Alibaba's conspiracy and conspiracy to make up for the "Double 12"

The 50-yuan discount made offline stores crazy. This year's "Double 12", Jack Ma brought the war to the offline, and Alipay joined forces with 20,000 offline stores across the country to offer discounts and promotions. Compared with the 50% discount on "Double 11", the maximum discount on "Double 12" was only 50 yuan, but this has already caused long checkout lines in major supermarkets and even system crashes.

Some people in the retail industry are worried: if Taobao, which is rich and powerful, continues to subsidize consumers to form a habit, the already precarious position of traditional retail will become even more precarious, and they should jointly boycott Alipay. However, there are also views that traditional retail should keep up with the mobile Internet era, which is the trend.

Crazy day

On the evening of December 12, Mr. Wang, who lives in Sanyuanqiao, queued up to check out at the Wumart hypermarket near his home. In the checkout line, everyone's shopping cart was filled with various items, and the line was getting longer and longer. "It felt like Black Friday," Mr. Wang said. "At 10 p.m., the system seemed to be shut down, but there were still many people in line, and some gave up and left their full shopping carts aside."

This kind of scene happened in hundreds of supermarkets and convenience stores in Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and other places across the country on the day of "Double 12". According to reports, there were customers queuing up to buy goods before the opening of the Century Lianhua store in Hangzhou. Due to too many people shopping, the Alipay system once failed. This year's "Double 12", nearly 100 offline brands and about 20,000 stores have joined forces with Alipay to offer a 50% discount on December 12 when using Alipay wallets to pay, covering restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, convenience stores and other daily consumption places.

Wumart Group spokesperson Qiao Hongbing said, "On the day of 'Double 12', Wumart's sales increased significantly, and some stores had to limit the flow of people to maintain normal operations." Alipay's statistics show that as of 15:30 on "Double 12", a total of more than 4 million transactions broke out. Although the maximum discount per transaction in the 50% discount promotion was only 50 yuan, it still couldn't stop the surging flow of people. Low-price promotions on e-commerce have become the norm, but they are still attractive enough for offline promotions.

Each one takes what he needs

Qiao Hongbing told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that "the 'Double 12' event not only attracted Wumart's members to shop, but also attracted many new consumers to the store, especially young people and college students." He believes that for traditional retail, the biggest highlight of this "Double 12" is that it brought in new consumers.

According to calculations by industry insiders, as of 15:00 on December 12, Alipay Wallet and offline stores had accumulated 4.04 million transactions. With a 20 yuan discount for each transaction, the total subsidy for these 4.04 million transactions was 80 million yuan. It is certain that the subsidies distributed to users on "Double 12" were more than 100 million yuan a day. For Alipay, spending money to subsidize offline stores is obviously not its purpose.

What is the purpose of Alipay's sword dance? Alipay is also trying to attract new entrants, who are the main force of traditional retail, namely the "post-60s" and "post-70s" aunties. Aunties are in charge of the daily life consumption of a family, but they have always been a blind spot for Alipay. Starting with the reduction of shopping subsidies, aunties are allowed to contact and use Alipay. All publicity and marketing activities are carried out by offline stores, and even the payment process is taught by supermarket clerks. In this way, Alipay has penetrated the aunt group with just a few clicks. According to data, the number of Alipay wallet users increases by tens of millions every day. At the same time, it also allows young people to understand various payment scenarios of Alipay, not just online payment.

In addition to supermarkets and convenience stores, Alipay's "Double 12" event also includes restaurants, taxis, bakeries, vending machines and other areas of life. Alipay said, "The partners we choose are very close to the consumption scenarios of daily life. By penetrating into daily life scenarios, we can bring more convenient services to people."

Block or unblock

Alipay's penetration from online to offline has caused panic among some traditional retailers. In their view, Alibaba has reshuffled many industries, such as taxi-hailing, with subsidies. Traditional retail itself is a low-profit industry. If Alibaba spends heavily offline, it will be a huge blow to traditional retail. "Physical retailers should resist Alipay, and those who have already used Alipay should also downplay it."

Wumart said that "Double 12" brought a lot of traffic and sales to Wumart, but there is still a certain gap compared with traditional retail store celebrations or Spring Festival activities. Wumart believes that cooperation with Alipay is a very good opportunity for traditional retailers to explore online business, such as how to connect online and offline, how to guide online traffic to offline stores, etc. Qiao Hongbing revealed that Wumart will soon launch a business that links online and offline stores.

There are also views in the retail industry that the current domestic retail industry is still in an awkward situation of no promotion and no sales. Most consumers on "Double 12" go for the price discounts. Even if they become Alipay users, it is only temporary. According to Beijing Business Daily reporters, after experiencing the hot scene of the highest discount of 50 yuan on the day of "Double 12", the discount was reduced to a maximum of 10 yuan the next day, and major supermarkets basically resumed normal operations. According to the staff of Wumart Xiaoma Factory Store, on December 13 and 14, basically only 30 to 40 orders were settled with Alipay every day.

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.