Analysis of Douyin Box Competitive Products

As one of the most popular apps in contemporary times, Tik Tok has many competitors. New ways of playing are constantly being introduced. This article focuses on the competitive product analysis of Douyin Box , expounding on the purpose and overview of several covers, and analyzing this competitive product in an easy-to-understand way. Let’s take a look with the author!

1. Purpose of analysis

As one of the leaders in the live streaming e-commerce field, Douyin E-Commerce launched an independent live streaming short video e-commerce app Douyin Box in December 2021. After two months of updates and iterations, the product is still in the trial stage. This article will conduct a competitive analysis of Douyin Box to discover the advantages and disadvantages of Douyin Box, and provide some substantive suggestions for Douyin Box.

2. Overview of Competitive Products

1. Competitive product selection

In recent years, short video live streaming e-commerce has flourished. Currently, Taobao, Douyin and Kuaishou are firmly in the first tier, while JD.com, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu and Mogujie occupy the second tier of the industry. In the first echelon, both Douyin and Taobao have launched independent live-streaming e-commerce apps. Therefore, this article chooses Diantao as the core competitor of Douyin Box. At the same time, in the function analysis and function experience section, this article refers to some design schemes of Douyin app, which is also positioned as a trendy and fashionable e-commerce platform like Douyin Box. However, due to the significant differences between Douyin Box and Douyin Box in terms of ecology, logic, and functional sections, Douyin app is only regarded as a secondary competitor.

2. Competitive product information

3. Competitive product data

1. Trend line of popularity and download volume

2. Baidu Index Keyword Search Trend Line

3. Download volume trend line

In terms of the overall trend of Baidu Index keyword searches and downloads, Dewu is larger than Diantao, and Diantao is slightly larger than Douyin Box. In October 2021 and around November 11, the popularity and downloads of Diantao increased significantly. This may be due to the Double Eleven event. During this period, Diantao's downloads exceeded Dewu. Douyin Box had a lot of popularity and downloads in the early days of its launch. Most users may have thought it was relatively new, so they downloaded it to take a look. After that, the popularity and downloads gradually declined and were quite sluggish.

4. User Reviews

Overall, Dewu has excellent ratings. In comparison, Douyin Box and Diantao are inferior, among which Douyin Box has a higher rating than Diantao. First of all, after seven years of updates and iterations, the Douyin app has become a very mature product. In the beginning, Douyin was a sneaker authentication app with relatively simple functions, so it had fewer shortcomings. After seven years, it gradually established other functional modules, and there was ample time for optimization and improvement, so that the final results are easily accepted by users.

The reason why Diantao's evaluation performance is not as good as Douyin Box is probably because Diantao has more functions and is more complicated to use, which makes the experience for new users not very good, while Douyin Box has fewer functions and a simpler interface. In addition, its video content is more entertaining than Diantao, making it easier for new users to get started. In addition, the Douyin box has only been released for two months, which is too short, and more comprehensive market feedback needs further observation.

4. User Analysis

1. User Group

Merchant: Taobao store, Douyin store

Creators: Output high-quality video content and sell products through live streaming

Consumers: Buying things

2. User needs

Merchants: Products and stores have more traffic, acquire customers at low cost, and make money.

Creators: Get views, fans, and make money from advertising.

Consumers: Browse the content they like and buy the products they like and at a good price.

3. User portrait

In terms of age distribution, the ages of Diantao users are more evenly distributed. Except for the largest number of users aged 30-39, which account for about 32%, the number of users in other age groups is not much different. Among the users of Douyin Box, users aged 20-39 account for about 82% of the total users, of which users aged 30-39 account for half of the total users. It can be seen that young and middle-aged people are the absolute main force of Douyin Box. The age of Dewu users is generally similar to that of Diantao. The difference is that Dewu has very few elderly users, and there are more users aged 20-29 than Diantao. Its main user force is also young and middle-aged people aged 20-39, accounting for about 65%, but there are also some young users and middle-aged and elderly users, accounting for about 35%.

In terms of gender distribution, the ratio of male to female users of Diantao and Dewu is not much different, with male users slightly more than female users. In comparison, there are far more male users than female users of Douyin Box, with male users accounting for about 72% and female users accounting for about 22%, a difference of about 50%.

