E-commerce operation logic of 8 major platforms including WeChat, Weibo, and Bilibili

In recent years, the competitive and cooperative relationship between e-commerce platforms and content companies has been changing.

Whether it is "big and comprehensive" such as Douyin and Kuaishou, which have entered the e-commerce market through live streaming and accelerated the platform's closed loop, and the WeChat mini-program ecosystem that provides merchants with a private e-commerce transaction environment, or "small and beautiful" such as the community platform Xiaohongshu and Bilibili's self-operated mall, the boundary between content and transactions is gradually blurring.

The mutual penetration of "traffic and monetization" between content companies that hold "traffic" and e-commerce giants with high traffic monetization efficiency has given rise to the explosion of social e-commerce, promoted the transformation of e-commerce from search-based shopping to discovery-based shopping, reconstructed the relationship between "people-goods-place", and achieved a full closed loop of traffic diversion, monetization, and retention.

In this article, we start from the background of the rise of social e-commerce, the new marketing rules in the era of short videos, changes in consumer shopping paths, and focus on the gameplay of typical social e-commerce platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat, Xiaomang E-commerce, and Xiaohongshu. At the same time, we review the social gameplay of traditional e-commerce such as Taobao.

Tips:

• A commercial war centered on traffic: content e-commerce challenges efficiency e-commerce.
• Short video preheating + topic participation + live streaming is the "marketing order in the short video era."
• Consumers’ purchasing path has extended from “unpacking the package” to “reading recommendation articles + watching interesting ads + buying in live broadcast rooms + writing reviews”.
• The e-commerce operation logic of the eight major platforms: Tik Tok, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Xiaomang E-commerce, Taobao Live, WeChat, Weibo, and Bilibili.

Tik Tok

Douyin proposed a new concept of "interest e-commerce": interest e-commerce is a type of e-commerce that is based on people's yearning for a better life, satisfies users' potential shopping interests, and improves consumers' quality of life.

Douyin e-commerce proposed the "FACT Matrix" to drive long-term business growth. It is composed of the four pillars of merchant self-broadcasting (Field), influencer matrix (Alliance), marketing activities (Campaign), and top influencers (Top-KOL).

The TikTok app is the first-stage rocket, representing the top traffic, with a large number of young, targeted users gathering on it. Because short videos are high-frequency enough and gather a large amount of traffic, they can be diverted to the second-stage rocket.

The second-stage rocket is Douyin's live broadcast section, e-commerce sales, games, other categories of traffic, advertising and other business scenarios that accumulate young users.

The third-stage rocket is commercial transformation such as live broadcast sharing, product promotion, games, education and other product monetization, advertising monetization, etc.

First of all, in order to promote live streaming and selling goods, Douyin has been providing crazy subsidies. Audio waves can be directly exchanged for cash, and the subsidies are very generous.

In April 2019, Douyin started to launch Douyin Stores, attempting to complete the self-closed loop of the e-commerce system; Douyin then opened up Douyin Stores to individuals, further lowering the entry threshold for e-commerce, and launched a new product - Luban Product Selection, to strengthen the control of the supply chain through this product.

In terms of "field" operations, Douyin has delivered a wealth of cases: cloud concert live broadcast, production line live broadcast, Antarctic scientific expedition live broadcast, cloud tourism bureau earth live broadcast, deep-sea garbage collection live broadcast, etc. Douyin has brought various forms of live broadcasts such as traceability, environmental protection, science and education, and music to the forefront.

The core of Douyin's attraction to users is "creative logic" rather than "traffic logic", so Douyin may gather more "creative hot stores" in the future.

Live exhibitions and live press conferences may be a major highlight of Douyin live streaming in the future.

quick worker

Kuaishou e-commerce development history

Kuaishou Shop first started in June 2018, and its subsequent deep integration with back-end service providers such as Moxiuxingxuan allowed Kuaishou to form a closed loop earlier.

Judging from the user portrait, Kuaishou users are mainly male, most of them are under 30 years old, and are concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities. There are many users with middle and low incomes and those with education levels below undergraduate level. User attributes determine that their user characteristics are strong acquaintance attributes, price sensitivity, and more free time.

