8 years of Double 11: What else can we see besides pessimism and doubt?

120.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 32.3%. This is the answer sheet handed in by Alibaba in the 8th "Double 11". The barrier of 100 billion yuan in single-day transaction volume has been stepped on. Every year's "Double 11" is an indelible memory. E-commerce people revel in the entanglement of love and hate. This year is the 6th such day I have experienced.

Over the past 6 years, the gameplay and form of "Double 11" have undergone a lot of changes, and the radiation range and influence are incomparable; over the past 6 years, "Double 11" has continuously exceeded our expectations and broken one record after another amidst the pessimism and doubts. For merchants, the transaction volume of "Double 11" in one day may be equal to the remaining 30 days of November, and the transaction volume of the whole November may be the sum of the six months in the first half of the year. This is the magic and charm of "Double 11". It is precisely because of this that every year on "Double 11", major e-commerce companies are bound to do their best to obtain a satisfactory return. Therefore, every year's "Double 11" is particularly worth reviewing, which is the best perspective for you to understand this industry.

This year's "Double 11" has come to an end, with some happy and some sad. From the perspective of an industry observer, this year, strictly speaking, it should be the beginning of last year, "Double 11" has become significantly different, with many new features emerging.

How to view "Double 11"

Different people have different views and understandings of "Double 11". From my perspective, I hope to reach a consensus with you on the following issues.

1. It is inevitable that “Double 11” will face negative comments and doubts

In recent years, while the transaction volume of "Double 11" has continued to hit new highs, the voices of pessimism and doubt have continued to increase. Jack Ma said that "Double 11" must continue, so if "Double 11" continues to be held, it will inevitably continue to face the constant pessimism of the spectators, and it is impossible to completely block the doubts from various channels. The pessimists are mainly focusing on the transaction volume of "Double 11". Year after year, they will throw out four words to summarize the "Double 11" of the year: fatigue is obvious. The voices of doubt mainly come from false transactions caused by fake orders, price deception caused by merchants playing with pricing methods, and user experience caused by the concentrated release of demand.

This year, although Alibaba's "Double 11" transaction volume exceeded 100 billion yuan, the growth rate continued to decline, from 59.7% last year to 32.3% this year. In the future, the further decline in the growth rate of "Double 11" will still be an irreversible process, but this is a normal phenomenon in the development of affairs, especially under such a huge market today. Even if the transaction volume of "Double 11" no longer grows one day, if we can still play new connotations and happiness under this established market, then "Double 11" is still worth looking forward to. As for the problems of fake orders, price deception and user experience, they are real, and some are very serious, but we must understand that "Double 11" has only been developed for 8 years, and it is a big festival with millions of merchants participating, and some barbaric and primitive practices are inevitable. In this regard, we should see progress year by year, and "Double 11" is also constantly pursuing that ideal state by optimizing various factors. We should believe that business will eventually return to its essence, and "Double 11" will inevitably be the same, especially when we all pay less attention to and pursue excessive transaction volume.

2. “Double 11” is an extremely successful hit

Although it has been accompanied by endless criticism and doubts, in my opinion as an e-commerce person, "Double 11" is an extremely successful hot-selling strategy, which has become a super IP today. It tells us that we must abide by the power law in business, and super hot-selling products bring excess returns. Not only that, the more important significance of "Double 11" is that it has driven the accelerated development and evolution of e-commerce and even the entire retail industry.

In 2009, when "Double 11" was just born, Tmall (formerly Taobao Mall) was still very weak, and the overall transaction scale of e-commerce was not large. "Double 11" accelerated the pace of Tmall and e-commerce to overtake others. Moreover, on this basis, "Double 11" has greatly promoted the upgrading of various basic capabilities of e-commerce, including but not limited to logistics, payment, technology, etc. The concurrency of more than 100,000 transactions per second and the ability to process billions of packages in a few days were all established in a short period of time with "Double 11". It can be said that driven by "Double 11", the technical strength and logistics capabilities of my country's e-commerce platforms have made great progress. From the perspective of consumers, I can clearly feel that the network environment of "Double 11" is getting better year by year, and the speed of receiving goods is getting faster year by year. Suddenly I remembered that JD.com held a book promotion a few years ago. It was just a book promotion, and the network collapsed on the first day. In order to alleviate the complaints of many users, Liu Qiangdong specially approved the addition of hundreds of servers the next day to do it again, but the website collapsed again. At this time, Liu Qiangdong posted a photo of himself sitting at his desk with two knives on it, saying that he was waiting for the vice president in charge of technology to come and explain. In the past two years, such incidents have become less and less frequent. Although Alipay was temporarily stuck during this year's "Double 11", it recovered quickly.