In summary, the users of Diantao are very average in terms of age and gender, the age distribution of Dewu users is between Diantao and Douyin Box, while the users of Douyin Box are mainly middle-aged and young men. This means that Diantao's design is more suitable for all age groups, Douyin box's design is more fashionable and youthful, and Dewu is in between the two. However, since the proportion of middle-aged and elderly users is still relatively small, the overall design is also mainly fashionable.

4. User Conduct

The user behavior here will be further analyzed in combination with product functions at the end of the subsequent function analysis & function experience section

5. Functional Analysis & Functional Experience

1. Product functional structure

From the above functional structure diagram, we can see that the functional complexity of Diantao is far greater than that of Douyin Box. After all, Diantao has undergone three years of iterative updates, while Douyin Box has only been online for two months.

In general, the functional sections can be divided into three parts: video, live broadcast, and search. The video section of the Diantao app can be divided into videos under the Diantao tab and videos of discovering good things in Wangshi. At the same time, the Diantao app has added some other entertainment activity sections on this basis, such as the Yuanbao Center. A large number of activity pages can be seen in the functional structure diagram of Diantao. In addition, the Diantao app has also added a block section, which has some social characteristics and can realize sharing between consumers, which is the user behavior 3 mentioned above.

Some other sections, such as the anchor's homepage, shopping showcase, sharing and forwarding, are different between the DianTao app and the Douyin Box app, which will be compared in detail in the following function analysis and function experience.

A big difference between the Douwu app and Diantao and Douyin box is that Douwu is a completely independent ecosystem, while Diantao belongs to the Taobao ecosystem and Douyin box belongs to the Douyin ecosystem. Therefore, the functional coverage of Dewu needs to be more comprehensive. We can see that in terms of content, Dewu has graphic content, video content, and live broadcast content. In terms of products, Dewu has a complete search system and an independent mall. In terms of services, Dewu has second-hand transactions, identification, etc. Therefore, many functions of Dewu are not suitable for comparison, but in terms of search, I think Dewu has done a good job. At the same time, Dewu’s shopping mall is suitable for Douyin Box to learn from. These will be focused on in the subsequent analysis.

2. Functional module comparison

On the whole, the core functional modules mainly consist of three parts: live broadcast, video, and search. The additional functional modules mainly include the anchor page, shopping window, and sharing and forwarding. We will now analyze the functions and experience them one by one. Here we mainly compare DianTao and Douyin Box.

(1) Live broadcast

It can be seen that the Douyin box does not have many windows to enter the live broadcast room. In addition to setting up a live broadcast room entrance in the shopping page and the regular entry into the live broadcast room from subscription and follow, most of the live broadcast rooms are mixed with videos. The live broadcast room can be found by sliding the video up and down. After clicking to enter, enter other live broadcast rooms by sliding up and down. This basically continues the live broadcast module of Douyin.

In contrast, DianTao has set up a separate live broadcast page, where users can quickly browse a large number of live broadcast rooms, and then choose the live broadcast room they are interested in to watch. At the same time, on the video page, they can also swipe up and down to browse to the host who is broadcasting live, and enter the live broadcast room through the live broadcast button below.

Since products and e-commerce infrastructure are the biggest advantages of Diantao app, while its content ecology is relatively weak and less entertaining, and Diantao has the most brand merchants, except for some top anchors, the live broadcast room of Diantao app pays more attention to the products themselves. Even for the top anchors, their personal abilities are more reflected in the control of product quality and the explanation of product information. Therefore, it is more in line with the current situation of Diantao app to arrange the live broadcast rooms in two columns and let users choose the live broadcast room to watch according to the products.

Since Douyin Box is backed by the Douyin app, which has a very long user usage time (380 million DAU, 102 minutes of average daily usage time per person) and rich high-quality content, its live broadcast room pays great attention to content output. What often retains users is the host's excellent live broadcast ability and the rich entertainment of the live broadcast room itself, rather than just the quality of the products.

So we can see that the Douyin Box live broadcast room has a gift reward function, which encourages the anchor to output more entertaining live broadcast content, rather than just selling goods. At the same time, gift rewards also increase the stickiness between users and anchors, thereby increasing the repurchase rate. In addition, Douyin Box users can independently choose the clarity of the live broadcast room, which also gives users more autonomy and a better experience. DianTao’s intimacy module can actually increase the stickiness between consumers and anchors, but in comparison, gift rewards are more direct, more powerful, and more suitable for young people.