The "old iron" ecosystem based on content and social relationships is the core value of Kuaishou.

The local window on Kuaishou’s homepage gives everyone an equal entrance. When someone posts content, you can see it immediately. If you find it interesting, you can imitate it. Technology has promoted the creative desire of ordinary people and formed a positive cycle of content production.

Kuaishou’s strong social attributes are conducive to accumulating private domain traffic and driving e-commerce live streaming. In terms of trust between KOLs and audiences, Kuaishou has an advantage.

Kuaishou displays and recommends products through short videos, live broadcasts, and Kuaishou store sections. The average order value is low and the products are highly versatile. Combined with flash sales and welfare activities, some users who have free time and are price-sensitive will choose to place orders after participating in certain activities and developing usage stickiness.

Through reasonable scenarios, entrances, and fission activities, more users can be attracted to the mall; and through complete e-commerce functions and rich product categories, user retention can be improved. These two are the core of Kuaishou's e-commerce user growth.

High-quality, short and fast-paced skits can meet the pain points of users who cannot concentrate for long periods of time, are curious, and like to hunt for novelty. They have become the first choice of advertisers' material routines and the main way for newcomers to attract traffic on Kuaishou.

Little Red Book

The development history of Xiaohongshu e-commerce

Currently, Xiaohongshu already has tens of thousands of notes on various hot topics such as fashion, skin care, travel, fitness, food, film and television. The note list pages made by high-quality creators give people the most direct aesthetic enjoyment through exquisite filters and designed photos or short videos.

Xiaohongshu guides topics based on hot topics and user preferences, encouraging users to discover new content. Users can browse and share their life experiences on Xiaohongshu, and can also complete a one-stop shopping experience from planting grass to placing orders.

But on the other hand, the entry of more and more celebrities and KOLs has led to various commercial implants and soft articles appearing on Xiaohongshu. The original intention of content creators to publish notes is no longer to recommend good products, but has become commercial promotion. Therefore, users have gradually become cautious about notes and have developed certain doubts about the authenticity of the content.

Xiaohongshu's achievements are largely due to the creativity of its activities. Currently, Xiaohongshu has established two festivals with its own labels - "6.6 Anniversary Celebration" and "Red Friday". In addition, the platform often combines hot spots or creates its own hot spots to carry out creative event marketing such as fresh meat express delivery, joint talent shows, etc.

Both online and offline activities received a good response, and the daily activity and new registrations during the event were quite impressive. The next step for Xiaohongshu will be to launch cross-border cooperation with the tourism industry. We also look forward to the next explosive point created by Xiaohongshu.

One of the advanced ways to play Xiaohongshu is to create brand drop-down words. If you want to achieve brand drop-down words, the key is to see how many people search for this word. There are three core points: one is the note content, two is the brand keyword layout, and three is the number of notes.

Although Xiaohongshu has no shortage of popular bloggers with distinct personalities, there are more mid-level bloggers with highly homogeneous styles and similar creative content. A large number of bloggers have the potential to promote conversions, and Xiaohongshu has a fragmented logic of bringing products.

Xiaomang E-commerce

Xiaomang E-commerce focuses on content e-commerce, takes content as the foundation, and creates a complete closed loop of "planting grass + mowing grass"; and integrates the supply chain according to the characteristics of Mango TV consumers, selecting popular commodities and customized market scarce products.

In the sales of popular goods, Xiaomang E-commerce will adopt the "selected + membership" model, forming a core model based on goods, quickly gathering traffic through celebrity co-branding or recommendation, and using content as a means to enhance users' willingness to buy.

After logging into the Xiaomang account, you can choose the areas of interest and follow the celebrities or KOLs you are interested in. The homepage is divided into four main sections: "Xiaomang", "Mall", "Shopping Cart" and "My".

The products on the app cover multiple categories including fashion apparel, beauty and personal care, snacks, home life, trendy toys, pet supplies, etc., with more than 10,000 SKUs.

Entering the Xiaomang interface, it mainly involves six areas: beauty, food, home, fashion, trendy toys and Hanfu. Users can learn about product information by watching short videos from celebrities and professional KOLs in the "Xiaomang" section. After being inspired, they can purchase the product by clicking on the link attached to the video or by searching.

