Taobao's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds: Is the launch of "Mini Programs" a counterattack against WeChat or JD.com?

Will Taobao Mobile launch mini programs? This is a question.

Previously, an Alibaba ecosystem industry insider revealed to the media that the Taobao Mobile App will launch a mini program in March this year, and said that some partners have learned from Alibaba's internal high-level meetings that it is imperative to promote the Taobao Mobile mini program. "The purpose of the Taobao Mobile mini program is to connect the membership system. Moreover, with the fragmentation of scenarios such as live broadcasting and Weitao, Taobao Mobile also needs a use-and-go scenario."

But soon after, Taobao’s public relations department responded that the news that “media reports that Taobao is about to launch a mini program” was a misunderstanding.

Taobao responded to Zhixiaocheng (WeChat ID: zxcx0101) and other media outlets that the so-called "Taobao mini program" is actually a new feature we launched in the brand account. Through this feature, various functions in Taobao Mobile, including client interactive experience, Taobao consumption information, LBS, data analysis, etc., can be empowered to brand owners and their offline stores, brand service providers, third-party ISVs, etc., to help brands better reach and serve consumers.

From the information given in this reply, we can extract three key points: First, Taobao is preparing a new function; second, this function has the characteristics of a lightweight application and is convenient for collecting brand assets; third, this function is prepared for brand owners in advance.

If what I said is still not clear enough, we can judge that in the next few months, Taobao will indeed launch a new thing similar to the mini program, but it may not be called a mini program anymore; and its function will integrate the Taobao client and Taobao Mobile, as well as the merchant information of offline stores, and open it to third-party ISVs for joint development; thereby helping leading brand owners to better reach information and realize integrated online and offline services.

This new function may not only include a tool form similar to mini programs, but also collect Taobao brand owners' live broadcasts, Weitao content and store information to form an information block, which will pop up when users search for the brand online. At the same time, Taobao's mini programs can also provide services for offline stores, breaking through the barriers between online and offline and creating a new retail scenario.

There is little doubt that Taobao is going to make a mini program (regardless of what it is called). Moreover, judging from the cautiousness of Taobao’s public statement this time, it can be estimated that Taobao will be more serious about it than Alipay.

But the mini program is only a key component of this new feature. In fact, Taobao’s new feature is not only targeted at WeChat mini programs, but also reminds Zhixiao Program of another new feature that WeChat has just launched: the official brand area.

Previously, WeChat began to test the waters of new brand e-commerce based on the search portal. When searching for brands such as Nike, ZARA, and Gucci on WeChat, the search results that appear will integrate the brand's e-commerce mini-programs, public accounts, store mini-programs, and other information. Later, WeChat began to explore the possibility of jumping from WeChat Moments mini-programs to public accounts, making it easier for companies to carry out brand marketing.

Currently, WeChat has begun to prepare for the entrance to large e-commerce platforms such as Weixuan, but why is the brand official area placed separately in Souyiso? This is because, compared with small and medium-sized businesses, the advantage of brand owners is that they all have brand influence and the ability to bring their own traffic, which naturally fits the centralized search scenario, which makes the brand official area possible.

As for Taobao, the great development of WeChat Mini Programs in the field of e-commerce is certainly daunting, but whether it is Taobao or Tmall, the basis for their survival is not small and medium-sized businesses, but the control of resources of large retail brands. Taobao currently has tens of millions of merchants, but 85% of them are not profitable. Taobao's traffic source, traffic consumption, and GMV are mostly caused by brand owners, which is almost a lifeline in the traditional comprehensive e-commerce field. The war between Alibaba and JD.com and Vipshop over the choice of two started because of this, and it is also the most intense.

Today, when official WeChat brand areas begin to appear, WeChat's traffic advantage is threatening the determination of Taobao brand owners. Although the so-called team-taking incidents will not occur in the short term, Taobao has already sensitively felt the great crisis.

Moreover, compared with the current functions and ecology of Taobao, the dispersion of brand information has become a problem that needs to be solved urgently. How to build a good interactive bridge between stores, Weitao, live broadcasts, and discoveries, how to connect online and offline to achieve consumption integration, and how to provide merchants with integrated consumer information, LBS, and data analysis have become important challenges for brand merchant service upgrades.

Therefore, the lightweight application form of mini programs will inevitably be used as a reference, which is the basis of functional applications. The information combination method similar to the official WeChat brand area may be the complete structure of this new Taobao function. In the context of Taobao's increasingly expensive traffic, brand owners' demand for the collection of brand assets will only increase. The launch of Taobao's new function is also a more friendly choice for brand owners.

Facing the increasingly active WeChat e-commerce, Taobao’s strategy in the future is likely to be to focus on large businesses and ignore small ones. Because Taobao itself does not have the ability to split and a decentralized environment, it will inevitably not be able to do business with small and medium-sized businesses. The retail market will inevitably be dominated by Weixuan, Pinduoduo and Mogujie.

The value of WeChat to small and medium-sized businesses and its high-frequency, low-price consumption scenarios have been verified by Pinduoduo. In fact, Pinduoduo's entrance is still in WeChat, making full use of WeChat's traffic advantages and fission paths, and quickly swept away 300 million users in the low- and middle-consumption markets of third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities.

The centralized e-commerce search in the WeChat brand official area is more of a complete ecosystem. This entrance must exist, but how to make it strong still needs to be tested. Weixuan's zero threshold entry immediately points out the direction. In the future, Weixuan will be a place where a large number of small and medium-sized businesses gather. There will be two sets of centralized and decentralized methods to operate around Weixuan.

In addition, the new functions of Taobao are not very meaningful for small and medium-sized businesses. Do these businesses have live broadcasts, Weitao, and offline stores? Nothing, and mini programs cannot help them solve similar problems. Most importantly, Taobao has no scattered traffic, no sharing links and communities to use, and the existence of small and medium-sized businesses on Taobao has become a difficult situation.

The launch of Taobao's new features will have the greatest impact on comprehensive e-commerce companies such as JD.com and Vipshop. When Taobao's mini-programs are launched, Taobao's tool advantages will be even greater for brand owners. And such mini-programs are expected to be launched on Tmall soon, because Tmall has more brand owners and more power.

But does Taobao really have no other options for the aggressive Weixuan and Pinduoduo?

The answer is blowing in the wind.