In terms of the experience of watching live broadcasts, the left and right swipe function of Diantao is very worthy of attention. Swipe left to enter the pure mode and hide all minor components. Swipe right to make a live broadcast mark appear. Users can view all information related to the products on sale to avoid missing out on content of interest. Douyin Box only allows you to swipe left to view more live broadcasts. The pure mode is actually very suitable for the Douyin Box style that focuses on live broadcast content.

In addition, Diantao live broadcast has three states - preview, live broadcast, and replay. During the replay, consumers can jump to the corresponding product explanation based on the product information. This is very important for e-commerce live broadcast. The preview prevents consumers from missing the live broadcast, and the replay can make up for the missed live broadcast. It can be found that Diantao has done an excellent job in improving consumers' shopping experience. Consumers can get a lot of information about the products in the live broadcast room.

(2) Video

In terms of videos, Douyin Box has a natural advantage. The Douyin behind it has an unshakable position in the field of short videos. Therefore, the advantages of Douyin short videos are bound to continue to the Douyin Box. The overall structure of its video page basically continues the style of Douyin. On this basis, some minor functions such as collections and the music disk in the lower right corner have been deleted. At the same time, seller notes have been added to facilitate video authors to better output commodity content, expanding the author's creative space in the form of text.

However, as an e-commerce app, it is regrettable that its video page does not have a product showcase. In subsequent updates, a product column should be added to the video page to achieve a connection from video to shopping, such as DianTao’s design.

The video page of DianTao is relatively complex. It is divided into two categories. One is the video page under the DianTao tab, which is called Video A here, and the other is the video page for discovering good things, which is called Video B here. There are certain differences between the two.

In video A, there are two points worth noting. The first is the image recognition function that appears after the pause. This function can really make consumers' eyes light up, especially for apps like Douyin Box that are positioned as trendy e-commerce platforms. The image recognition function can quickly identify the clothing items of the video author.

The second is the video bar below the video page. Consumers can not only go directly to the product details page through this product bar, but also express their attitudes through the grass-planting button on the right side of the product bar, filter out more popular products, and greatly improve consumers' experience and sense of participation. At the same time, this grass-planting/insensitive button design allows the platform to deliver products that consumers are more interested in, which is worth learning from Douyin Box.

Based on Video A, Video B changes the pause image recognition to pause and enter pure mode, deletes the grass-planting button and the collection button, and adds a live broadcast status information bar.

After observation, it was found that there are many videos in Video A, such as movie plot explanations and storytelling, which have little to do with e-commerce, while the video page for discovering good things is basically all videos related to e-commerce. This design of one module with two forms does not provide a good experience for users, creates obstacles for new users to settle in, and is not worth promoting.

(3) Search

It can be seen that the product search pages of Douyin Box and Diantao are relatively conventional. Douyin Box is relatively simple. Except for some necessary product sorting methods, there are no redundant components. In addition, a "live broadcast" button is added to the "all" page. Consumers can use this function to go directly to the live broadcast room. This function is also available in Diantao.

Diantao is more complicated in comparison. First of all, Diantao has an overview page that contains all the contents of the tabs above. Users can go directly to the relevant page by clicking on the subtitles on this page. On the live broadcast page, Diantao has also added a series of sorting methods to help consumers filter out their favorite live broadcast rooms.

In the search section, I think Douyin Box can learn from Dewu’s design.

Dewu and Douyin Box are both positioned as trendy e-commerce platforms. It can be seen that on the search page, Dewu has integrated videos and pictures and texts into the content tab, and designed some sorting methods. This design is relatively simple and layered.

Similarly, the Douyin box can also place live videos under the content tab, and add picture and text pages to achieve full coverage of pictures, texts, videos, and live broadcasts, thereby improving the perfection of the Douyin box. In addition, the picture and text content can also be presented as columns on the host's homepage, that is, add a "Note" tab to the right of "Box Video" and "Douyin Video".

(4) Anchor homepage

In general, the core elements of the anchor homepages of Douyin Box and Diantao are not much different. The difference is that you can jump directly to the Douyin store from the anchor homepage of Douyin Box, while Diantao adds a recommended product interface in this process. This design is very suitable for anchors who sell goods. It is recommended that Douyin Box can divide e-commerce anchors into two groups: brand merchants and anchors who sell goods, and add a recommended product interface for anchors who sell goods.

(5) Product display

In terms of the shopping window page of the live broadcast room, Douyin Box has introduced word-of-mouth for bringing goods. This can guide consumers to find better live broadcast rooms on the one hand, and motivate the anchors on the other hand. At the same time, the shopping window can directly enter the store for consultation, which provides a lot of convenience for consumers. It can also serve as a supplement to the live broadcast content and provide more information services for the live broadcast products.

