When will WeChat e-commerce, which is fueled by everyone’s contribution, become more popular?

Yesterday, JD.com released the Double 11 strategy for Paipai Weidian. WeChat will become the main battlefield for Paipai Weidian. Today, Tencent participated in the C round of financing of 350 million yuan for Pocket Shopping to attract traffic for Weidian. I wonder if you still remember clearly that this is the nth time that WeChat has launched an attack on the e-commerce market. After repeated failures, it seems that the industry's expectations for WeChat e-commerce have dropped to the freezing point.

The successive failures of Weishopping and Weilife made Tencent completely abandon the idea of ​​e-commerce and invest its e-commerce assets in JD.com and Dianping.com. However, after JD.com and Dianping.com took over, WeChat e-commerce did not see any improvement. Perhaps Paipai Weidian is the last chance for WeChat e-commerce, so Tencent is willing to make another heavy investment in Pocket Shopping to add to Weidian.

Micro shopping of tomorrow's yellow flower

During the heyday of WeChat's popularity, everything WeChat wanted to do seemed possible, and the strongest voice was for WeChat e-commerce to impact Taobao, so Tencent established a micro-shopping team to challenge Alibaba in the field of mobile e-commerce. However, as time goes by, those who used to cheer for WeChat e-commerce are no longer heard, and Tencent has completely abandoned its e-commerce business.

Since WeChat added the online shopping function under the "My Bank Card" channel, the supply structure of this sector has gone through a process from "Yixun.com QQ Online Shopping" to "QQ Online Shopping JD.com" and then to only JD.com. The Tencent Micro Shopping team has been dismantled, some have left, and some have been merged into JD.com. At this time last year, Micro Shopping, which was still at the peak of public opinion, joined hands with VERO MODA, a women's clothing brand under Bestseller, to explore WeChat e-commerce, which aroused Alibaba's high alert under the high pressure of public opinion. Now things have changed, Micro Shopping is a thing of the past, and has been completely taken over by JD.com.

Micro Life Has Been Swallowed

While Tencent was promoting micro-shopping, it also launched an e-commerce project for the life service market - Weishihuo. When Weishihuo was at its peak, it was considered by the public to be the largest entrance to O2O. However, the public's favor did not bring Weishihuo actual market share, and the operator Dai Zhikang was also rumored to have resigned in the first half of this year. Then in June, Dianping announced that it would further deepen its strategic cooperation with Tencent and integrate Tencent Weishihuo membership card business, and Weishihuo was completely swallowed up.

The failure of Weishopping and Weilife dealt a heavy blow to Tencent. WeChat e-commerce was Tencent's last hope for e-commerce, but it failed to achieve the expected success. In the end, Tencent completely abandoned its e-commerce business, merged Weilife into Dianping, and Weishopping into JD.com, hoping that WeChat e-commerce could be reborn in the hands of its partners. However, reality may have disappointed Tencent again.

Micro-group buying has not seen any improvement

In my impression, Weituangou is earlier than Weishenghuo and Weigoushopping. It should be the earliest project of WeChat e-commerce and also the longest-lived project. Compared with Weishenghuo and Weigoushopping, which have been merged, Weituangou is still alive, but it is barely alive and its performance is not ideal. If Weituangou is a wholly-owned project of Tencent, it may also be abandoned and integrated into the group buying business of Dianping.com.

The main operator of micro-group buying is Gaopeng Group Buying, which is a joint venture between Tencent and Groupon. In August last year, Ftuan, which Tencent invested in, merged with Gaopeng, and used Gaopeng.com as a long-term operating brand to operate Ftuan, Gaopeng.com and QQ Group Buying at the same time. However, in the group buying war, Gaopeng has been completely eliminated, and the WeChat group buying portal it obtained has not helped Gaopeng to revive, and WeChat e-commerce has failed again.

Dianping, the WeChat O2O

Today, Tencent has recognized the reality and stopped promoting WeChat e-commerce. Instead, it has handed over the WeChat e-commerce business to its partners. Dianping has taken on the responsibility of developing WeChat O2O. When Tencent invested in Dianping at the beginning of the year, the industry applauded and seemed to see the beautiful blueprint of WeChat e-commerce again. However, more than half a year has passed, and WeChat O2O has not made any significant progress. Long Wei, co-founder of Dianping, said in an interview that the media may have too high expectations for the WeChat portal. After all, WeChat is not everything, and business itself still depends on oneself.

Dianping is considered one of the most successful O2O companies in China. However, it has not been able to consolidate its market position after gaining the WeChat O2O portal, which inevitably disappointed Dianping itself, Tencent, and the media and users who were full of expectations for WeChat O2O. Long Wei's remarks not only show that Dianping recognizes the value of WeChat O2O portal, but also once again hurts the market potential of WeChat e-commerce. In addition, it is not difficult to find that in WeChat version 6.0, Dianping is hidden deeper and deeper, which seems to indicate something else.

JD.com obtains WeChat B2C interface

In addition to Dianping, JD.com, another partner of Tencent in the e-commerce market, has taken over the entrance to WeChat shopping. However, if you open WeChat shopping now, you will find that it can only survive by relying on new product launches, brand flash sales, and special sales. JD.com was full of expectations for the WeChat entrance, but the actual situation forced JD.com to re-evaluate its own mobile e-commerce strategy. Relying on WeChat to launch an impact on Alibaba does not seem to be as easy as imagined.

