In 20 years, an Internet symphony, "6.18" also wrote a history book. On May 5, JD.com began to kick off the next month's "June 22", and "June 6" advertisements have already been overwhelming on various platforms. From the beginning to clear inventory, reduce prices and promotions to now test business resilience, e-commerce promotion continues to promote from the original level, participants work hard to extend the promotion extension, constantly push consumer enthusiasm to a high place, and at the same time evolve various emerging business models to give the industry new business opportunities.
No longer an Internet newcomer
The phrase "how fast to save and boil fireworks" kicked off the prologue of JD.com's "2023·6" in 18, and also made JD.com the focus after 20 years. In the past 20 years, JD.com has only sold optical and magnetic products, recorders and video tapes at the beginning, from a counter in Zhongguancun, to the later step by step to achieve category expansion, with more than 1000 million SKUs of self-operated goods, forming a business flow logistics portfolio. There is no doubt that JD.com in front of him is no longer a newcomer when the Internet started.
In the history of China's Internet development, the first electronic invoice was adopted, China's first large-scale integrated e-commerce platform landed on NASDAQ, the first attempt to build self-built logistics, the first to achieve 211 delivery, the first to adopt high-speed rail e-commerce trains, the first e-commerce platform to open up the medical insurance system... These are the meritorious medals left by JD.com in the past 20 years, pushing the Internet forward quickly from the subtleties.
During this period, e-commerce companies that have always loved to stand in the spotlight have never been willing to be calm, and there was a big promotion when they just came to prominence. Until now, the marketing ceremonies made by e-commerce companies such as "6·18" and "Double 11" can still produce social and economic benefits, which are higher than the level of reducing prices and clearing inventory. Of course, the "June 6" promotion has also been gradually extended from the first day to a week, a month or even longer, and a flow reservoir has been built in a short period of time to continuously amplify economic benefits.
The merchants in it, whether they are head brands or cutting-edge brands, have also changed with "6·18" and JD.com. "It's more like weekly and monthly exams than a sprint preparation before an exam." Wang Yue, who is in the business of buying and selling small household appliances in Shunde and has more than one store in Jingdong, lamented that the state of merchants coping with "June 6" has changed rapidly in recent years.
Wang Yue stressed that in the past, it was necessary to start preparing for "3·6" 18 months or even half a year in advance, designing single products, setting the price of drainage models, launching explosive models, and calculating discounts, direct price reductions, full discounts and other discounts clearly.
In order to capture the favor of more consumers and merchants, JD.com increased its focus on products, prices and services on the "June 6" scene. During this period, not only the number of online brand merchants participating will rise, but also the number of offline physical stores participating will be higher than in previous periods, and the number of goods participating in JD.com's tens of billions of subsidies will also expand 18 times compared with March.
"Daily promotions are indeed frequent, but they do not prevent another scoop of water from the natural flow pool of 'June 6'." Among the many businesses interviewed by the Beijing Business Daily reporter, the above answers can be given.
Merchant options are more diverse
From simple online feedback to offline, to online and offline linkage, and then to multi-channel bundling, whether it is the "June 6" mid-year promotion, or the second half of the "Double 18", the requirements for e-commerce promotion have been changing in the past 11 years, and the Internet companies and brand merchants who come to the appointment have personally experienced the changes of the promotion.
"At the beginning, the price was emphasized, and in recent years, I have been more obsessed with new products, of course, some profits have always been the main line." When asked about the changes, Xu Yong, who participated in the eight-year promotion, gave the above statement. Xu Yong sells tea in Wuyishan, there are tea gardens and brands, in Xu Yong's own words, it is certainly not a big brand, but the act of following the trend has never stopped.
In order to keep up with the changes in the market, Xu Yong specially established a new business research and development department, as long as it is related to the new word, it belongs to this department for research. Xu Yong explained that now every day is studying the playing style and tonality of various channels, JD.com, Taobao, Tmall, Douyin, Kuaishou, B Station, Xiaohongshu, as well as a variety of community groups, group buying groups, "They seem to be sales channels, just think of selling things, sit down and study with the team to know that customer group demands and marketing methods are very different."
Zhang Li, a partner who sells tea to online with Xu Yong, values the diversity of the "June 6" promotion, "Eight years ago, most of the tea garden tea flowed in offline tea shops, or supplied to larger brands, benefiting from e-commerce channels, we have our own brand and greater profit margins."
