Douyin VS Kuaishou - Competitive Analysis

Live streaming e-commerce has experienced rapid growth, and various platforms have also begun to develop e-commerce businesses. With the help of the short video industry, e-commerce live streaming can achieve more efficient interaction and benefit conversion. In this article, the author analyzes the e-commerce business of Kuaishou and Douyin and summarizes his views. Let’s take a look.

1. Purpose of analysis

Currently, Kuaishou's e-commerce GMV leads Douyin's e-commerce GMV. By comparing the e-commerce businesses of Douyin and Kuaishou, suggestions are given on the iterative optimization of user-end products to achieve the 2021 goals of Douyin's e-commerce business.

2. Industry Analysis

1. Industry Background

Short videos have broken out from general entertainment and turned into super-long videos. The number of active users has reached 640 million, and the industry has now entered a battle for existing users. The commercial monetization model of short videos is mature, with advertising and live broadcast reward revenue accounting for nearly 90%, which is considerable revenue.

Influenced by factors such as the shift in user interests, the popularity of merchants, and the catalysis of the epidemic, both the short video industry and the live streaming e-commerce industry ushered in strong growth momentum in 2020. Changes in key industry data have repeatedly exceeded the predictions of market analysis agencies, and the industry landscape has also ushered in a reshuffle.

The e-commerce businesses of Douyin and Kuaishou were born out of the massive traffic overflow of their respective short video platforms and the e-commerce needs of users. Their development will inevitably be subject to certain restrictions on the development of the short video industry. The e-commerce businesses of the two companies are further divided into short video e-commerce and live streaming e-commerce, among which live streaming e-commerce is the core of the business and has little to do with the content production and distribution of short videos. Therefore, the e-commerce business of Douyin and Kuaishou does not belong to a certain industry, but is at the intersection of the short video industry and the live streaming e-commerce industry. Its development is bound to be restricted and driven by the trends of the two industries at the same time.

As the spread of the domestic epidemic is brought under control in 2021, the industry's growth rate has gradually slowed down. Both short videos and live streaming e-commerce need to further refine their operations and find new growth points as the industry's penetration rate growth has peaked.

2. Short video industry analysis

Figure 2.2 (1)

The short video industry has now formed a relatively mature and stable industrial chain system, but competition in the short video industry will remain fierce in 2020, and the head effect is gradually emerging. Among the TOP20 platforms in terms of user scale, ByteDance occupies 6. The competition for single applications is between Kuaishou and Douyin, which together own 62.7% of the users in the industry. A number of tail platforms are facing a test of survival.

From the perspective of revenue structure, commercial monetization is mature, but the degree of diversification is insufficient. Revenue from advertising and live broadcast rewards accounts for 89% of the total revenue, which means that for every 10 yuan earned, only 1 yuan is not earned from advertising and live broadcast rewards.

The advertising market size is still growing, but the growth space is limited and will soon peak. The number of paying users for live broadcast rewards and the ARPU will gradually decrease as users become aesthetically fatigued. Therefore, competition in the short video industry will become more intense in the future, and the industry urgently needs to seek more diversified revenue growth points.

Figure 2.2 (2)

Judging from the data on usage time, the average weekly usage time of short video users in 2020 was 4.78 hours, firmly occupying the first place in the pan-entertainment industry, but in terms of proportion, it is less than 1/5, which means that short videos that kill "fragmented" time still have room for growth in usage time.

Short video platforms are essentially content platforms, and using the market is extremely important for content platforms. Only with a sufficient market can they place more advertisements and explore more diversified businesses.

3. Analysis of the live streaming e-commerce industry

Figure 2.3 (1)

As of December 2020, the user scale of live e-commerce was 388 million, while the scale of Internet users in my country was 989 million, and the user penetration rate of live e-commerce was only 39.23%.

However, from the users' online shopping funnel chart, we can see that nearly half of the users (49.71%) will choose to shop while watching live broadcasts. The immediacy, interactivity and real visibility of live broadcasts have reduced the users' consumption decision-making costs. Live streaming sales are often accompanied by low-price discounts and free gifts, which stimulate users to have a stronger desire to shop, and users can place orders with greater confidence.

The characteristics of live streaming e-commerce and the improvement of the supply chain of major platforms equipped with live streaming e-commerce business will lead to sustained growth in users, and there is a relatively broad space for user growth.

