3 store owners share their own experiences to reveal how tricky the Double Eleven shopping spree is.

What can you think of on 11.11? Is it Singles' Day or a shopping festival, spending money to buy things and get married?

With the National Day Golden Week in front and the Christmas season behind, November, which originally had no major holidays, was created out of thin air by Alibaba, as the Double Eleven Shopping Festival, which became a carnival for the entire Chinese e-commerce industry. Discounts of 50% or even lower are also an annual feast, constantly challenging the "bottom line" of Chinese e-commerce. From the total sales of 50 million yuan in 2009, to the sales of 100 million yuan in 55 seconds just after the early morning of Double Eleven last year, 35 billion yuan was achieved in just 24 hours. In four years, Tmall has increased the value of Double Eleven by 700 times!

How much water is there behind the shocking data? The author interviewed three senior practitioners from Taobao and Tmall to reveal to you how deep the water is on Double Eleven.

Taobao: Normally not very popular, but a thorough investigation will be conducted to protect Tmall during Double Eleven

The booming development of China's e-commerce industry, relying on the huge Taobao platform, has spawned a well-organized and large third group such as the "brushing army". Catering to the herd mentality of online shopping, artificial pushers evade the "Taobao eyes" and deceive consumers. At the same time, they fake high sales and good reviews by faking orders, creating "hot-selling products" that are popular all over the network, bringing rich traffic and actual sales returns to Taobao shop owners.

For this reason, the author went to interview Mr. D, a senior store owner who has been running a Taobao store for many years. "Fake orders are the unspoken rule of the entire Alibaba." Mr. D said, "The fake order army has continued to expand with the development and growth of Taobao. There is a joke in the industry that "nine out of ten Taobao stores are fake orders." Now the competition is too fierce, and many stores have to rely on fake orders to get started. If you don't fake orders, you will be eliminated by your competitors. "

Mr. D revealed that the fake order industry has now developed into a complete system. It only takes a few dollars to complete a "highly authentic" perfect transaction - contact the fake order army to buy the express number, mail the empty package express such as an empty envelope, and the store owner uses a small account to post good reviews for his store. All steps from payment to collection are operated by the store owner's own big and small accounts. After seeing the fake good reviews, consumers naturally think that the products of this store must be good, and sales are also rising. Therefore, fake orders, an underground transaction that is sure to make money, is quite common on Taobao.

Mr. D said, "I have a friend who sells wedding dresses. He was one of the first shop owners to open a store on Taobao. After years of running Taobao, it is normal for him to increase sales by a small amount. His business has been going smoothly. Before Double Eleven last year, he hired a professional fake order team to operate covertly in an attempt to create momentum for his store during the shopping festival. But his store was closed down by Taobao overnight. He had already placed an order of more than 100,000 yuan with the factory, but he lost all his money and all his years of hard work went to waste."

"Alibaba actually has all the data of merchants, including how users enter the store, what time they enter the store, and how long they browse the page. Alibaba is well aware of any dishonorable actions of merchants at any time. In normal times, Taobao has always turned a blind eye to the practice of inflating sales and has not intervened forcefully. However, in order to ensure that Tmall Mall has enough traffic during the shopping festival, Taobao will thoroughly investigate the practice of inflating sales before and after Double Eleven, and store owners will not have any chance to take advantage of loopholes."

Starting from the shopping festival warm-up, the lukewarm Taobao suddenly turned into a ruthless law enforcement police, and was unyielding in its censorship efforts, ensuring that "Taobao hot products" would not pose a competitive threat to Tmall products, in order to ensure that the sales target set by Tmall was achieved.

Tmall: Commission deduction is an important source of revenue, and most people turn a blind eye to fake traffic

For shop owners, the biggest difference between Tmall and Taobao, both of which are owned by Alibaba, is that "Taobao is free to open a shop" and "Tmall requires an annual fee". Although there have been negative news such as "Taobao's fees have increased again" in recent years, it is undeniable that Taobao is still a free platform in essence: to open a shop, you must freeze more than 1,000 yuan in Alipay (more than 10,000 yuan for 3W digital products), and the deposit will be fully refunded after the shop is closed; the additional charges are value-added services such as data cubes and business advisors to optimize the shop tools and plug-ins. If you want to open a Tmall store, it is quite expensive!

3 store owners share their own experiences to reveal how tricky the Double Eleven shopping spree is.

3 store owners share their own experiences to reveal how tricky the Double Eleven shopping spree is.

The picture shows the fee standards announced by Tmall to the public. Analyzing the fee standards for 3W digital products in Picture 2, apart from the high starting deposit, the annual technical service fee of 30,000 yuan that must be paid to Tmall every year, will only be refunded 50% or 100% when the store sales exceed 360,000 yuan or even 1.2 million yuan. In addition, the 2% real-time deduction of technical service fees is called "Tmall deduction points" by store owners: 2% of the transaction amount of any transaction in the store (excluding postage) will be automatically deducted from Tmall. The entire Tmall charging system can be said to constitute half of Alibaba's revenue.

