A comprehensive review of traffic strategies on the three major platforms: Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao

1. Old traditional player: Taobao Live

After disconnecting third-party connections from Douyin's live broadcast room, Taobao also responded in two ways. On the one hand, it launched the "Star X Plan" to enrich the promotion of merchants' products in short videos/live broadcasts/pictures and texts/audio and other content scenarios by uniformly reducing the special service fees for each category of content to 2% of the actual transaction amount of the goods.

On the other hand, the client has been overhauled, with a focus on short videos and live streaming during the Double Eleven period. The "Mantianxing Plan" was launched to provide more traffic to the short video content produced by merchants, encouraging merchants to vigorously create short video content.

From the time a high-quality influencer's video is released to the time it flows into Taobao Mobile, it will be recommended multiple times through traffic superposition and can be visible on Taobao Mobile in just 3 minutes. It is not difficult to see that short videos are becoming the largest increase besides live streaming.

In terms of live streaming, the official divides the anchors into five tiers, and comprehensively calculates the anchor's growth value based on three dimensions: active broadcasting, fan viewing in the live broadcast room, and transaction volume guided by live broadcast, and corresponds to the corresponding level.

The live broadcast rights and interests corresponding to anchors at different levels are also different. Taking the anchor at the fifth level as an example, the focus of resources is to create a super live broadcast room. Activities such as channel resources + fan zones + special themes will also provide support for mid-level anchors, and new anchors can get rewards by effectively broadcasting.

The traffic recommendation algorithm was also upgraded accordingly during this Double Eleven period. A live broadcast traffic guarantee plan has been proposed, and the traffic distribution will refer to the matching degree of the anchor, providing three favorable factors of certainty, accuracy and flexibility for anchors in need.

Not only the anchor side, but the institutional side will also face updates. According to official introduction, in addition to the upgrade of anchor management including agency freeze list, gold medal anchor, and anchor queen, MCN agency list, merchant cooperation services, and traffic operations have all shown signs of upgrade.

In the upcoming Double 11 battle, the competition for users’ time will be even more intense. Short videos and live streaming content are still Taobao's key focus, and promotional methods will focus more on social methods, thereby further increasing its total GMV.

2. Potential Player: Kuaishou E-commerce

Kuaishou’s Double Eleven investment project was also officially launched recently. This time, Kuaishou has carried out comprehensive upgrades and innovations based on the previous shopping festival activities.

Kuaishou's 116 Shopping Carnival, Double Eleven Cheering Package, and the 4 IPs of the Talent Group will invest tens of billions of traffic resources, covering hundreds of top talents, and distributing billions of yuan in benefits by guiding C-end users to complete tasks, thereby directing traffic to merchants.

On October 30, Kuaishou will also join hands with Jiangsu Satellite TV to launch a large-scale TV and Internet joint evening party "Kuaishou Night". The evening party will bring together 30+ popular stars and many top influencers on the Kuaishou site, striving to tear off the label of the sinking market.

In addition to corresponding product linkage and huge traffic support, Kuaishou has also launched customized packages in the live streaming sales model.

The first type of cooperation is mainly aimed at S, A, and B-level star anchor groups, and can cooperate in live broadcasts in a mixed field with a single slot. Its advantages lie in the lower cooperation threshold and price advantage of a single slot, and more anchors can be cooperated with a limited budget.

The second form of cooperation is mainly aimed at Kuaishou's top influencers, launching brand-exclusive customized special events, relying on the influencers' super ability to bring goods to create brand-exclusive characteristics.

Kuaishou e-commerce is still a potential stock in the market. It should be noted that in the past 12 months, the total number of orders of Kuaishou e-commerce was second only to Taobao Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, ranking fourth in the e-commerce industry. This shows that Kuaishou's social e-commerce strategy targeting the sinking market has undoubtedly effectively improved the traffic efficiency of users on the site, and has also verified the huge potential of Kuaishou's e-commerce from another aspect.

3. Seed No. 1: Douyin e-commerce

Judging from the time nodes of major comprehensive e-commerce platforms, most platforms are extending the Double 11 battle line and are getting closer and closer in terms of models.

For example, Douyin's basic activities during this Double Eleven period also refer to the three-piece promotion model of traditional e-commerce, with cross-store discounts, limited-time flash sales, fan coupons and other gameplay. During the Double Eleven period, the traffic products will also be upgraded accordingly to achieve precise traffic delivery.

Mu Qing, vice president of Douyin e-commerce, also said: "The platform actively provides measures such as cooperation with millions of influencers, tiered promotion activities, and advertising acceleration to support merchants with "good content + good products + good services" to reach target users, interact with users and generate purchases."

It is worth noting that from January to August 2020, Douyin's overall e-commerce GMV increased by 6.5 times year-on-year, the closed-loop live broadcast GMV increased by 36.1 times year-on-year, and the number of merchants opening stores increased by 16.3 times. It is not difficult to see that Douyin, which has 600 million daily active users, is a new opportunity for brand merchants to achieve incremental sales.

At the same time, ByteDance's e-commerce department is also building an internal supply chain support team, most of whose members have backgrounds in Alibaba and JD.com; a quality control team is also being built, with dozens of team members, who are mainly responsible for controlling the quality of Douyin store products.

After disconnecting external links, Douyin is reorganizing the old framework and re-examining its business logic. Especially after ByteDance obtained the payment license, Douyin's e-commerce ecosystem is gradually getting on track.

In essence, whether it is Taobao choosing to build its own short video traffic pool, or Douyin and Kuaishou accelerating the construction of the supply chain, the purpose behind it is to perfect the closed-loop logic of "people, goods and places".

According to a report released by the Alibaba Research Institute, the overall scale of live streaming e-commerce will exceed one trillion yuan in 2020, reaching 1.05 trillion yuan; in 2021, the scale of live streaming e-commerce will expand to 2.0 trillion yuan, continuing to maintain a high-speed growth trend. In this trillion-dollar market, it will be difficult to determine the winner among the three parties in a short period of time, but after this year's Double Eleven, the development trajectory of each party will become clearer.

Author: Dian Xiaoyu e-commerce seller guide

Source: Dianxiaoyu E-commerce Seller Guide (dianxiaoyudy)