Figure 2.3 (2) GMV scale and growth rate of live e-commerce industry from 2017 to 2023

Figure 2.3 (3) Penetration trend of live streaming e-commerce industry from 2017 to 2023

Let’s first make a simple formula: GMV = number of users placing orders X average order value.

Even if we assume that the user order rate will only increase slightly in the next few years, with the strong growth of the user scale, the number of ordering users will continue to maintain rapid growth; and the brand image visualization, the IPization of the anchor, and the preferential prices of the live broadcast will all help to maintain the continued growth of the average order value.

Therefore, both GMV and penetration rate of the live streaming e-commerce industry will continue to grow steadily. However, as the industry continues to mature, the growth of GMV will experience a sharp decline in growth rate after the rapid growth period, and will continue to maintain a stable growth rate after returning to normal levels.

4. Industry Prospect Analysis

Although the e-commerce GMV of the leading short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou both saw significant growth in 2020, and e-commerce share revenue increased compared to 2019, its contribution to overall revenue is still very low.

If the head platform is like this, the waist and tail platforms will only be better. On the one hand, the market has transformed from an incremental market to a market for competing for existing stocks, and growth is under pressure. On the other hand, people’s increasingly strong shopping needs have created an emerging live streaming e-commerce market.

Therefore, whether actively or passively, more and more short video platforms will invest in the growth of e-commerce business in the future. Driven by user demand and corporate resources, the e-commerce sub-industry of the short video industry has huge room for growth, which will of course be accompanied by more intense competition.

3. User Analysis

1. Analysis of users in the short video industry

Figure 3.1 (1) Analysis of users in the short video industry 1

There is still a small room for growth in the number of female users of short videos. The scale of lower-tier users is nearly 400 million, but there is still room for growth of 300 million users. In the future, we need to focus on deepening our presence in the lower-tier markets.

2. Analysis of users in the live e-commerce industry

Figure 3.2 (1) Analysis of users in the live e-commerce industry 1

Figure 3.2 (2) Analysis of users in the live e-commerce industry 2

In terms of shopping frequency among regular consumers, more than half, or 55.2%, shop once a month or more; 35.6% shop once every 1-3 months. Judging from the trends reflected in the data, 90.8% of consumers have made purchases once or more within three months, which means that the possibility of consumers trying shopping after continuously watching live broadcasts is gradually increasing, and live shopping will gradually become normalized from a random event.

Transactions in live e-commerce are more inclined to impulse purchases, and gender data also reflects that female users are relatively more emotional and make impulse purchases. But impulse buying is likely to result in two consequences:

1. Buying goods that are falsely advertised;
2. After I bought it, I realized I didn't need it.

The consequences of impulse consumption, coupled with the widespread phenomenon of fake orders during live streaming, have resulted in an overall return rate of 30%-40% for live streaming e-commerce, which is much higher than that of traditional e-commerce. Therefore, if live e-commerce users want to see real growth in purchases, the industry needs to become more regulated.

Figure 3.2 (3) Analysis of users in the live e-commerce industry 3

The four sets of data together reflect a situation: no matter who is selling the goods, what category or brand of goods they sell, what users care about and worry about are mainly the products themselves (quality, price) and after-sales service.

In essence, live streaming e-commerce only changes the marketing and sales methods. To truly achieve business growth, it is still necessary to:

1. Improve product quality and offer price discounts;
2. Improve the supply chain;
3. Provide good after-sales service.

3. Overall user analysis

In the future, the short video industry will focus on or improve the following aspects if it wants to achieve growth in live e-commerce business:

1. In terms of user growth, we focus on female users, but we also need to activate the existing users in the industry and focus on the sinking market, which is the main source of future growth;
2. Improve its own supply chain construction;
3. Select high-quality merchants to ensure and enhance users' shopping experience and consumption rights.

4. E-commerce business analysis

1. Development History

1) Kuaishou e-commerce development history

2) The development history of Douyin e-commerce

3) Development history analysis

From the number of actions taken by Kuaishou and Douyin in e-commerce business, it can be seen that there were fewer actions in 2018 and 2019. They are in the initial development stage of e-commerce business and are carefully exploring to avoid damaging user experience as much as possible.