Xiaomang has attracted over 500 artists and 1,000 talents to join the platform, and has collaborated with over 20 programs and TV series to create official IPs; it has also introduced and produced 40,000 short video contents.

The "Xiaomang" e-commerce product introduction page includes keywords such as celebrity life, professional KOL sharing (stylists and makeup artists around celebrities), and variety show and film recommendations. Relying on its ability to produce variety shows and films, Mango chose to enter the e-commerce market from celebrity resources.

In addition to individual users, the Xiaomang platform also has seemingly official accounts such as "Xiaomang Selection" and "Xiaomang Star Recommendation". Such accounts will increase platform activity by playing artist highlight videos, exclusive interviews, and combining with Mango variety shows.

Peripheral products derived from Mango TV's long video content such as "Who's the Stars", "Escape the Room" and "Day Day Up", official peripheral products of various celebrities and the same products as idols have been launched. In addition, well-known trendy toy brands such as Tokidoki and Chameleon have also settled in.

Taobao Live

Development History of Taobao Live

Taobao Live is embedded in the Tmall/Taobao mobile clients. Users can reach the entrance to Taobao Live from the Tmall/Taobao mobile homepage, Weitao, stores and other pages. This is its main source of traffic.

Taobao Live is positioned as a "consumer live broadcast". As one of Taobao's marketing methods, it mainly targets four types of e-commerce customers: 1. Customers who do not have time to study the types and details of goods and purchase based on recommendations from others. 2. Customers who have questions about the product and are hesitant about whether to buy it. 3. Customers who hope to get discounts and offers. 4. Potential customers who are bored and just browse around and may make a purchase.

Alibaba’s real advantage in the current live streaming e-commerce track lies in its ability to connect all links in the industrial chain, including the supply side, e-commerce platform side, live streaming platform side, MCN/anchors, and even consumers, allowing each platform to maintain a dynamic balance.

Different from the traffic distribution method of "platform → merchant" of platform-based e-commerce such as Taobao, Taobao Live adds a live broadcast room in the middle (platform → live broadcast room → merchant), using content as the intermediate layer of traffic distribution.

In terms of commercial value, Taobao Live can achieve a product opening rate and store entry rate of over 60%, which cannot be achieved by any other form; at the same time, with the support of Taobao's nearly 900 million users, the overall commercial value is being continuously released.

In terms of the anchor ecology, Taobao Live not only has well-known top anchors such as Viya and Li Jiaqi, but also has formed a large number of mid- and long-tail anchors; at the same time, it is constantly upgrading the supply chain, and is a professional benchmark for live streaming sales.

The rich changes in Taobao live broadcast "scenes", such as live broadcasts based on industrial belts, are the most common, especially jade, jewelry, and pearls. The anchors in front of the camera directly shuttle between wholesale markets and bargain on the spot. If the fans in front of the mobile phones agree, they can directly place an order to purchase. The live broadcast of agricultural products has a wide variety of scene choices, including fields, home kitchens, and factory wholesale offices.

Compared to purchasing goods directly in the store, Taobao Live has a magic weapon to attract buyers - preferential discounts.

The core product value of Taobao Live lies in creating attractive consumption scenarios by helping anchors and merchants provide real-time interactive video content to consumers.

Station B

Bilibili Member Shopping Development History

Bilibili's e-commerce business is mainly divided into two parts. One is the member purchase placed at the bottom bar of the APP, and the other is the "products" hidden in the main items of the UP. The former is self-operated by Bilibili, and the latter is considered to be the UP's personal store.

The current sales model of the member purchase module is mainly: direct sales by category + Magic Rewards (blind boxes) + beautiful pictures (column articles). The current model is relatively simple, with insufficient product categories, and there is much room for expansion.

Bilibili also provides a magic club module (providing users with a richer product display platform), where UP hosts or users can display products through videos or column articles. There is also a product link on the video or article display page, and users can directly click to enter the product details page to make a purchase.