3. The "Double 11" you see may not be the real "Double 11"

In the society we live in now, the state of diversified and decentralized values ​​is already very obvious. As we spend more and more time on social media, we choose to pay attention to people and things that we agree with, and behind them is the embodiment of our own values. This is the circleization of user groups. We all care more about the dynamics within the circle, thinking that this is the whole world. This can indeed be called your whole world, but it may not be the real whole world. This is how Trump unexpectedly became the president of the United States and slapped many people in the face.

The same situation will happen when facing "Double 11". You think that people around you don't buy anything, or they return everything they bought, so you think that everyone in the world is like this, so the transaction volume of 120.7 billion is hard to understand. Most of them are fake, which may be the conclusion you will eventually draw. In fact, this may be a far-fetched assumption from the facts. The more society develops, you will find that more and more things you can't understand. This is inevitable. At this time, we must remind ourselves not to make subjective assumptions.

Looking at today's e-commerce landscape from "Double 11"

"Double 11" is the annual drama of the e-commerce industry. All companies will show their strength in this most important event. From these complicated hype and eye-catching promotional activities, we can also clearly see the quiet changes in the e-commerce landscape.

1. The competition between two giants will become the basic competitive landscape of the industry in the future

"Double 11" is a round of price wars between e-commerce companies. In order to win the price war, verbal wars and public relations wars are often used in a multi-pronged manner. Only in this way can users' attention and participation be fully mobilized. Last year's "Double 11", Alibaba and JD.com competed with each other around genuine and fake goods, logistics, and the "Double 11" party. Suning also launched the "Pingjing Action" and took advantage of the topic of milk tea and the intentional or unintentional conflict between couriers to stir up the city. It was so lively. Before that, there were many e-commerce companies that stirred up topics during "Double 11". But this year, all this seems to have died down. This "Double 11" seems unusually quiet, and there is almost no trace of verbal wars.

This shows to some extent that the e-commerce industry has gradually stabilized, and more and more companies are unable to play in the "Double 11". In many categories, the traffic system built by Alibaba and the supply chain system built by JD.com have demonstrated strong competitiveness and formed a virtuous cycle system, which has brought great impact on other vertical e-commerce and traditional retailers. The competition between the two giants will become the basic competitive pattern of the industry in the future. The year-on-year increase of 193% is the "Double 11" answer sheet handed in by Suning, which was still very active last year. It is beautiful enough, but unfortunately it won the business but lost the pattern. After Suning and Alibaba reached a strategic cooperation last year, Suning has become a link in Alibaba's ecological chain and a chess piece for Alibaba to contain JD.com. It no longer has the ability to challenge JD.com independently. Looking at the entire industry, although the size is far apart, only JD.com is still challenging Alibaba, and its courage is really commendable.

2. Self-operation and platform operation have their own advantages and disadvantages, but they lead to the same goal

"Double 11" is a competition between Alibaba and JD.com, and behind it is also a showdown between the e-commerce platform model and the self-operated model. 120.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 32.3%, is the answer submitted by Alibaba. JD.com did not disclose the specific GMV figures, but disclosed that the transaction volume on "Double 11" increased by 59% year-on-year. Although there is a big gap in size, JD.com, which is characterized by self-operation, is still constantly eroding Alibaba's market share.

In addition to the differences between platforms and self-operated products, logistics, and user experience that we usually mention, from the perspective of "Double 11", JD.com, which controls the goods, has greater freedom in the promotion rhythm and price, which makes it easier to implement targeted attacks, defend its competitiveness in the field of self-operated categories, and drive the development of platform business. The advantage of the platform is that it can be large in scale and mobilize the power of millions of merchants.

However, the two will most likely reach the same destination in the future. Alibaba's strategic investment in Suning has made Suning an important chess piece in the fields of 3C home appliances, which is Alibaba's attempt to make up for its own gaps in inventory control and user experience. I believe this is just the beginning. JD.com is vigorously developing an open platform, which is also a top priority.

3. There will be no e-commerce in the world

On the eve of "Double 11", Jack Ma accepted an interview with CCTV Finance. When asked about whether e-commerce has reached its ceiling, he said that e-commerce only accounts for 10% of China's retail sales, and there is still a lot of room for growth in the future, but pure e-commerce or pure offline will not be able to continue. Finally, Jack Ma concluded: "I must remind everyone that the world will change soon." Prior to this, Jack Ma also said that Alibaba will no longer mention the word e-commerce next year.

Today, in terms of industry classification, we regard e-commerce as a separate industry. In the future, it may be difficult to view and count it so independently. Like the Internet, e-commerce will gradually become a tool and a basic ability for a commercial enterprise to survive in this era. E-commerce will become ubiquitous.

The first factor driving this change is the increasingly diversified shopping carriers. With the rapid development of mobile Internet, the contact points between enterprises and consumers will no longer be limited to computers, offline stores or even smartphones, but will become more numerous and more flexible. In addition to traditional physical stores, the endless stream of digital touchpoints (including PCs, smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, smart homes, and car-mounted devices, etc.) will become more and more front-end interfaces for users, and the powerful and unified back-end system will make these touchpoints very smart and convenient, forming a cloud structure of "small front-end and large back-end". In the future, these shopping carriers will also be fully connected and integrated, and consumers' shopping behaviors in fragmented and multi-scenario situations will increase significantly. It will also become increasingly difficult for us to distinguish whether a transaction is completed by e-commerce or by traditional transaction methods.