By 2020, influenced by the epidemic, all of them accelerated the layout of their e-commerce businesses and accelerated the construction of their business ecosystems from multiple aspects such as product functions, operational activities, and partners. Douyin took more actions than Kuaishou.

This also brought about a more obvious advantage. Although Douyin's GMV is only more than 100 billion yuan if calculated strictly according to the financial report statistics of e-commerce companies such as Alibaba and Kuaishou, the total GMV of the self-operated e-commerce closed loop + third-party diversion exceeds 500 billion yuan, far exceeding Kuaishou's 381.2 billion yuan.

From another perspective, if we compare the key time nodes, key events and time types, we can find that Douyin actually entered the e-commerce business earlier than Kuaishou, and Douyin has also fully utilized public domain traffic. Whether it is the addition of new functions, iterative upgrades or the implementation of marketing activities, Douyin is better than Kuaishou, especially in October 2020, Douyin completely realized the closed loop of e-commerce business, and also created a stable foundation and business accelerator for the further development of e-commerce business in the future.

Therefore, judging from its development history, it is destined that Douyin will surpass Kuaishou in the e-commerce business; it is only a matter of time.

2. Positioning and strategic analysis

Figure 4.2 Kuaishou VS Douyin e-commerce business positioning and strategy

3. Fundamental analysis

1) Kuaishou e-commerce

Figure 4.3 (1) Basic user base of Kuaishou APP

Data provided by Mob Research Institute shows that from August 2019 to August 2020, Kuaishou's monthly new user scale and one-month retention rate of monthly new users both showed a downward trend in one year. The monthly new user scale dropped from 28.086 million to 17.746 million, while the one-month retention rate of monthly new users dropped from 55.3% to 45.1%.

In its IPO prospectus, Kuaishou defined itself as "the world's leading content community and social platform ." Since it is a content community, the key to retaining users is the quality of the content. In terms of content, Douyin has long been stronger than Kuaishou, so it can be inferred that the decline in data is related to the fact that the proportion of high-quality content on Kuaishou is lower than that on Douyin. This ultimately resulted in the average monthly usage time of Kuaishou users being lower than the industry average.

But from its own perspective, Kuaishou's monthly active user stickiness and average user time still provide a relatively good basic foundation for the development of its e-commerce business. However, if it wants to develop further, the downward trend of the basic data must be reversed.

In addition to the basic data, Kuaishou also needs to complete the construction of a closed loop of e-commerce business as soon as possible. Now Kuaishou is the only platform among the major platforms with live e-commerce business that still allows third-party links. This gives users greater freedom of choice, but it also affects the business development of Kuaishou stores to a certain extent. In addition, Kuaishou applied for the trademark "Laotie Payment" as early as August 2020 and acquired a third-party payment company, but "Laotie Payment" has never been launched on Kuaishou.

2) Douyin e-commerce

Figure 4.3 (2) Basic user base of Douyin APP

All the basic data of Douyin APP are better than those of Kuaishou. In addition, from August 2019 to August 2020, the monthly number of new users and the one-month retention rate of Kuaishou's new users showed an upward trend in one year. Douyin and Kuaishou are both leading platforms in the short video industry. It can be inferred that every new user lost by Kuaishou is likely to come to Douyin. Excellent data monetization provides sufficient room for the growth of e-commerce business.

Tik Tok is now stimulating users’ desire to buy by increasing the exposure of high-quality video content. At the same time, by providing subsidies and flash sales to merchants, we stimulate traffic and increase conversions, prompting users to place orders quickly.

However, the e-commerce logic of Douyin is closer to Taobao, and it is still a business centered around traffic. The centralized content distribution mechanism and the personalized intelligent recommendation mechanism have two serious impacts on e-commerce business:

1. The fan stickiness is doomed to be not too high, and the number of fans does not completely determine the ability of an account to bring goods;
2. This results in concentrated top traffic, and the traffic of most mid- and long-tail anchors is unstable. If they cannot gain popularity through short video content, they can only attract users by purchasing traffic. Low live broadcast viewership will greatly reduce their enthusiasm for live streaming sales, and their enthusiasm for purchasing traffic will also decrease accordingly.

3) Overall analysis

The short video e-commerce business currently only serves as an auxiliary to the overall e-commerce business and will not be analyzed in detail for the time being. In terms of live e-commerce business, there are still many obstacles to development.

