Two days ago, I went to Uniqlo and found that my size was out of stock when I tried on clothes. I wanted to ask the salesperson when they would restock the clothes, but I saw this notice in the fitting room:

So I scanned the code and took a look at the mini program. Not only are there more complete sizes, but there are also exclusive discounts for the mini program. The Double 11 activities are almost as strong as those of Tmall!

Uniqlo’s mini program flagship store is actually doing so well?

With doubts, I went to check the relevant information and found that Uniqlo has already made mini programs very successful, with a conversion rate more than three times that of its peers , and it is also very good at social e-commerce, comparable to Pinduoduo...

How did Uniqlo do it? In this article, we will dig into the secrets behind UNIQLO’s private domain operations…

1. Use multiple online and offline touchpoints to attract traffic and build a base

How powerful is Uniqlo’s mini program mall?

According to official data from Tencent Retail, during the Double Eleven shopping spree, the purchase conversion rate of Uniqlo's mobile flagship store was more than 3 times that of the industry, and the membership growth rate was 1.5 times the usual rate.

If you want to make a good mini program, the first step is to build a good user base.

So, where does Uniqlo’s traffic come from? Mainly from the following four channels:

1) Online traffic: WeChat official account

The most convenient way to attract online traffic to the mini program is definitely the official account that belongs to the WeChat ecosystem. What's more, Uniqlo's official account has more than 30 million fans.

Therefore, the deep binding between the official account and the mini program is inevitable, and it starts from the welcome message.

① Welcome

Compared with other brands’ less thoughtful pictures/applets, Uniqlo’s welcome message is particularly clear in terms of priorities, and each item is driving traffic to the app:

The menu bar is also cleverly designed . It is almost entirely mini-app links, rather than the familiar public account articles. Emoji expressions are added before some key secondary menu contents to attract users’ attention:

②Tagged push

In addition, the daily push notifications of official accounts are also a bit special. Not only are they diverse in form, but they can also be "customized".

Compared with other accounts that often use the form of "pictures and text + embedded mini program code" to push content, Uniqlo is more simple and crude, often directly pushing "text messages + mini programs", forcing users to "have to" click on the mini program to view the content:

However, I found that there is something fishy about this function.

After comparing the Uniqlo official accounts of several colleagues, I found that only I, who had recently clicked on the outfit pictures and texts, received this message, and no one else did.

In addition, after I bought the things, I did not receive any review invitation notification, but several individual Uniqlo users would receive such review reminders every time.

In other words, the messages on Uniqlo’s official account may still be personalized based on user tags ... This is really similar to Pinduoduo’s operation.

③ Ordinary pictures and text

Even the text and picture push notifications from public accounts that can be received by everyone contain hidden secrets.

First, there is a link to the mini program on each product , instead of placing the mini program code at the end of the article for you to choose by yourself, which is very convenient.

This set of operations not only maximized the flow of traffic to the mini program, but also increased the conversion rate of the mini program .

No matter which page of the mini program users are attracted to, they can almost directly click to purchase, and the conversion path is greatly shortened. No wonder the conversion rate is 3 times that of its peers.

Second, almost every headline pushed by Uniqlo is about discounts that users care about the most , and they are the kind of large coupons and super low price recommendations; even if there are new products or main products, they can only be released in the second place:

Compared with other brands, which are eager to hype their brand tweets like Hermès, don’t you feel that Uniqlo has too many tweets?

2) Offline traffic: store support

The offline store’s traffic diversion to mini programs has been done to the extreme. Not only are all the new product display posters in the store attached with the mini program QR code, but even the small brand names introducing the clothing are not spared.

In areas where users stay for a long time, such as the fitting room queue area and the fitting room, there are also indispensable traffic-generating posters:

Not only that, the mini program’s guidance copy also has scenario-based settings.

