 4.5% of the overall scale of online shopping. By 2021, the transaction volume of live e-commerce had reached 1949.37 billion yuan, accounting for 15.2% of the overall scale of online shopping. It is expected that the penetration rate of live streaming will increase to 20.3% in 2020. Live streaming e-commerce is in a period of rapid growth.

2. Competitive product selection

Diantao was originally Taobao Live, an independent e-commerce live streaming module from Taobao. It is an important APP for Alibaba to gradually penetrate the video content industry through live streaming. As the current leader in video content apps, Tik Tok has also begun to enter the e-commerce market through live streaming. This article will select Douyin Live as a competitor, analyze its advantages and disadvantages and give corresponding suggestions.

3. Competitive Product Analysis

1. Product positioning

DianTao live streaming facilitates transactions:

E-commerce platforms generally use pictures or recorded videos to display product details, while Diantao uses live broadcasts by introducing big anchors and anchors from major stores to display and promote products. This will give consumers an immersive feeling and bring a more real and reliable shopping experience, thereby increasing the transaction success rate of goods.

Douyin e-commerce live streaming interest shopping:

Users often open Douyin for entertainment rather than shopping. When they open Douyin to browse live broadcast rooms or videos, Douyin will recommend content of interest to them, using their interests to stimulate their shopping needs and thus complete transactions.

2. User analysis

1) Crowd attribute analysis

Age distribution:

In terms of age distribution, more than 80% of Diantao users are between 26 and 40 years old, while Douyin live streaming users are more evenly distributed between 18 and 40 years old. Compared with Douyin live streaming, the proportion of Diantao users aged 18-25 is very low. Among users aged 41 and above, the proportion of those who click on Taobao is higher than that of Douyin live streaming. From this we can see that 1. The users of Diantao and Douyin Live are both young and middle-aged people, most of whom are born in the 1980s and 1990s; 2. Diantao users tend to be middle-aged people, while the people of Douyin Live are younger.

Gender Distribution:

The proportion of female users of DianTao and Douyin live streaming is higher than that of male users, and the proportion of female users is about 2-3 times that of male users. The proportion of male users of DianTao is slightly higher than that of Douyin Live.

Geographical distribution:

From the perspective of geographical distribution, Taobao Live/Diantao users are concentrated in Guangzhou, Zhejiang, Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, Hunan, Henan, etc.; Douyin users are concentrated in Guangzhou, Henan, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, etc.; it can be concluded that Diantao users are mainly in super first-tier, first-tier and second-tier cities or economically developed and populous provinces. The main distribution of Douyin live broadcast users. First-, second-, and third-tier cities or populous provinces with relatively developed economies.

Summary of crowd attributes:

The main characteristics of DianTao's user base are: young and middle-aged people aged 26-40, a high proportion of women, and geographical distribution in super first-tier, first-tier, and second-tier cities with higher consumption levels. The main characteristics of Douyin live streaming: a high proportion of young people and middle-aged people aged 18-40, women, and the region is located in first-, second- and third-tier cities, mainly second- and third-tier cities.

DianTao is mainly aimed at young and middle-aged women who have certain economic capabilities and relatively high consumption levels. Douyin's e-commerce live streaming targets a wide range of groups, including young and middle-aged women who already have the financial means, as well as a younger group of people, who may be college students who do not yet have a stable source of income or newcomers to the workplace.

2) User positioning and needs

DianTao vs. Douyin live streaming users and needs

3. Product structure analysis

The DianTao APP has four first-level tabs, namely [DianTao], [Discover], [Message], and [My]. The [DianTao] module includes three sub-tabs: [Follow], [Live Broadcast], and [Video].

[Live Broadcast] includes [Category], [Live Broadcast List], [Search], and [Take Video].

[Category Tags] and [Search] will help users quickly determine the scope of the live broadcast room/products.

【Live Broadcast List】Recommends users the live broadcast rooms they may be interested in based on algorithms, and guides users to clarify their shopping ideas.

[Shooting videos] can satisfy the need for self-expression.

[Follow] allows users to quickly find the live broadcast room they are familiar with.

【Video】Create video content space to increase user stickiness.

[My] mainly includes personal information, transaction-related columns, making money, videos related to me, scan, and other settings.

【Order】Help users manage orders. Including processing unpaid orders, querying logistics information, etc.

[Shopping Cart], [Red Envelope Cards and Coupons] Shopping cart and card and coupon management.

[Collect], [Video], [Live], and [Like] to query video content related to you.

The Douyin e-commerce module is interspersed in the Douyin APP. The navigation includes [Home], [Friends], [Take Video], [My], and [Message].

[Homepage] includes [Recommendations], [Follow], [Same City], [Live Broadcast Room], and [Search]. [Live Broadcast Room] is the direct entrance to the live broadcast. [Recommendations], [Follow], and [Same City] may all become entrances to the live broadcast. This is based on the positioning of Douyin e-commerce as "interest shopping". Any place with content can become the entrance to the live broadcast room.