Unlike other social platforms, Bilibili currently has no restrictions on off-site traffic diversion. UP hosts can put their Weibo or WeChat ID or Taobao showcase link at the end of the video to directly divert traffic to other platforms or e-commerce platforms.

Bilibili has also launched a mini-program e-commerce application called "Potential List Planting Machine", which mainly sells cosmetics. UP hosts on Bilibili can use this mini program to promote products in their personal updates and achieve monetization effects.

The original content and content with higher playback volume among Bilibili users are in the categories of daily life, science, games and the second dimension. From the content style, it can be seen that users care more about whether the content is interesting or valuable. Brands need to change their perspective and think from the perspective of young people.

WeChat

Based on social functions, the three major fulcrums of official accounts, mini-programs, and WeChat Pay enable users to complete multiple activities such as social, entertainment, and payment within one ecosystem, while serving as both traffic entrances and monetization channels.

WeChat e-commerce is decentralized, and brands and consumers trade directly without having to pay high commissions, management fees, and deductions.

Compared with other traditional e-commerce platforms, the links of WeChat mini-program e-commerce can be spread freely on WeChat, and can also form fission propagation through interactive forms such as designing games, group buying, and forming teams.

In the WeChat mini program, users can set product listing reminders, arrival reminders, and check-in reminders with just one click. At the agreed time, WeChat will send a reminder message to the user in the form of "service notification", which can avoid the trouble caused by excessive push from other apps.

With the more flexible and convenient features of WeChat mini-programs, brands can better achieve fission dissemination through games and social interactions, providing consumers with a more interesting shopping experience.

"WeChat Small Store" is a native e-commerce SaaS product that greatly lowers the threshold for opening a store on the WeChat platform. It is especially friendly to small and micro businesses, allowing these small and micro businesses with brands to completely continue the conversion chain that was previously blocked within the WeChat ecosystem.

Following personal accounts, public accounts, and video accounts, WeChat has launched a new mini program - "Shopping Account". A "shopping account" is equivalent to a store where individuals share products. The products promoted by the account owner come from the Huiju platform. Users can select products from the Huiju platform and put them on "My Good Things List". The higher the "influence" of the shopping account, the more recommendation positions it can obtain.

WeChat Small Stores mostly attract users with strong private domain traffic capabilities, but they are not mainstream merchants on e-commerce platforms.

Weibo

The development history of Weibo e-commerce

Weibo is a weakly purposeful form of advertising. For example, if a user likes a fashion blogger, he or she will check out his or her Weibo, and then there is a certain probability that he or she will buy what he or she wears or uses. But for the blogger himself, he will not deliberately guide his fans to buy or not.

Live streaming with goods is a highly purposeful way of promoting products. Usually, people will enter the host’s live broadcast room only when their desire to buy is very strong. If the things recommended by the host happen to be what they want, they will place an order immediately.

The purpose of the grass-planting community is exactly between the two aforementioned states. For example, when people open Xiaohongshu, their initial purpose is mostly to improve their personal taste. They may only buy something if they like it.

Both Weibo promotion and Taobao live streaming have the trend of "goods revolving around people", that is, emphasizing the charm of people, making users like and trust bloggers or anchors, and then bloggers or anchors endorse the products. Both forms are characterized by head-oriented and centralized nature.

Weibo Showcase is connected with the Alibaba ecosystem, using social media to drive the internet celebrity ecosystem, and then directing traffic to the Taobao matrix through products such as Weibo Showcase.

A business war centered on traffic

The "short video + live broadcast + e-commerce" model is gradually taking shape, and a new round of industrial changes with "content" as the core in the Internet era is entering the mid-field competition.

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New marketing rules in the short video era

The three elements of e-commerce sales: touchpoints, demand, and trust.

Whether it is content e-commerce, social e-commerce or interest e-commerce, behind the appearance is the combination sequence of three basic transaction elements: touchpoints, demand, and trust.

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Changes in consumer shopping paths

Consumers' motivation for buying things online has expanded from the single happy activity of "unpacking packages" to the combined pleasure of reading inspirational articles, watching interesting advertisements, buying things in live broadcasts, and writing reviews.

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Author: Media 360

Source: Media 360