"Inflating sales is a common phenomenon on Tmall," said Mr. H, who runs an Apple phone store in Tmall's flagship store. "When I was working on Taobao, I knew that inflating sales was strictly checked. When I was a small Taobao store, I had no reputation and no popularity, which was very stressful. In order to make a living, I switched to the Tmall platform and opened my current flagship store. Before Double 11, Tmall tacitly tolerated the phenomenon of inflating sales. Since inflating sales, it is necessary to simulate real orders, and the most important part of Tmall's own profit is the 'deduction'. Before the shopping festival, merchants secretly inflated sales and virtualized a large amount of sales, and Tmall also made a lot of money. This is beneficial to both parties, so why not do it?"

Fake orders on Tmall can bring tangible benefits to Alibaba, but what about fake orders on Taobao? Taobao shop owners spend hundreds of yuan to buy hundreds of logistics order numbers, and the fake order army and logistics companies are the vested interests. Fake orders on Taobao not only ruin the reputation of the platform, but Alibaba cannot share the profits from it. As Alibaba's subordinates, during the most important shopping festival of the year, it is better to protect the interests of Tmall merchants who "get rich together" rather than Taobao, a platform that allows anyone to open a store for free.

Xiaoer: I have the final say on who the traffic should be given to.

Alibaba has given its best resources to its "own son" Tmall, especially during the Double 11 shopping festival. It ranks high, offers booths at the front, and opens up a special through train, so that consumers can see Tmall stores at the first sight when they enter the station.

Mr. W, who runs a Tmall flagship store, described to me a special group of people who control all the traffic of Tmall stores - Tmall Xiaoer. They are internal staff of Alibaba, responsible for operating multiple Tmall stores under a certain category. Every Xiaoer must work for the benefit of Tmall - to maximize the benefits of Alibaba with limited traffic resources. KPI is the quantitative indicator used by Alibaba to evaluate Xiaoer.

Tmall's Double 11 promotions are bound to attract hundreds of times more traffic than before. For example, many merchants signed up for the shopping festival through train page, but only a few were able to enter the page and participate in the event. "If our store enters the page, it means squeezing out a competitor. The waiter has the final say on who gets to enter the page and who gets the traffic."

Mr. W revealed to me that before Double 11, Tmall’s store assistants would select seed products with the potential to generate high sales and invite these store owners to promote sales. And just the day before yesterday, his store was also “visited” by the store assistant. The store assistant left a message to Mr. W: “Your store should hurry up and sign up for the Double 11 event page. Quickly prepare N thousand iPhone 6s at 5XXX yuan each, with three networks. Surge sales within 7 days, otherwise you won’t be able to enter the through train!”

Mr. W said that in order to avoid being "eliminated" during Double 11 and to compete for public resources, the store had no choice but to succumb to such stringent requirements, even though the net profit of mobile phones has been greatly reduced. "The store clerk didn't say it explicitly, but everyone knows it in their hearts. There are so many stores, why should they give you traffic resources? For the sake of their own KPI, the store clerk will only choose the best-selling products that cater to consumers and create sales miracles. Merchants have no choice but to cut prices and increase sales in preparation for Double 11. For the sake of sales and KPI, the store clerks mostly acquiesce to this matter."

It is true that during the Double 11 Shopping Festival, large Tmall stores had to lower their gross profit margins and rely on sales to earn hard-earned money. They could not earn 5 or 8 yuan from a 100 yuan order, and Tmall would deduct another 2 points. Small and medium-sized Tmall stores could only "lose money to buy marketing" and first use the Double 11 Shopping Festival to build a good reputation, and then spend a long period of time after the festival to recuperate and let the funds slowly flow back. However, some irrational stores had too much inventory and insufficient sales, and the losses exceeded expectations, so they had to close the store.

Summary: Alibaba has spent a lot of effort to build Tmall Mall. After four years of development during Double 11, Tmall is no longer just a platform, and its role has also changed from a referee to a player. Every year's Double 11 is an important strategic means for Alibaba to change its blood and reshuffle its cards. For the free Taobao platform that has invested a lot of technology and financial support, a thorough investigation of fake traffic during Double 11 is only to ensure that Tmall has enough traffic; and for Tmall merchants who pay huge annual fees, small and medium-sized stores with low strength will only be eliminated in the competition during the shopping festival, and large stores will be urged by the store staff to promote sales and reduce prices to cater to consumer tastes and work together to maximize Alibaba's revenue. On the other hand, after the reorganization, Tmall, which "discarded the dross and highlighted the essence", has stronger combat effectiveness and is also the best public relations weapon for Alibaba to show off its strength to its competitors.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.