Kuaishou e-commerce traffic growth plan

In the first part, we will experience and analyze Kuaishou’s e-commerce products and their growth strategies against the backdrop of the second half of short video development: “accelerating commercialization layout”:

1. Start with two types of users: those with strong and weak fan attributes, and analyze why Kuaishou users buy goods ;

2. Disassemble the e-commerce functions of Kuaishou and analyze the product entrance and scene design from three scene dimensions: users watching short videos, live broadcasts, and browsing shopping vertical sections ( Kuaishou stores ), so as to achieve the transformation of users from content consumption to shopping;

3. For old customers bringing in new customers, we analyzed the fission activity - " Get one million benefits for free ", broke it down around "attractiveness - communication power - conversion power", and analyzed user psychology.

The second part is to design a plan for the growth of Kuaishou e-commerce based on current online products:

1. In order to improve the activity of mall users, we designed the Kuaishou monthly card section, including three major rights and interests such as daily coupons, free trials, and monthly card products, and their implementation plans;

2. In order to increase the traffic of the mall by adding a mall diversion entrance in the core function process of the product, we designed a function to add a "shopping" label to the homepage feed flow and a shopping cart button to the short video page;

3. In order to solve the problem that the types of goods in Kuaishou Mall tend to be "novel and unique", resulting in a poor sales atmosphere and user trust in the mall, it is proposed to add a product classification section - Kuaishou Store , and improve the product details page and store homepage.

At the end of each solution, the limitations of the solution are analyzed in order to increase the feasibility of the entire solution.

Note: This article is for Kuaishou App version 7.6.10 (launched on July 14, 2020)

The first half of the development of the short video field (taking Douyin and Kuaishou as examples) was a rapid growth in traffic. 2016-2019 was a four-year period of rapid development for short videos. After verification by the market and users, it has been fully demonstrated that short videos have great potential. According to the "2019 Kuaishou Content Report", Kuaishou's daily active users exceeded 300 million at the beginning of 2020; the "2019 Douyin Data Report" shows that as of January 2020, Douyin's daily active users have exceeded 400 million.

The second half of the development of the short video field is to continuously increase user usage time and accelerate commercialization layout.

From the perspective of increasing user usage time, when the platform has enough content, it is necessary to carry out refined vertical content operations , such as Kuaishou's short video channel, live broadcast column, and the top tab of the discovery page. Through the classification and aggregation of content, the content consumption scenarios are refined and the consumption time is increased;

From the perspective of accelerating commercialization layout, the two leading short video platforms are conducting multi-dimensional exploration. Douyin's revenue increased more than fivefold in 2019, with advertising revenue accounting for a large proportion of it; the live streaming sales performance of celebrities and entrepreneurs in the first half of 2020 demonstrates the huge commercial potential of short video platforms.

Next, the author will mainly discuss the plan for increasing e-commerce traffic in short video communities (taking Kuaishou as an example) based on the commercialization of the short video field.

1. Kuaishou e-commerce product and growth strategy experience

1. Why do Kuaishou users buy products?

From the perspective of user usage scenarios and psychology, the reasons why users buy goods on Kuaishou can be divided into the following two categories:

1.1 Users with strong fan attributes

Kuaishou’s value is to give every ordinary person a stage to showcase themselves, and its functional design emphasizes people-centeredness. Kuaishou users are mostly from third- and fourth-tier cities, and they generally trust the “acquaintance economy.” This has created a community atmosphere with strong trust relationships, and the trust relationship determines the ability of "old friends" to bring goods. When seeing a host they have been following for a long time and who they trust displaying products that are cheap and easy to use, some users will choose to place an order to purchase them.

1.2 Users with weak fan attributes

The picture shows the comparison between Kuaishou and Douyin in terms of gender, age, city distribution, income, and education level.

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.

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.

2. Experience of Kuaishou e-commerce related functions

First of all, it is necessary to make clear that the original intention of most users to open Kuaishou is to watch short videos for entertainment rather than shopping. Therefore, in terms of product functions, there needs to be an entrance to divert traffic to the mall and reasonable scenarios to allow users to realize the transition of their needs, such as short video pages, live broadcast pages, Kuaishou store sections, etc.; when the mall has accumulated a certain amount of existing users, it can also use fission activities to achieve the goal of old users bringing in new ones.