In comparison, the content of Diantao's live broadcast shopping window is less, but Diantao has set up a search button and a product classification column in the shopping window, which is worth learning from Douyin Box. As more and more merchants settle in in the future, there will be more and more products in the shopping window. The search button and classification function can allow consumers to find their favorite products faster, improve the shopping experience, and speed up shopping.

There are also some eye-catching designs in the product showcase page of the Douyin app. Douyin's product showcase provides a function of watching explanations and requesting explanations. Consumers can directly jump to the clip where the host explains the product by clicking on the explanation. This is actually a disguised playback, but the difference is that this function allows consumers to make up for the product explanations they missed more promptly, instead of having to wait until the live broadcast ends to make up for it through playback. At the same time, it also allows consumers to understand the products they are interested in more quickly, saving consumers time and improving shopping efficiency.

This function does not conflict with replay. One is used during the live broadcast and the other is used after the live broadcast. It would be even better if a product explanation appointment function could be added before the live broadcast. For example, before the live broadcast, the anchor must upload the products he wants to promote to the platform in the order of explanation, and give an approximate explanation time for each product, or the anchor can upload his own major product category list to the platform in the order of explanation.

For example, men's sportswear will start at 20:00, and women's sportswear will start at 21:00. Finally, this program list will be seen by consumers, and they can make reservations. When the explanation of a certain product starts, they will receive a reminder. Combined with the "see explanation/ask for explanation" function in the Douyin product display window and the "Diantao" playback function, consumers are provided with ample space to obtain product information and make independent choices before, during and after the live broadcast, thereby maximizing consumers' shopping efficiency.

(6) Others

In addition to the above-mentioned main functions, DianTao also has some other functions to extend consumers' stay time, such as Yuanbao Center. The entrance to this function floats at the top of all pages and can be entered by clicking. There are many activities to do, such as signing in, playing with Yuanbao Duck, completing tasks, etc. This is a good way to increase user retention time, and it can also increase user stickiness and make users develop the habit of using Diantao. But for Douyin Box, the best way to retain users is to output high-quality and interesting videos, which is the same as Douyin.

The Yuanbao Duck game on Diantao gave me some inspiration. Maybe the Douyin box can launch a cartoon character. For example, when we mention Tencent, we think of a penguin, when we mention Alibaba, we think of an orange man, and when we mention JD.com, we think of a little white dog. The app icon of the Douyin box itself is shaped like a cartoon head. We can use this to create a cartoon character as the "spokesperson" of the Douyin box.

3. Function summary table

This table is only for Douyin Box and DianTao.

4. Combine user behavior analysis function

First, let’s look at the relationship between the creator (anchor) and the consumer of User Behavior 1. In terms of content output, Douyin Box obviously has a unique advantage. It is backed by Douyin’s super content ecosystem, the style of the live broadcast room is trendy and youthful, there is an adequate supply of experts, the head effect is weak, and it has a strong video creation atmosphere.

However, as an e-commerce app, the output of product information in the Douyin box is relatively small. In comparison, the content output of Diantao is relatively poor. At the same time, the Matthew effect of anchors is serious, and the top anchors occupy a huge share. However, because it is backed by Taobao and has huge advantages in products and e-commerce infrastructure, Diantao’s output of product information is very good, and consumers can learn about product information through various means.

Therefore, at present, Douyin Box should focus on improving the product information output system so that consumers can access and understand the products anytime and anywhere.

In the relationship between consumers and merchants, that is, the process of purchasing goods, Diantao and Douyin Box are not much different. It is not advisable to add too many functions at this stage. When consumers get enough product information, purchasing goods becomes a natural thing.

User Behavior 2 mainly focuses on the search function in functional analysis. The search functions of these two apps are similar. The main area for improvement is to optimize the layout, such as learning from the search page of Dewu.

User behavior 3 corresponds to the grass-planting function and the sharing function. In this regard, Diantao has made some arrangements. On the block page, consumers and creators can share their product usage and shopping experiences and plant grass for some products. This function is somewhat similar to Xiaohongshu, which is a small shopping community, but Douyin Box currently does not have this function. At the same time, user behavior 3 can also be completed by the video blogger attaching some recommended products in the video to arouse the consumer's desire to shop. In this regard, products can be attached to Diantao's videos and consumers can be provided with the option of buying/not buying. Douyin Box currently does not have this function.