[My] You can click More or Douyin Mall to enter the mall and then manage orders. The order management part is relatively deep and will bring inconvenience to users.

4. Comparison of core product functions

1) Introduction of live broadcast room

Due to the different positioning of DianTao and Douyin Live, the introduction of live broadcast rooms is very different. Diantao mainly provides a live shopping platform for users with certain shopping needs. After entering the APP, users need to use classification, search and other functions to determine what they want to buy. Douyin users’ shopping needs come from content, so most live broadcasts will be interspersed in the content.

Live broadcast page: This page is mainly composed of a category slider and a live broadcast list. The category slider covers some common product categories, but the order is fixed. I personally suggest that the category slider should allow users to customize the sorting to make it easier for users to put the categories they are interested in at the front. The live broadcast list is used to recommend live broadcast rooms that users may be interested in. The live broadcast rooms in the list are composed of large pictures, live broadcast room introductions, and the number of people online in the live broadcast room. Each live broadcast list item here presents relatively little information to users, and users' perception of the content in the live broadcast room is still relatively vague. I personally recommend adding precise labels to each live broadcast list item to give users a more detailed perception.

Follow page: The follow page consists of a list of live broadcasts that you follow. The live broadcast page of each list item is also composed of a large picture, a brief introduction to the live broadcast room, and the number of people online in the live broadcast room. Personally, I think that users enter the follow page in order to quickly find the live broadcast room they follow. Each live broadcast list item here will take up a lot of space on the page, which is not conducive to user search. It can be converted into a display of avatar + introduction, and at the same time add necessary filtering functions.

2) Comparison of basic elements of live broadcast room

The Diantao live broadcast room mainly includes the live broadcast room information, the fan list of this show, the anchor gift list, topics, barrage, say something, product list, small window mode, send gifts, share, send love, and close; the Douyin live broadcast room mainly includes the live broadcast room information, online audience, the anchor list/hourly list of goods, more live broadcasts, barrage, say something, product list, send little stars, send gifts, more, and close.

Live broadcast room information column: DianTao will show the number of people watching and the region, while the Douyin live broadcast room will show the number of people who liked it. The reason is that the DianTao live broadcast room is more positioned for merchants to display products to the audience, and the audience will pay attention to how many people are shopping with them and where the products are. Douyin's live broadcast room focuses on the host's own content operation and the live broadcast room itself. The number of likes is the judgment of the quality of the content in the live broadcast room.

Live broadcast room list: The list will help users find more live broadcast rooms. The DianTao topic/popularity list recommends items of the same category based on popularity, while the gift list recommends items from the entire site. The Douyin live broadcast room sales ranking will be calculated based on the current hour's product sales, popularity and other dimensions. The hourly ranking will be based on the sound wave value (gifts) received by the live broadcast room in the current hour. There is a detail here. When switching between live broadcast rooms through topics/popularity list in DianTao live broadcast room, there will be no bar to return to the previous live broadcast room. It should be a bug.

Barrage in the live broadcast room: Barrage plays a very important role in creating the atmosphere of the live broadcast room and enhancing the interaction between the audience and the anchor. There will be "I also share" and "I also follow" on the barrage of DianTao to encourage viewers to attract people and pay attention.

Bottom elements: Compared with Douyin live broadcast, Diantao places sharing in a more prominent area, encouraging users to share to attract more people to watch and increase product sales rate. Personally, I feel that there are some shortcomings here compared to the Douyin live broadcast room. The small window mode does not require a separate button, and it can play automatically when the background is switched. There is a lack of a more button to accommodate some less commonly used functions into this button.

3) Product list comparison

Both product lists contain basic product information, snap-up and playback functions.

Basic product information: Displays basic product information. Click to display details. When you click on the details of a product list on Douyin Live, a portion of the details page will be pushed up from the bottom, and users can control the opening and closing of the details page by swiping up and down. Clicking Tao will jump directly to the details page, and the live broadcast room will change to a small window mode. You can then return to the live broadcast room by clicking the back button or swiping right. The former is better in terms of interactive experience, and is slightly more efficient than the latter when you need to view a large number of products in a product list.

Snap up: The key button for users to make purchases. The “Snap up now” button on Diantao is more conspicuous and prominent than the “Snap up” button on Douyin Live, which helps encourage users to click.

Explanation playback function: Explanation playback can help users who did not participate in the live broadcast in time to watch the explanation again. There are some shortcomings in the playback of Dian Tao’s explanation here. First of all, there is no progress bar in the explanation playback, which is very inconvenient for users. In addition, there is a bug when returning to the APP after switching to the background, and the explanation page will play again.

4) Product details

The product details page can help users understand the products displayed in the live broadcast room in more detail. The product details page of DianTao directly quotes the product details of Taobao, and its degree of completion is much higher than that of Douyin live broadcast. Of course, there are also some redundant functions. For example, the search box and more buttons above are designed for Taobao. They are meaningless when you click in from the live broadcast room to view product details, so you can consider hiding them.