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.

2.1 Shopping portal for users watching short videos

The picture shows the shopping entrance when users watch short videos

When users are watching short videos, if they agree with the products recommended by the anchor, they can click on the anchor's avatar to enter the anchor's personal center, click on the anchor's shop to enter the anchor's shop, browse the products and click to enter the product details page. Realize the transformation from short video scene to shopping scene

2.2 Shopping portal for users watching live broadcasts

The picture shows the shopping entrance for users watching live broadcasts

When users are watching a live broadcast, if they agree with the products recommended by the anchor, they can click the shopping cart button at the bottom - browse the product list - click to view and enter the product details page, thus realizing the transformation from the live broadcast scene to the shopping scene.

The picture shows the entrance to the shopping live vertical plaza

When watching live broadcasts, users can click the "More Live Broadcasts" button and then click the "Shopping" icon to enter the vertical plaza of small store selections - shopping live broadcasts. In the plaza, product live broadcasts are classified into categories, namely "Selected", "Clothing", "Food", "Beauty", "Jade", and "Department Stores", so as to accurately meet users' needs for watching a certain type of live broadcast and improve conversion rates.

2.3 Scenarios of users browsing vertical sections - Kuaishou Store

The picture shows the entrance of Kuaishou store

From the entrance point of view, Kuaishou Store has entrances in the sidebar and the channel square of the search page.

From the content point of view: the functional modules of Kuaishou Store are analyzed as follows:

Functional analysis and functional positioning of sectors

Here we focus on analyzing the user's process from "seeing to buying"; through "millions of benefits for 0 yuan purchase", we can achieve old customers bringing in new customers; through "limited time flash sales" and "guess what you want to buy", we can realize live display of products; and through the low-priced products of "guess what you want to buy", we can further promote the order rate of new customers.

2.4 Fission activity scenario, achieving old-to-new employment - millions of benefits for free

The picture shows the fission process of purchasing millions of benefits for free

Achieving user growth is the goal of fission activities. According to the AARRR model, user growth covers five stages: “attracting new users - active users - retention - conversion - dissemination”, where the user paying and placing an order to purchase goods is set as the ultimate goal. Because if you only attract new customers without any follow-up, it will lead to the embarrassing situation of "immediately losing customers after acquiring them".

In the whole process, the ultimate goal is achieved through the attraction, communication power and conversion power created by the fission process.

Attractiveness – Enticing users to click on the link.

Seeing the 0-yuan purchase message forwarded by a friend (Figure 1) is a carrier of attraction. When users see this message, they will have two judgments:

The first is what I can get. In this scenario, users can get favors after helping friends, and will also be attracted by the benefit point of "buying cars and mobile phones for 0 yuan"; Kuaishou users with the characteristics of "trusting acquaintances" and "being price sensitive" will be more sensitive to this copy, which is in line with the user's tone; and the versatility of cars and mobile phones can ensure that the appeal covers a large enough number of people.

Second, what do I need to do for this, the user needs to copy the link and open Kuaishou. The operation is relatively simple and the threshold is low.

Spreadability - drives users to forward links.

When users open Kuaishou and help their friends (Figure 2), they find that there are a wide variety of products available for free (Figure 3), which stimulates users' desire to participate in the event. However, the prerequisite for participating in the event is sharing (Figure 4). There are two key factors that affect user sharing and dissemination:

The first is the driving force and the setting of prizes. Users can choose their favorite products from a wide variety of products and receive them for free, which greatly increases the motivation for dissemination.

The second is the hindrance, forwarding operations and copywriting (Figures 5/6/7/8). In this step, the forwarding operation is relatively simple and the operation threshold is low; the forwarded text also affects the user's dissemination power to a certain extent. The tone of Kuaishou users determines that they are not very sensitive to this, so there is no additional threshold.

Conversion power - encouraging users to place orders and pay.