First of all, the anchors engage in false advertising, and the rampant counterfeit goods have greatly damaged the rights and interests of consumers, which in turn has affected the loss of e-commerce business users and the decline in purchases, and ultimately affected the platform's business development and revenue growth. This is even more important for Kuaishou E-commerce, which is positioned as "trusted e-commerce". Currently, Douyin claims to have adopted an AI + manual review model, and Kuaishou will conduct a thorough investigation and remove problematic products once they are discovered. But overall, the efficiency is low and the problem solving also occurs in the after-sales stage. The solution to the problem of counterfeit goods needs to be solved in the pre-sales stage to ensure the development of the business.

In addition, Kuaishou and Douyin currently lack the complete construction of e-commerce infrastructure. At present, the supply chain within the e-commerce closed loop of the two companies is still in the early stages of development. Even though huge amounts of money have been invested in building a supply chain system, many areas such as after-sales service and logistics system have not yet been perfected. This is also the issue that live e-commerce users are most worried about.

4. User Analysis

1) Kuaishou user analysis

Figure 4.4 (1) Kuaishou e-commerce user characteristics

Data from the Kuaishou Big Data Research Institute shows that in 2020, most of the users who shopped on Kuaishou were female. They placed a large number of orders and contributed high GMV. However, in terms of average order value, the average order value for males was higher than that for females.

It can be inferred that men are relatively more rational and buy less but at higher prices, while women tend to make more impulsive purchases. Although their average order value is not as high as that of men, their consumption frequency is higher and they buy more in larger quantities.

Figure 4.4 (2) Characteristics of Kuaishou e-commerce users

In terms of age, users born in the 1980s currently make the most purchases, but other age groups show obvious gender differences. Considering the average order value of buyers of different age groups, the next growth in male users needs to focus on those born in the 1980s, who have the largest number of buyers and the highest average order value, followed by male users born in the 1970s.

The age distribution of female users and the average order value of each age group show very interesting and completely opposite characteristics. The people born in the 1980s buy the most, but their average order value is the lowest. Therefore, what female users need more is overall balanced development and data improvement, without any specific target.

Figure 4.4 (3) Consumption of Kuaishou e-commerce users

According to the observation results of different cities, it can be found that Kuaishou e-commerce and Kuaishou as a whole have maintained consistency, both firmly occupying the sinking market, and users in third-tier cities and below have shared the main growth.

Residents' income level is also linked to the level of the city. Whether it is the average income level, the middle income level, or the top income level, they all increase with the increase in the level of the city. Third-tier cities are at a balance point between income and consumer market. Sufficient leisure time, decent income levels, lower living costs, and incomplete product SKUs have together shaped the strong consumption demand and spending power of users in third-tier cities. In the future, the growth of Kuaishou's e-commerce business will mainly rely on users in third-tier cities, followed by users in first- and second-tier cities.

2) Analysis of Tik Tok users

Figure 4.4 (4) Characteristics of Douyin e-commerce users 1

Figure 4.4 (5) Characteristics of Douyin e-commerce users 1

Figure 4.4 (6) Characteristics of Douyin e-commerce users 2

Douyin has changed from a situation where users from first- and second-tier cities dominated the market to its current balanced development. Except for first-tier cities (including new first-tier cities), the proportion of users in other levels of cities is not very different. For e-commerce business, the proportion of users in first-tier cities (including new first-tier cities) and third-tier cities is relatively close, and is significantly higher than that of users in other levels of cities. Considering the user growth rate of e-commerce business, the growth of Douyin e-commerce users will be supported by fourth-tier cities, and the growth space is relatively broad.

In terms of gender, whether it is Douyin or Douyin e-commerce, the proportion of male users is lower than that of female users. However, the growth rate of male users in e-commerce business exceeds that of female users. This may have a lot to do with Douyin's e-commerce business strategy.

Douyin is currently vigorously developing corporate store live broadcasts, and store live broadcasts make users feel more distant and have weaker connectivity than personal live broadcasts, which makes users more inclined to think rationally.

It just so happens that male users pay more attention to rational data presentation and will purchase if the rational results are good enough, so the growth of male users will be faster. However, the growth space for male users is narrower than that for female users. In the future, Douyin e-commerce needs to allocate certain resources to develop personal anchors and strengthen the connection between users and sales accounts to obtain more growth in female users.

