Why do high-end Internet giants fall in love with low-end wall painting?

Jingdong wall painting

Taobao wall painting

As a means of penetrating into the rural market, wall painting has always been loved by IT manufacturers, home appliance manufacturers and operators; however, what will happen if the high-end Internet giants also fall in love with this low-key wall painting?

Recently, the official Weibo account of JD.com posted a slogan: "We can go abroad and also go to the countryside; we can be high-end enough to enter New York's Times Square, and we can be down-to-earth enough to paint all over the red brick walls in the countryside." It was accompanied by two photos: one was a huge advertisement in New York's Times Square, and the other was a slogan with white letters on a red background painted on the wall of a farmer's house.

This e-commerce giant with a market value of nearly $40 billion is now setting its sights on the vast rural areas. JD.com is not the only one competing in this field. Its biggest competitor Taobao has already made its voice heard in this field last year: "If you want to live a good life, go to Taobao." Next to this slogan are "If you want to get rich, have fewer children and plant more trees" and "Hard work is the right hand of happiness, and thrift is the left hand of happiness."

Does it look a bit funny? But as the demographic dividend of Internet cities gradually disappears, it is inevitable for giants to paint their walls.

The most beautiful thing is the style of painting the wall

At the JD Caravan event held recently, JD Mall CEO Shen Haoyu told NetEase Technology that wall advertising is one of the market measures to promote JD's channel sinking strategy, with the goal of letting more users in tier 3 to tier 6 cities and regions know about JD. According to JD , "Currently, there are wall advertising in 13 districts and counties in Chongqing, including Tongnan, Fuling, Wanzhou, and Jiangjin." JD said that the project started in the fourth quarter of 2013 and was basically completed in March this year. At present, more than 8,000 wall advertising has been implemented in 145 cities across the country.

According to NetEase Technology, most of the wall advertisements in rural areas are concentrated in the fields of fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural machinery, etc., and the effect is quite direct. Obviously, JD.com is not the only one eyeing this field. As early as last year, Taobao was exposed to have painted a slogan on the wall of a farmer's house: "If you want a better life, go to Taobao." In addition, there are Baidu 's "If you want sales, go to Baidu", Dangdang's "Fellow villagers meet, go to Dangdang for shopping", 360's "It's better to have only one child, and only use 360 ​​for safety" and NetEase's Yixin's "Use Yixin, save phone bills".

However, according to NetEase Technology, apart from JD.com's high-profile publicity of wall painting, other Internet companies have not been very high-profile about the issue. 360 and Taobao have publicly stated that wall painting is not an official act. Taobao said that the place where slogans are painted should be a spontaneous publicity campaign by local residents of the "Taobao Village".

How big is the market?

A natural question is, how big is the rural market for the Internet?

According to a report released by Taobao in 2008, online shopping in second- and third-tier cities, central and western regions, and rural areas has emerged as a new force, accounting for 73.20% of the total online shopping. Data from Taobao also shows that in 2012, the average online shopping expenditure of netizens in my country's county areas was nearly 6,000 yuan. According to a report by CNNIC in 2013, by the end of December 2012, the number of netizens in my country reached 564 million, of which rural netizens accounted for 27.6%, an increase of 1.1% compared with 2011. By the end of 2012, the proportion of netizens with primary and secondary school education or below increased by 2.4% to 10.9%.

The latest CNCC report shows that "As of the end of June 2013, rural population accounted for 27.9% of my country's Internet users, reaching 165 million, a slight increase of about 9.08 million people compared with 2012. In the past six months, the growth rate of rural Internet users was 5.8%, slightly higher than that of urban areas."

These data show that the “disappearance of China’s Internet demographic dividend” is more accurately the disappearance of the urban Internet dividend, while the rural Internet has just entered a period of accelerated development.

China's vast territory once slowed down the development of many infrastructures in rural areas, but with the gradual access to the Internet and the popularization of smartphones, the obstacles no longer exist. In the eyes of Internet companies, this huge population is like an undeveloped treasure land, and almost all companies are salivating over this market.

Who is attracted by wall painting?

In the past one or two years, channel sinking has become the hottest topic among Internet companies, but these giants should be reminded that, in addition to the first- and second-tier cities, China's cities are divided into two levels.