In addition to Alibaba, JD.com has an absolute market position in the domestic e-commerce market. WeChat has traffic, JD.com has supply, and the essence of e-commerce is to use traffic to sell goods. Previously, there was a reason why Tencent e-commerce failed to do well in WeChat e-commerce, as Tencent e-commerce had insufficient foundations. Now JD.com, which has an absolutely strong foundation, has also failed to develop WeChat e-commerce, which has forced the company to once again re-examine the market potential of WeChat e-commerce.

WeChat Business Treasure for offline chain distribution

Although Tencent has failed to blow up the bubble of WeChat e-commerce, this is from the perspective of competing with Alibaba in the overall e-commerce environment. In fact, with the influence of WeChat on the mobile Internet, the story of WeChat e-commerce still has a lot to tell. At least there are participants who are willing to try various ways to enter. WeChat Business is a veteran WeChat third-party developer that mainly provides mobile marketing systems and services for enterprises. Recently, it has entered the "WeChat Distribution Mall" solution for offline chain retail.

In fact, how to effectively solve the development problems of retail O2O has always troubled major e-commerce companies. The ideas provided by WeChat Business Treasure are worth learning from WeChat. The front-end page of WeChat Distribution Mall is no different from ordinary micro-mall, but the distribution solution provided by the back-end meets the needs of offline chain brands. Joyoung has launched WeChat Distribution Mall in early October. Through scanning codes at offline stores and counters, users are concentrated under a unified WeChat public account, and the application of labeled QR codes allows companies to clearly identify which store (counter) the user belongs to in the background. Once the user places an order, the generated revenue will be automatically attributed to the corresponding store. If this idea is used, it can more or less solve the development problems of JD.com's O2O.

WeChat store opening tool Pocket Pass

A hero needs three helpers. In addition to Tencent's own efforts, Dianping and JD.com have joined Tencent to help Tencent develop WeChat e-commerce. In addition, there are many third parties supporting WeChat e-commerce. Compared with Tencent's high expectations for WeChat e-commerce, third parties are more down-to-earth and regard WeChat gold rush as a development goal. WeChat e-commerce led by Tencent is a banner. Although it has not been effective, it still attracts many companies.

Companies that develop shopping malls based on WeChat public accounts have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. One of them, Koudaitong, has gained enough attention thanks to Bai Ya's personal influence in the Internet circle. This kind of third party that helps companies build micro-mall indirectly helps Tencent enhance the influence of WeChat e-commerce. However, compared with Tencent's headaches about WeChat e-commerce, third-party developers are making a lot of money, which inevitably makes Tencent a little embarrassed.

The rampant circle of friends marketing - WeChat business

Looking at the entire WeChat e-commerce field, the most popular ones are no longer the regular army of Tencent, but a group of micro-businesses that are active in WeChat Moments and engage in crazy marketing. This consumption model that has emerged based on social trust relationships is as simple and crude as Taobao in its early days, but it is effective. One wealth creation myth after another has attracted a group of entrants, and the rampant marketing in Moments has left WeChat helpless and speechless.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to completely ban it, and we can only rely on the self-regulation of the market. What is speechless is that this WeChat e-commerce model without rules and guarantees has a greater influence than the regular royal army. WeChat e-commerce is left with nothing but embarrassment. If it were a systematic enterprise, Tencent could still solve the problem through acquisition, but WeChat merchants are more scattered individuals, which is really difficult. Although the circle of friends marketing has affected the WeChat user experience, there are still many consumers who agree with this. In addition to feeling that the world is crazy and when did the sense of trust become so strong, they can only wait for the self-regulation of the market.

JD.com’s C2C mobile killer Paipai micro store

Recently, Paipai Micro Store, which was repackaged by JD.com, was officially launched. From the perspective of product form, this C2C product based on WeChat will compete with third-party micro-mall developers. At the same time, it may recruit many micro-businesses that are rampant in WeChat Moments and bring them under supervision to form a regular army. The potential meaning of Paipai Micro Store's slogan "Let transactions have warmth" refers to social e-commerce, and WeChat Moments marketing is a form of social e-commerce. If it can regulate micro-businesses and make WeChat Moments quieter, it will be a great achievement for JD.com.

Of course, the ultimate goal of JD.com and Tencent is to challenge Taobao Mobile. After the failures of micro-shopping, micro-life, and micro-group buying, Paipai Micro Store may be the last chance for WeChat e-commerce to challenge Alibaba. JD.com’s micro-shopping failed to dazzle Alibaba during the 618 shopping event, and whether Paipai’s bet on Double 11 can shock Alibaba remains to be seen.

In addition, Tencent's participation in Pocket Shopping is intended to attract traffic to Weidian, support the WeChat e-commerce ecosystem, and drive WeChat shopping consumption habits through the mutual conversion of internal and external traffic. JD.com and Tencent are making their final gamble for Paipai Weidian.

As the saying goes, many hands make light work. WeChat e-commerce has been going on for so long, and there are already enough players involved, from Tencent itself, to e-commerce and lifestyle service giants JD.com and Dianping, to third-party developers and countless micro-business groups. So many people are adding fuel to the fire for WeChat e-commerce, but why can't the fire be raised? Paipai Weidian may be the last chance, otherwise WeChat may become a conduit for third-party e-commerce services. At present, there are enough stakeholders in WeChat e-commerce, but it just lacks a burst point to ignite the whole scene. I wonder if Paipai Weidian can do it.

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.