5. Product architecture related to e-commerce business

Note: The product architecture only sorts out the functions that are strongly related to e-commerce business, so as to intuitively display the business-related functions and functional levels.

Figure 4.5 (1) Kuaishou e-commerce business related product architecture

It can be seen that most of the functions of Kuaishou's e-commerce business choose the homepage as the only first-level function entrance. There are two problems with this. First, it is very bloated, and second, it reduces the convenience for users and is not conducive to the growth of e-commerce business.

Figure 4.5 (2) Douyin e-commerce business related product architecture

Compared with Kuaishou, the concentration of product architecture related to Douyin's e-commerce business is much lower, but it is beneficial to users as a whole. In particular, the exposure of Douyin Mall increases the possibility of users actively searching and purchasing products in addition to passively recommending products.

6. Analysis of core business pages and functions

1) Short video e-commerce

Compared with live streaming, short videos have less room to play in driving sales in e-commerce. Kuaishou and Douyin are basically the same. One is to directly sell goods by carrying product links, and the second is to attract traffic to the live broadcast room, allowing users to see the short video of the selling content and then directly click on the avatar to watch the live broadcast. This way of bringing goods content to attract traffic to the live broadcast is more suitable for corporate account operations.

The only difference is that Douyin’s product link can be briefly converted into a pop-up link for a product, which can more intuitively display the product and its price through pictures + text descriptions, and can better stimulate users’ desire to consume, but the degree of stimulation should not be very high.

2) Live e-commerce

① Live broadcast room entrance

Figure 4.5.2 (1) Kuaishou live broadcast room entrance

In the featured column on the homepage, Kuaishou provides two entrances to live broadcast rooms. One is to directly click on the recommended live broadcast room to jump in, and the other is to click on the avatar when you see a recommended short video and the owner of the account is broadcasting live.

The third entrance is provided through the sidebar function drawer on the homepage. After clicking the live broadcast square, you will enter a random live broadcast room. This entrance is deeper and not fixed, and users can quickly select 5 functions that are fixed to the sidebar. Having choices is good for users, as it gives them full freedom, but to a certain extent it has a negative impact on the development of Kuaishou's e-commerce business.

Figure 4.5.2 (2) Kuaishou live broadcast room entrance

The home page - the entrance to the live broadcast room in the Discover column and the local section is the live broadcast content itself. The home page - Follow column, in addition to the entrance to the live broadcast content itself, also provides an entrance in the form of avatar + name tags for all users in the user's follow list who are currently broadcasting. These tags are displayed together at the top, allowing users to directly find the live broadcast of their favorite anchors as soon as they enter the Follow column, reducing the time wasted by users randomly swiping through content or the trouble of jumping after searching.

The last entrance is the personal homepage of the content creator user. Of course, the previous entrances can be reached relatively efficiently, and the frequency of use is actually not very high.

In the end, Kuaishou provided users with a total of 6 live broadcast room entrances (actually there is 1 more, but the entrance is too deep, so it will be analyzed later). These live broadcast room entrances do not necessarily lead to live broadcast rooms for selling goods. Judging from Kuaishou’s actual recommendations, although it is the 6.18 Shopping Street, the probability of Kuaishou recommending live broadcasts for selling goods is not very high.

Figure 4.5.2 (3) Entrance to Douyin live broadcast room

Figure 4.5.2 (4) Entrance to Douyin live broadcast room

The overall entrance form of Douyin's live broadcast room is similar to that of Kuaishou. However, the live broadcast entrance on the Douyin homepage is directly made into a fixed column and placed in the upper left corner. The shallow entrance makes it easier for users to notice it and then enter to watch the live broadcast.

Another difference is the content format of the follow column page. Kuaishou's follow column is a double-column waterfall flow, while Douyin's is a single-column waterfall flow, which is more conducive to creating an immersive feeling, but reduces the chance of exposure to more live broadcasts, once again highlighting that Douyin focuses on content rather than relationships.

The entrance to the live broadcast room on the personal homepage is different from that of Kuaishou. It is in the avatar tag, but it has little impact.