For example, the copywriting in the fitting room focuses on the problem of out-of-stock sizes, the copywriting on the display rack focuses on the product introduction, and the mini program code next to the product guides you to "scan the mini program to buy clothes":

In addition to the in-store display, there are also various salesperson guidance , which are mainly reflected in three aspects:

One is to buy when the stock is out of stock. If the size of the clothes you want to buy is out of stock, the clerk will guide you to purchase it through the mini program, and you can also choose to pick it up in person.

The second is new product recommendations. Many offline stores have dedicated staff to make recommendations next to the main new products. In addition to product introductions, they also guide users to "open the mini program, scan the code and place an order."

The third is to guide registered members when making payment. This is also a routine but extremely effective operation: when paying, the clerk will ask you if you are a member, and members can get some small discounts; if not, the clerk will guide you to register on the mini program.

Through poster guidance and store clerks’ words, the entire shopping path of users in offline stores (selection - trying on - checkout) is inevitably “penetrated” by mini programs, which is another strong wave of traffic diversion.

3) Social traffic: social fission

In addition to directing its own traffic to the mini program mall as much as possible, Uniqlo will also use some fission gameplay to carry out "viral" social fission to achieve effective new customer acquisition and secondary marketing.

For example, Uniqlo held the “Send as You Like” event during the New Year.

Users can use the mini program to customize New Year greeting cards and send them to relatives and friends. The cards come with a purchase coupon. At the same time, it also supports giving away clothes that users have purchased at their own expense on the mini program.

The person who receives the gift can use the coupon or pick up the gift directly at a local offline store.

In addition to the above three methods of attracting traffic, there is also commercial traffic brought by advertising. Relying on these four traffic-generating methods, Uniqlo's mini-program mall expanded rapidly, with monthly visits reaching millions in 2019.

However, everyone knows that no matter how large the user base is, the effect will be poor if it is not operated... We have come across an extreme example before, where 100,000 private domain traffic did not convert a single order.

The reason why Uniqlo’s mini program mall is so popular is that Uniqlo is also an expert in operations.

2. Omni-channel integrated operation to optimize experience

When mainstream platforms such as Tmall and JD.com already have flagship stores, how can we change users’ online shopping habits so that they will use mini programs more frequently?

Uniqlo’s answer is: connect online and offline to provide users with a seamless shopping experience.

This plan sounds empty, but it is easy to understand if we combine it with the scenarios of our daily shopping.

For example, it’s the turn of autumn and winter recently, and I found that I need to buy a sweater.

If you buy it online, it is not convenient to try it on and you don’t know whether it will look good on you; if you buy it offline, the sizes are often not complete or out of stock, and even if you go there you may not be able to try it on and buy it.

However, now you can search in the mini program mall and see all the inventory, colors and sizes of the store's online store , which means:

You can place orders directly online, and all physical stores and warehouses can deliver the goods, so out-of-stock situations are reduced. If you want to try on clothes offline, you can also find stores that have stock, and you can choose the nearest one to try on without having to worry about being disappointed.

What is this called? Isn’t this the legendary “seamless shopping experience”? Is it irritating?

Without this "dream linkage" of the mini program mall, it would be difficult to provide a similar high-quality experience relying only on a single e-commerce platform or offline store.

3. Create an official community to improve conversion

In the past two years, the trend of "planting grass" has become more and more popular, and many people have developed the habit of "doing homework" online before buying things.

For example, I put X Hongshu, X Hu, Bilibili and Taobao together, just to add them to the shopping cart as soon as possible after planting the seeds...

I must not be alone! !

After realizing the power of seeding, Uniqlo officially launched the "Xiaoyou Seeding Grass Club", which contains sets of clothes that can be accurately arranged according to style, season, new products and other elements:

Not only are there official photos of celebrities or models, but there are also everyone’s favorite outfit sharing from fashion bloggers and “ordinary people”, so that users can be inspired by a whole set of ideas at once when they are having a headache about how to match basic styles.