Conversion is the ultimate goal of fission, and the realization of conversion lies in creating a conversion buffer zone, lowering the purchase threshold, and achieving the "see-to-buy" conversion. In this process, there are two key factors:

The first is to provide rich and colorful activities and live broadcasts. If users are reluctant to place an order at first, they can watch the live broadcast in "Selected for You" and browse the products with "Millions of Benefits for 0 Yuan Purchase". In the process, their participation rate is improved and they are induced by low prices to enter the product viewing stage.

The second is to increase the exposure of products that are easy to convert. Many cost-effective and versatile products are displayed in "Guess What You Want to Buy" and "Limited Time Flash Sales". These products are easy for new users to convert. With the continuous display of cheap and good products, users with purchasing intentions begin to try to place orders.

2. Kuaishou e-commerce growth plan

The growth of Kuaishou e-commerce users requires attracting new users and retaining existing users.

New user acquisition is aimed at new users. The first is the delivery of precise channels. Since Kuaishou has accumulated a large amount of in-site traffic, the focus is on how to open entrances from pages with large traffic, or increase content consumption scenarios close to shopping, and convert in-site traffic to the mall; the second is to split old users and bring in new ones. For users who are already using Kuaishou e-commerce, discounts, free gifts, etc. are used as bait to guide users to actively share and split, thereby realizing the old bringing in new ones.

Retention is aimed at old users. The first is to encourage users to buy by improving the product structure of Kuaishou Mall or increasing the exposure of cost-effective products, so that users can feel at ease to purchase their first order; the second is to encourage users to buy more by improving product quality and after-sales service to increase user repurchase rate; the third is to recall lost users by recalling users who have been lost from Kuaishou e-commerce.

1. Option 1: Add a "Kuaishou Monthly Card" section to the Kuaishou store

1.1 Overview​

The four sections of Kuaishou Store related to selling goods have the following functional positioning: "Millions of Benefits for 0 Yuan Purchase" - fission between old customers and new customers, "Limited Time Flash Sale" and "Guess What You Want to Buy" - live display of products, "Guess What You Want to Buy" - a special area for new customers with low unit price products.

There is a lack of functional modules related to improving user activity and redeeming coupons, and the "Kuaishou Monthly Card" solves this problem. Kuaishou’s user profile is quite consistent with Pinduoduo’s user profile, so you can refer to Pinduoduo’s “Money-Saving Monthly Card” function design.

1.2 Product Goals

By setting up the "Kuaishou Monthly Card" section, the activity of mall users can be increased, the number of orders placed by users in the mall can be increased, and the GMV of the mall can be increased.

1.3 Requirements Summary

1. 4 Page Description

(1) Kuaishou Monthly Card - Entrance and Introduction Page

(2) Kuaishou Monthly Card - Daily Coupon Section

(3) Kuaishou Monthly Card - Free Trial Section

(4) Kuaishou Monthly Card - Monthly Card Goodies Section

1.5 Solution Thinking

First, because this function design includes a large number of coupons (general coupons, full-discount coupons, store-exclusive coupons), free trial products and discounted sales. Therefore, it requires financial support and requires the anchor’s store to launch coupons and price reduction cooperation that is connected to the Kuaishou monthly card before it can be implemented.

Second, we can launch similar activities such as building buildings and stacking cakes during the Kuaishou e-commerce “1106 Shopping Carnival”, which are similar to the ones launched by Taobao and JD.com on Double Eleven, and use games to guide old customers to bring in new ones, or increase the store’s order volume.

2. Option 2: Add a "Shopping" tag to the homepage feed and add a shopping cart button to the short video page

1.1 Overview

As discussed in the previous article, in order to attract new users, Kuaishou e-commerce should consider how to open entrances from pages with high traffic and convert the traffic within the site to the mall.

First, there are three locations to enter the shopping column: one is the sidebar-Kuaishou store, the second is the discovery channel of the search page-store selections, and the third is the live broadcast page-more live broadcasts-shopping column; but there is no "shopping" tag in the feed stream category of the homepage, so add this tag, create shopping vertical content, and allow more traffic to enter e-commerce live broadcasts.