Douyin also provides users with a total of 6 live broadcast room entrances. Judging from the actual recommendation situation, the probability of Douyin recommending a live broadcast room for selling goods is much higher than that of Kuaishou. It is even possible that several live broadcast rooms in a row are all live broadcast rooms for selling goods. Douyin's current user shopping rate and shopping intention are not as good as Kuaishou's. Doing so can, to a certain extent, educate users and strongly attract them to watch live sales broadcasts, but it will also damage the experience of users who are more resistant to live sales broadcasts. The specific results can only be determined by the presentation of user behavior data.

② Live broadcast room details

Figure 4.5.2 (5) Details of Kuaishou live broadcast room

Figure 4.5.2 (6) Details of Douyin live broadcast room

Overall, the layout of Douyin's live broadcast room has a stronger sense of breathing because there is more white space, making people feel refreshed and clean. Functionally, the two are basically the same.

The display of user shopping reviews on Douyin makes the sales of anchors/merchants more authentic, further reducing the trust cost of user consumption.

However, Kuaishou’s real-time scrolling display of the sales volume of items being sold can better improve the sales conversion rate of live broadcasts. The anchor recommendations on the right can also enhance users' sense of control over the live broadcast room, allowing users to know what the "best" products in the live broadcast room are, and get clearer answers to questions such as whether the products in the live broadcast room are attractive enough, whether they should stay and wait, or look at other products worth buying, etc. more quickly.

There are also very obvious differences between the two in the product lists. Kuaishou does not have a shopping cart, nor does it have a function for adding items to a shopping cart. It does have a customer service function for consultation. The purpose of these designs is to dispel users' consumption concerns, so that they can place an order immediately if they want to buy, creating a stronger sense of limited-time shopping discounts.

The lack of consultation function and the design of shopping cart and add-to-cart in Douyin's live broadcast room reduce the possibility of users buying while watching in the live broadcast room. However, allowing users to think more rationally can also help reduce the return rate.

③ Live Square

Figure 4.5.2 (7) Kuaishou Live Square

Figure 4.5.2 (8) Douyin Live Square

In terms of the design of the live broadcast program, compared to Douyin, Kuaishou's design can better enhance the connection between users. The recommendations and other tags of the two APs are the same. The difference is that Kuaishou has an additional "Frequently Watched" and Douyin has an additional "Follow".

Kuaishou’s understanding of users is that users may not necessarily like to watch the live broadcasts of content producers in their follow list, and those who like to watch may not necessarily watch them often. Users who like to watch and watch often may not necessarily follow the live broadcast users. Through the "Frequently Watched" label, regardless of whether the user pays attention to it or not, at least the connection between the user and the live broadcast room has been strengthened.

The second difference between the two APP live broadcast squares is that Douyin has made the "start live broadcast" button a more conspicuous and larger floating BUTTON. It can be seen that Douyin hopes that users will change their single role of content consumers and also participate in the production of live broadcast content.

The third difference is the search function. Kuaishou provides search recommendations, while Douyin does not. The logic of Tik Tok is that when users conduct searches, they already have relatively clear search needs, and the success rate of recommendations is low, so there is no need for recommendations.

Finally, Douyin still has a relatively obvious flaw in content recommendations on the shopping channel - not all live broadcasts in the shopping channel are sales live broadcasts, there are also completely irrelevant "chat" live broadcasts. This flaw is extremely bad for users and business development.

3) Overall e-commerce business

① Mall

Figure 4.5.3 (1.1) Kuaishou Mall

Figure 4.5.3 (1.2) Kuaishou Mall

Figure 4.5.3 (2) Douyin Mall

In terms of the function labels at the top, Kuaishou provides more than Douyin, but more is not the key. What is important is that Kuaishou has simplified the shopping-related functions that users often use, reducing the frequency of users jumping pages, and greatly improving the smoothness of shopping and user experience.

The function in the upper right corner also shows the differences in the e-commerce business strategies of the two apps. Currently, Douyin is more similar to Tmall, emphasizing high quality and good brands, so there is a shopping cart in the upper right corner, which is quite standard. Kuaishou is more similar to Taobao, with a channel to jump to "Tmall - high-quality brands", but it needs more people to participate in opening stores and distribution to increase user participation in building the Kuaishou e-commerce business ecosystem. Therefore, Kuaishou focuses on "opening stores."