5) Order management and shopping cart

Order and shopping cart management: Orders and shopping carts from DianTao and Douyin e-commerce are all placed in "My", which is in line with user habits. From a process perspective, DianTao’s order management and shopping cart are simpler and more direct, while Douyin’s are more cumbersome and difficult to find. In terms of the completion of the order management page, Douyin's completion rate is lower than Diantao. For example, Douyin's order management lacks the "search" function, and the order has only one actual payment price, lacking total price and discount information.

6) Other functions

Live broadcast room gestures: Click on the Taobao live broadcast room and swipe up and down to switch the live broadcast room, swipe left to clear the screen, and swipe right to display the live broadcast introduction and live broadcast mark. Swipe up and down in the Douyin live broadcast room to switch between live broadcast rooms, swipe left for more live broadcast recommendations, and swipe right to exit the live broadcast room. Swiping left on Diantao to clear redundant controls in the live broadcast room can help users focus more on the display of products in the live broadcast room. Swiping right only provides users with a live broadcast introduction and live broadcast mark. I personally suggest that if there is no more information to show users in the later stage, these two pieces of information can be placed in the buttons of the live broadcast room, freeing up the right swipe operation for more valuable things.

Anchor Homepage

Regarding the anchor’s homepage, here I chose the Douyin merchant anchor’s homepage for comparison with the DianTao anchor’s homepage. The DianTao anchor homepage mainly includes anchor information, product showcase, current live broadcast, live broadcast preview, video column, and live broadcast column. The homepage of Douyin merchant anchors includes anchor information, product showcases, live broadcast dynamics, participation topics, works, and merchants (product recommendation column). It is worth noting that when the Douyin merchant anchor enters the homepage, the TAB below is positioned at the merchant (product recommendation column) by default. I personally feel that this design is more reasonable. For merchant anchors, especially DianTao itself is positioned as a merchant live broadcast to display products, users care more about what the anchor sells rather than his videos/works.

IV. Conclusion

DianTao and Douyin e-commerce live streaming are both products under the current live streaming e-commerce trend. DianTao is driven by the development of content based on e-commerce live streaming. On the basis of the original e-commerce, it uses live streaming to improve the transaction conversion rate of goods, while promoting the content of videos to enter the short video market. Douyin's e-commerce live streaming is content-driven e-commerce development. It uses content platforms to efficiently direct traffic to e-commerce live streaming, thereby bringing profits to the platform and thus entering the e-commerce market. Although their starting points are different, their end points are similar, that is, to establish an efficient video content e-commerce platform and create an ecological closed loop of e-commerce + live broadcast + content.

After comprehensive analysis of the full text, the advantages and disadvantages of DianTao are as follows:

Advantages:

1. The e-commerce transaction system is mature and complete, and the platform has accumulated abundant resources. DianTao's e-commerce transactions rely on the original Taobao and Tmall. Its supplier-platform-consumer e-commerce industry chain has been continuously improved and optimized over the years of development and has accumulated a large number of users and merchants.
2. The anchors are more professional and the live broadcast quality is high. DianTao’s current anchors include top internet celebrities represented by “Viya” and “Li Jiaqi” and countless platform merchants. These professional anchors are able to create higher quality e-commerce live broadcasts.
3. User recognition and commodity transaction conversion rates are high. The tactile and immersive experience that e-commerce live streaming brings to users can greatly increase product sales.

Disadvantages:

1. The high return rate caused by impulse consumption in live e-commerce itself. Although live streaming e-commerce can bring in higher sales of goods, some live streamers overly pursue sales and produce more aggressive sales models. It is difficult for users to shop rationally under such a strong offensive, resulting in a high return rate after sales.
2. DianTao's video content system is in its early stages and is developing relatively slowly, making it difficult to form a virtuous circle. At present, the majority of video content is concentrated on Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. According to the Matthew effect, the mentally retarded have a harder time surviving in the market.
3. The construction of DianTao APP itself is not perfect. Diantao was originally Taobao Live, which was launched in February 2019. After two years of development, it was renamed Diantao in January 2021. It was determined that contentization is its future strategic goal. As for Diantao itself, its construction is just beginning.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Maintain its own advantages in the field of e-commerce transactions, continuously accumulate value and improve competitive barriers, and maximize its advantages.
2. Strengthen the governance of the platform, build a healthier and fairer competition mechanism, do not regard the product sales rate as the only goal, and in addition to sales, also look at net sales, user feedback and other aspects, and adopt a multi-dimensional evaluation and control system.
3. Strengthen the construction of the content system, establish an effective incentive mechanism, encourage merchants and users to promote video content, and cultivate their own healthy content ecology.
4. Accelerate the iterative construction of APP and continuously improve the user experience. At present, the overall completion of the APP is not high, especially the homepage. The content of the follow-up and live broadcast pages it contains is relatively small and incomplete. This is the part that urgently needs to be iterated and completed. In addition, more complete modules such as live broadcast rooms, product pages, videos, etc. need to be continuously optimized and improved to enhance user experience.

Author: Z-Space

Source: Z-Space