Second, in live broadcast and short video scenarios, users can directly see related products by clicking the shopping cart button on the live broadcast page, which is more convenient. However, there is no shopping cart button on the short video page (classic mode/large screen mode), and users need to perform multiple steps to find their favorite products. Therefore, a shopping cart button is added to the short video page.

1.2 Product Goals

By adding shopping tags to the homepage feed and adding a shopping cart button to the short video page, the views of shopping-related short videos and live broadcasts can be increased, the number of active users of the mall can be increased, and the number of orders and GMV of the mall can be increased.

1.3 Requirements Summary

1.4 Page Description

(1) Add a “Shopping” tag to the homepage feed

(2) Add a shopping cart button on the short video page (classic mode/large screen mode)

1.5 Solution Thinking

From a functional perspective, these two functions may not be very complicated to implement. However, from the perspective of the entire community atmosphere and the long-term development of the product, why these two functions are not reflected in the product? The reasons are as follows:

First, the above two functions can indeed meet the needs of users who have shopping needs, but they may cause unnecessary disturbance to other users who just want to watch short videos for leisure and entertainment, and even affect the atmosphere of the entire community, giving people an impression of "over-commercialization". Therefore, it is necessary to find a balance between community atmosphere and commercialization.

Second, perhaps at the data level, the conversion rate of live streaming sales is indeed better than that of short videos. Because the live broadcast format moves the model of offline sales staff selling goods online, users have a stronger sense of presence and participation, and can maintain real-time interaction with the anchor; in a live broadcast room with a large number of people, through limited-time and limited-quantity activities, or large-scale purchases in the live broadcast room, users are likely to fall into a "loss aversion" and "herd buying" mentality, which is conducive to improving conversion rates to a certain extent.

3. Option 3: Add product classification section - Kuaishou store improves product details page and store homepage

1.1 Overview

The weaknesses of Kuaishou e-commerce compared to traditional e-commerce are:

First, the types of goods sold on Kuaishou e-commerce tend to be new and unique. This result is caused by the fact that live streaming or short videos need to catch people's attention in order to attract more traffic to the ordering stage; and the mainstream shopping demand of users is for mass-market brand products. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the classification of Kuaishou e-commerce, conduct official cooperation with popular brands, and improve the supply chain.

Second, the sales atmosphere of proprietary e-commerce (as opposed to some external e-commerce platforms) is poor. Compared with e-commerce apps, users have less trust in the functions of Kuaishou stores, which leads to the inability to place orders. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the product details page and the store homepage.

1.2 Product Goals

Add product classification sections to improve product details pages and store homepages, thereby increasing the number of orders placed by users on Kuaishou e-commerce and increasing the GMV of e-commerce.

1.3 Requirements Summary

1.4 Page Description

(1) Add product classification section - Kuaishou store

(2) Improve product details page and store homepage

1.5 Solution Thinking

Product design is only the starting point and framework for the improvement of Kuaishou e-commerce. It is more driven by the power of operation. Here are three points to think about:

First, the classification function of e-commerce is designed to be more oriented towards mass-market brand products based on the existing products of Kuaishou. Therefore, Kuaishou e-commerce needs to establish official cooperation with various popular brands, invite them to join, provide operational guidance, and use the scale effect of huge traffic and supplier bargaining to allow users to purchase more cost-effective general products on Kuaishou e-commerce.

Second, the improvement of the product details page and the store homepage only defines the basic framework. The author has seen that the "product details" of many products are very simple or not even filled in, which makes users who do not trust the platform even more afraid to buy. Therefore, operations are still needed in this area to promote the standardization of stores.

Third, we should take product quality into consideration while increasing the number of users. Most of Kuaishou's users are price-sensitive. Buying counterfeit goods will easily dampen their shopping enthusiasm and trust in the platform. Therefore, further improving and strictly implementing the store's evaluation system and ensuring the quality of goods are the key to the long-term development of Kuaishou's e-commerce.

Author: Dida Product Notes

Source: Dida Product Notes