Kuaishou has made a tab at the bottom to display the categories of goods, which are then displayed in the form of cards. The overall display is intuitive and convenient. They are all made into middle labels. There are many categories but the order cannot be adjusted or the presence or absence of labels can be selected, which greatly reduces the user experience.

In terms of specific product display, Kuaishou’s 7th live broadcast entrance is placed in the mall. The product display areas are all live broadcast rooms. The content is in the form of live broadcast room cover + main product introduction (picture + text + price), and there is no entrance to directly enter the product details. Kuaishou does this to increase traffic to live sales broadcasts. However, the depth of the entrance to Kuaishou stores may lead to users entering the mall wanting to learn about the products directly in the form of pictures and texts. In addition, Kuaishou’s content adopts a strong push mode. It is speculated that it may be directing traffic to high-quality anchors and anchors who have purchased paid promotions.

The product display area of ​​​​TikTok is in the form of picture and text product display + live broadcast. Users can choose not to like the picture and text product display that they don’t like. One reason is that the entrance to the Douyin Mall is relatively shallow and obvious, and the users’ uncertainty is higher than that of Kuaishou’s users. The two display formats are more compatible and can allow as many users as possible to have a good experience. The "dislike" function allows Douyin to continuously understand user preferences, optimize recommendations, and ultimately achieve the goal of improving conversion rates.

② Store

Figure 4.5.3 (3) Kuaishou store page

Kuaishou’s store page appears a bit crude, without search and sorting functions. If the number of products is large, the user experience will be greatly reduced. This may be because most merchants’ stores currently do not sell many products, so there is no need for it.

The obvious consultation and customer service function above the store is a good way to connect users with the store. The product explanation playback function can also help users better understand the product.

Figure 4.5.3 (4) Douyin store page

Although the Douyin store page does not have a customer service consultation function, it also has some good features. The display of store reputation history can make users more trusting of high-quality stores, believe in the quality of their products and store services, and reduce consumption concerns. Both searching and sorting can help users find the products they need more efficiently and quickly. However, I really don’t see any use for the live broadcast sales records and the specific sales details of each sales.

③ Product details

Figure 4.5.3 (5) Kuaishou product details page

Overall, it is not much different from Taobao's product display details page and is pretty standard. The highlight is that no matter whether the merchant can only display one product or multiple products, the first one must be a video display. Doing so can make the display of the product more three-dimensional and the product description more authentic.

In addition, Xiaohongshu has been using the function of displaying the purchase status of other consumers for the same product for a long time, which can greatly enhance the attractiveness of the product. On this page, Kuaishou continues the style of the product list in the live broadcast room. It does not set up a shopping cart, implicitly urging users to buy immediately if they want to.

Figure 4.5.3 (6) Douyin product details page

It is basically a replica of Taobao's product details page and is not worth analyzing.

④ Personal homepage

Figure 4.5.3 (7) Kuaishou user personal homepage

Figure 4.5.3 (8) Douyin user personal homepage

The functions are basically the same, only the positions of the functions are different, but the impact of this difference is so small that it can be ignored.

V. Summary and Optimization Suggestions

1. Summary

1. Judging from market size and development prospects, both Douyin and Kuaishou have ample room for growth.
2. From the perspective of competition, there is a limit to the user scale after all. Douyin and Kuaishou have entered into an e-commerce business competition that is mainly focused on the competition for existing users. Douyin's business fundamentals and growth potential are stronger than those of Kuaishou, and it is a foregone conclusion that it will surpass Kuaishou.
3. From the perspective of the overall product architecture, Douyin is inferior to Kuaishou. From the perspective of specific functions, the design logic and functions of some functions of Douyin still need to be optimized.

2. Optimization suggestions

1. Maintain the existing overall structure unchanged.
2. The mall page learns from Kuaishou, adds some functions, and reduces the user's jump process.
3. Optimize the "live broadcast review" function and consider deleting this function or changing it to live broadcast dynamics, which not only provides historical review but also allows users to know in advance the live broadcast arrangements of merchants/anchors in the future, allowing users to set live broadcast reminders.
4. Improve the content matching degree of the live broadcast square and ensure that the live broadcast rooms in the shopping channel are all live broadcast rooms for selling goods.

Author: Lin Xiaoxue

Source: Lin Xiaoxue