E-commerce in the future may no longer be discussed as a separate noun. There will eventually be no e-commerce in the world. This is a change that is taking place. This year's "Double 11" hype and attempts are just the beginning.

What else to watch for the future "Double 11"

After 8 years of development, "Double 11" has basically completed the stage of user education. The main driving factor in the future is to innovate gameplay and truly bring out the connotation of the shopping carnival. Under this tone, in addition to the consistent focus on brand, quality and user experience, I think the following 5 characteristics will become more and more prominent in the future "Double 11".

1. More entertainment

Victoria's Secret was once a little-known brand, but it gained world-class influence by creating the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Its CEO Leslie Wexner once said in an interview with the media: When I was a child and the first store had not yet opened, they said that stores were like theaters, and retail was the drama performed. It is still the case today, and retail is a form of free entertainment. Now "Double 11" has become more and more like an entertainment event, and "entertainment to death" may accompany "Double 11" from now on.

At the launch conference of "Double 11", Zhang Yong emphasized the concept of "entertainment". Alibaba is obviously more confident this year. The entertainment group has been established and Youku Tudou has also been incorporated. Under the concept of "entertainment", the "Double 11" party is naturally the climax of all this. On the basis of last year, David Hill, the producer of the Super Bowl, served as the chief director of Alibaba's "Double 11" party this year. Many first-line stars joined. At the same time, the release of the group photo of Jack Ma, Beckham and Kobe, named "Tall, Rich and Handsome", gave this entertainment an international flavor.

In this regard, although JD.com did not follow Alibaba's trend in holding a "Double 11" party, Liu Qiangdong led a group of celebrities in a 12-hour live broadcast marathon, which also attracted a lot of attention.

Entertainment and the combination of entertainment and business will definitely be the highlights of next year's "Double 11". The questions are whether the main battlefield of entertainment will be in China, or in Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, etc., and what other forms of entertainment can inspire global carnival.

2. More integrated

The world will eventually be without e-commerce, and e-commerce will evolve together with offline business to become a new retail format. New retail is to achieve the integration of online and offline, and various digital terminals.

Alibaba has been exploring this path since last year's "Double 11". During this year's "Double 11", according to data disclosed by Alibaba, thousands of brands and more than 1 million stores were connected online and offline, and nearly 100,000 stores will be fully electronic. The most representative one is Uniqlo, which supports online ordering and offline store pickup.

While offline businesses are embracing e-commerce, e-commerce is also accelerating its implementation, with Taobao brands being a typical example, and Intime Retail plays a role as a bridge to attract customers. Intime has more than 40 Taobao brands, combining online and offline channels to better realize new retail and omni-channel.

Next year, the integration of online and offline and various digital channels will still be a major highlight.

3. More global

Before 2014, "Double 11" was known as a shopping carnival. Since 2015, this festival has been named "global", and since then, globalization has played an increasingly important role in "Double 11", and "buying globally, selling globally" will become the standard for "Double 11" in the future.

This year's "Double 11", Alibaba's product infrastructure, payment, logistics and other infrastructure for international business have become more complete, covering 235 countries and regions. More than 47 million users purchased international brand products, and the transaction volume of international brands increased by 47% year-on-year on "Double 11" last year.

4. More Personalization

After e-commerce has gone through the stage of extensive growth, intensive cultivation has become a permanent topic, and the most important aspect of this is to better understand the needs of each user and provide them with personalized services.

Personalization is the development focus of all e-commerce in the next stage. In this regard, if you pay attention, you will find that there are more and more personalized pages on Taobao Mobile in the past six months, and the recommended products are getting more and more accurate. This year's Double 11, personalization has been reflected in all parts of the platform, including but not limited to search, recommendation, guess you like, good products, store, product details, etc.

Behind personalization are big data and artificial intelligence, which are obviously still in the early stages of development. In the future, "Double 11" will continue to highlight the role of personalization, especially the changes it may bring to the retail industry.

Another highlight of personalization is C2B, which is a concept that Alibaba has proposed for many years. After big data, artificial intelligence and personalization technology have developed faster and better, C2B may become the main concept promoted by a "Double 11".

5. More interactive

Compared with the past few years, this year's "Double 11" has made great progress in the interaction with users. Not only has the form of watching and buying been more widely used, but live broadcast mode and VR shopping experience will gradually become the new standard of "Double 11". Although these modes seem to be quite tasteless now, they are just getting started after all. In the next few years, rich interaction methods will bring a new shopping experience and will also burst out huge opportunities.

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.