There are detailed links to purchase each item under each combination, and you can add it to the shopping cart with one click... I used to buy one item at a time, but now I buy a set at a time, which is simply a sin.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to buy it now, just click like to save it, and you can find it next time you want to buy it:

In addition, users can also share good-looking outfits with WeChat friends with one click, so that everyone can buy together. This wave of social e-commerce can be called the Pinduoduo of the retail industry:

Although the community does a good job, I really want to complain about the "online fitting" function of the mini program.

It can be seen that Uniqlo is really trying hard, but it still can't hide its roughness, especially the 3D fitting part... It took more than a minute to load when it was opened, and the effect is also very hard to describe:

The model not only has a weird face and a hunchback, but also has a strange dressing bug.

The so-called "personality change" is just changing some ugly hair/shoes, while "AR fitting" is actually putting the system-generated dummy into the real environment, which is "brain-destroying" (from the name, I thought it was trying clothes on me):

I guess Uniqlo also thinks this feature is hopeless. Now the PC version of the official website can no longer find this feature (it was previously promoted), and it can only be experienced on the mobile version...

4. Carry out fine operations on members to enhance stickiness

As we all know, users who become members are more likely to remain loyal to the brand and create more value for the brand during their life cycle.

Therefore, UNIQLO has prepared a set of membership operations full of details, and you can't help but accept it:

1) Reduce cumbersome registration procedures and expand the number of members

Therefore, the first step taken by Uniqlo is to lower the entry threshold for membership and allow as many users as possible to become members.

Now, it is very easy to become a member of UNIQLO. You can register by just logging in to the UNIQLO mini program with WeChat.

The mobile phone number can be directly pulled from WeChat, and information such as gender and name can be filled in after registration. The registration process is very short. It took me no more than two minutes to register at the checkout counter.

2) Member interface display

On the membership card interface, you can see that UNIQLO pays great attention to details.

First, the membership card not only has the “U value” (obtained through consumption), but also has a progress bar that shows the current U value and how far it is from the next key node (800, 2000).

The advantage of doing this is that it allows users to get to their U-value position more intuitively. When they are close to key nodes, they will have greater motivation to complete the task, and their consumption motivation will be +1 (especially for someone like me with obsessive-compulsive disorder).

Second, in the display of rights and interests, the rights and interests that cannot be enjoyed now are displayed, but marked in gray. This makes them look like "tasks to be unlocked", making users more likely to unlock them, increasing their consumption motivation by another 1:

3) Membership rights setting

Uniqlo members have a complete points system, which is the U value we just mentioned.

According to the U value, members can enjoy corresponding discounts and benefits . High-level members even have the opportunity to apply for free limited edition new products to try:

The promotion threshold of this system is not high . To upgrade from level one to level two, you only need to spend 800 yuan within 12 months, which can be said to be the price that can be achieved by buying two pieces of clothing.

With this upgrade, you can enjoy free delivery from stores, but postage is a pain point for many users - this has invisibly increased the motivation to buy.

At the same time, this membership card really allows users to "get a bargain": a large number of coupons, priority booking of Uniqlo's limited co-branded items, and the ability to participate in member draws and activities by evaluating orders.

In order to "get a bargain", many users will extend their stay in the mini program, and browsing around increases the possibility of buying things.

V. Conclusion

To be honest, the entire clothing retail industry has not been doing well in the past two years.

The physical stores of clothing brands such as Zara and H&M have shrunk significantly, and Gap has even closed one-third of its offline stores.

Under such circumstances, it is really surprising that Uniqlo can not only maintain its continuous expansion, but also break away from mainstream shopping platforms and run its own online mall.

Fundamentally, it is because of its strong user awareness : from the frequent iterations of official account mini-programs to the detailed innovations of various refined operations, they are almost all closely centered on user needs and are steadily advancing.

In today's environment where everyone emphasizes traffic, it is even more valuable.

Author: Operation Research Society

Source: Operation Research Society (U_quan)