Let’s first talk about the core users attracted by wall painting: Tier 5 and Tier 6 cities, which are traditional county towns and even villages. According to what NetEase Technology has learned, the overall understanding and use of the Internet by these users is still at a very early stage, and a lot of education costs are required. Moreover, although the market potential of Tier 5 and Tier 6 cities as a whole is huge, due to the development of the local economy and consumption concepts, the average consumption potential of individuals will be very limited. Overall, the cost of new customers for a single user will be higher.

In addition, these users are not very receptive to online advertising. The advantages of smartphones, which are repeatedly promoted by giants, are still limited to the simplest functions of text messaging and reading news on QQ. At the same time, because the city is too small, mobile maps and Dianping.com have little room for survival. Relatively speaking, online literature, online shopping, and paid mobile games have some good prospects.

For online shopping, logistics in fifth- and sixth-tier cities is always an unavoidable problem. JD.com is proud of its self-built logistics system that it has built over the years. According to public information from JD.com: As of March 31, JD.com's self-built logistics has covered 495 cities across the country, accounting for nearly 75% of the number of cities in China. JD.com has also joined the "Information into Villages and Households" project led by the Ministry of Agriculture, and plans to connect with about 10,000 rural information service stations across the country in 2014, using them as online purchasing points, as well as distribution stations and self-pickup points for rural logistics. According to information in JD.com's prospectus, in the next three years, JD.com will invest 1 billion to 1.2 billion US dollars to continue to increase logistics construction, with the goal of enabling users in counties and rural areas across the country to enjoy the convenience of online shopping.

But this long list of numbers cannot be transformed into a real user experience. Even at the caravan event of channel sinking, there were still reporters who challenged Shen Haoyu, saying that the user experience in his hometown was not good. According to NetEase Technology, most fifth- and sixth-tier cities are still delivered by JD.com through third parties, and JD.com rarely has its own delivery business.

Shen Haoyu's answer was that JD.com would not consider whether logistics costs could be controlled for the time being. The most important approach now was to encourage employees to return to their hometowns in fifth- and sixth-tier cities to start businesses, and to link income with the number of orders to motivate sales staff.

Coincidentally, domestic express delivery giant SF Express has also tried to enter fifth- and sixth-tier cities through this method. An insider of SF Express told NetEase Technology that SF Express is trying to focus on the "last mile", but the company only encourages SF Express's internal employees to start rural outlets and maintain direct operations, and does not recruit publicly from the public.

In recent years, Internet companies have been keen on playing the rural card, but in fact, channel sinking is not as simple as imagined. Taking home appliances that every household needs as an example, those home appliance chain giants can only sink to fourth-tier cities, and very few of them actually involve the rural market.

For Internet giants, third- and fourth-tier cities are their top priority at this stage, and they have the best person to learn from in this regard: Vipshop.

King of third- and fourth-tier cities

Over the past two years, Vipshop has grown from its initial "bloody IPO" to a leading company in China's e-commerce sector. The biggest difference between Vipshop and other e-commerce companies is that a large portion of its users come from third- and fourth-tier cities, while other e-commerce companies' users mainly come from first- and second-tier cities.

It is well known that in the Internet field, first- and second-tier cities are often the user focus areas and core areas for profit and revenue generation of giants. In third- and fourth-tier cities, there are often certain user groups that are temporarily ignored by giants, or they are temporarily not accurately covered. Vipshop's user positioning is focused on third- and fourth-tier cities, avoiding competitors or challenges from giants, and quietly cultivating vertical markets while avoiding the core business areas of giants.

Vipshop's brand discounts satisfy the needs of users in third- and fourth-tier cities who cannot afford luxury goods but can still afford to wear famous brands. It satisfies the brand satisfaction and vanity of female users in third- and fourth-tier cities with a certain level of economic strength. Such a simple business model has enabled Vipshop to achieve a repeat purchase rate of over 80%, and its market value once exceeded 10 billion US dollars.

In addition, third- and fourth-tier cities are also ready to accept Internet companies. In recent years, escaping from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou has become the voice of many people who drift in first- and second-tier cities, especially for many Internet industry practitioners. Many people have taken action and returned to their hometowns to start a new life. This has brought talent accumulation to third- and fourth-tier cities.

Compared with first-tier and second-tier cities and fifth-tier and sixth-tier cities, third-tier and fourth-tier cities have a huge consumer population, more disposable income and strong consumption desire, and a huge market space. Perhaps in the future, there will be more Vipshops.

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.