VI. Visual Effect Analysis

1. App Icon

(1) Tik Tok

Among the above four products, Douyin Box, Douyin, and Jianying are toc products, and Doudian is a tob product. It can be seen that the icons of the first three toc products are purple + white as a whole, with only the difference in the depth of purple. The purple of Douyin and Jianying is darker, belonging to black-purple, while the purple of Douyin Box is obviously bright, belonging to violet. The overall color gives people a low-key and fashionable feeling. At the same time, the icon content is relatively concise and can be outlined with a few strokes. It looks very simple and capable, which suits the aesthetic of young people.

(2) Taobao system

Obviously, the overall color of Taobao products is red, yellow, orange + white, which is more vibrant and can stimulate users' desire to consume. There are many shopping apps that use this color scheme, so there are no corresponding characteristics. The icon content is also very direct. Diantao, as a short video live e-commerce app, has an icon that is a small TV. Like Taobao and Yitao, the font is directly selected as the icon content. The 1688 icon is the official icon of Alibaba Group. Overall, Taobao product icons have nothing eye-catching nor any flaws. They are ordinary and suitable for users of all ages.

2. Application interface

(1) TikTok Box

The overall interface of the Douyin box is very simple and looks very good. It does not feel like there is too much content, but this also leads to less information output. The theme color is white, the border of the video page is black, and some fonts or font frames are the same violet color as the application icon. The overall combination makes people feel relaxed, and the combination of black and violet can bring a sense of luxury to users and improve the quality of products in users' perceptions. However, for short video live streaming e-commerce apps, it may be necessary to sacrifice the simplicity of the overall page in order to output more product information.

(2) DianTao

The interface of DianTao is much more complicated than that of the Douyin box. In terms of color, in addition to the main red, black, white, and gray, some buttons of DianTao also use a variety of colors such as blue, yellow, and purple, giving people a very lively feeling. This is also in line with the sense of vitality created by the application icons of Taobao products. This color may stimulate consumers' desire to shop. In terms of the arrangement of page components, the number of components in Diantao is far greater than that of Douyin Box, which may stimulate users' desire to explore and improve user retention rate, but it is a bit too redundant and the visual effect is not very good.

(3) Get something

The overall layout and color design of Dewu are very simple, with white as the main color, black for buttons, and blue for the mall background. Black and white highlight simplicity and fashion, while blue highlights a sense of security and trust. The overall design is very refreshing and capable.

7. SWOT Analysis

8. Conclusion

The biggest difference between DianTao and Douyin Box lies in the product ecology. Here the short video live streaming e-commerce industry is divided into two parts: short video live streaming and e-commerce. Diantao has the advantage of e-commerce and is developing towards short video live streaming; while Douyin Box has the advantage of short video live streaming and is developing towards e-commerce.

Now that the Douyin box wants to develop into e-commerce, it should try to reduce the functional overlap with the Douyin app. First, it should gradually reduce the output of entertainment content and increase the output of product information. This can be achieved by adding product columns to the video page, adding live broadcast reservation and playback functions, adding product display window classification and search functions, adding video pause object recognition functions, etc.

In short, e-commerce is the main thing, and product information must be highlighted. If you only watch live videos but don’t shop, then the Douyin box is meaningless. You can watch Douyin just to watch videos, but the Douyin box itself is an e-commerce platform, and short video live streaming is the two wings of this e-commerce platform.

Secondly, the e-commerce functions on the Douyin app should be gradually reduced to avoid Douyin and Douyin box from conducting e-commerce business at the same time. For example, the Douyin Mall should be moved from Douyin to the Douyin box, and the Douyin Mall page should be placed as the first page that users see after opening the Douyin box, so that users can recognize that the Douyin box is an e-commerce app. In the design of the Douyin Mall, I think the Dewu page is worth learning from.

Third, we should use the traffic of Douyin app to promote Douyin box as much as possible. For example, place the jump button of Douyin box in the live broadcast room of Douyin app. At the same time, it is necessary to realize the simultaneous live broadcast of Douyin app and Douyin box at the current stage, and realize the entry of top live broadcasters of Douyin app as soon as possible. In addition, we can also use commercial cooperation to vigorously promote Douyin box. The fashion and trend attributes of Douyin box itself are very suitable for cooperation with some fashion and trend culture online variety shows and online dramas.

Author: JML

Source: JML