In the past eight years, Xu Yong and Zhang Li's tea business has expanded from 10% to 60% of the sales volume on the online channel, which has brought them considerable sales and promoted the brand to take root in the online channel. Nowadays, merchants like Xu Yong who have industrial resources have long been accustomed to the rhythm of online channels, and are willing to push new products and explosive models in many platforms, and product forms, sales methods, and interactive states have more diverse extensions.
Not limited to opening an online store to sell goods, brand owners are more willing to study store broadcasting, talent live broadcasting, community circle construction, etc., and product sales and social attributes break the boundaries. More mid-level anchors, live broadcast rooms, and new Internet businesses are creating possibilities for merchants to achieve higher sales and broader markets.
A merchant who has opened stores in a number of e-commerce companies to sell jewelry bluntly said in an interview with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that more and more platforms give merchants more right to speak, although the high-frequency promotions of various platforms dilute traffic, but channels and marketing have become more diverse, "We can decide which channel to do activities on according to the activities provided by the platform, and the traffic concentrated on multiple platforms is not significantly discounted, but makes merchants more clear about which time period and which platform can reach a transaction."
Drive rapid supply-side response
The impact of "June 6" on merchants is not limited to trading volume, upstream production and research and development are changing. The tea business mentioned above has changed from tea in the production area to new tea with more market. Xu Yong holds 18 brands in his hand, selling bulk tea, tea snacks, milk tea drinks and flower and fruit tea, if it is more subdivided, it will be divided into gift boxes, bags, blind boxes and other forms, "are new products in the past three years, eight years ago, we were still selling loose tea with distributors."
Xu Yong and Internet companies are deeply bound, and the market analysis and customer portraits provided by e-commerce will become the direction of new products, and Xu Yong will put these new products on the shelves of stores. The above-mentioned merchants selling jewelry also have similar operations, the prevalence of national style has greatly changed the style of online stores, changing the previous European and American style, metal style, enamel and similar to the new Chinese style of jade style of the search volume is the top three, "e-commerce perception of consumer demands change is indeed more rapid, the final sales volume will not lie, factory production is in time according to consumer demand."
"New products can be launched at any time, because new brands can open a new online store at any time." Xu Yong, who has four brands, is very experienced in dealing with Internet companies, "I am not an Internet newcomer, but the brand has not become a unicorn. In Xu Yong's tea factory, several peers around him have also learned from Xu Yong to enter the Internet, each making a new brand of online tea, or directly improving the tea-making process to be more in line with the current consumption habits.
In fact, in order to allow new products and new merchants to adapt faster and open stores smoothly, at the beginning of this year, JD.com released the "Spring Xiao Plan" for all kinds of merchants, lowering the threshold for merchants to settle in, simplifying the settlement process, and new merchants can also try "0 yuan trial operation". Data provided by JD.com shows that the number of new merchants added by JD.com in the first quarter of this year increased by 240% year-on-year. Xin Lijun, CEO of JD.com Retail, said at the press conference of JD.com's "6.18" that JD.com's "burden reduction and revenue increase" gift package increases investment by 20% for all merchants, helps merchants reduce operating costs by an average of 30%, and doubles the sales growth rate of small and medium-sized micro merchants.
Of course, merchants are also weighing the pros and cons. Dong Wenchen, executive director of Pineapple Tree, said frankly: "Under certain circumstances, the cost of offline traffic will be lower than online. "In some cities, the marketing investment used by online channels to attract fans and traffic sometimes exceeds the rent and labor costs of opening stores offline. In her opinion, physical rents have declined in recent years, but they have more advantages than online. Therefore, whether to bet on the Internet or embrace the entity, or multi-channel parallelism, depends on the expectations of merchants for the future planning of their own brands.
At present, under the background of accelerating the recovery of the consumer field and ushering in the "fight economy" boom across the country, JD.com's "6.18", as one of the barometers and weather vanes of the consumer market in the first half of the year, is also a key node for many partners to win the first half of the year. To this end, Xin Lijun also directly stated that this year's "June 6", Jingdong will do its best to add firewood to the fighting economy, add fireworks to the fireworks, and set up a handle for brand merchants.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Zhao commented