Produced by | Bullet Finance

Art Design | Qianqian

Edited by | Songwen

From a macro perspective, the trend of consumption recovery continues, with online consumption growing even faster. For example, the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that online retail sales of physical goods grew by 8.1% from January to August, outpacing the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods by 4.7 percentage points. Alibaba's latest financial report revealed that the number of 88VIP members increased from 35 million in the previous quarter to 42 million in this quarter, a surge of 7 million members.

Observing the groups around us who frequently shop on e-commerce platforms, it is evident that this generation of consumers is not necessarily unwilling to spend, but rather demands higher standards for "good value and quality products." They have developed a new system for evaluating product value, which can be seen as a "de-mystification" of some premium factors in consumption. The significance of Tmall's Double 11 has also shifted for consumers: it has become the best platform for users to express their consumer sentiment and a window for them to assess the value of their purchases.

Against this backdrop, Taobao and Tmall's strategy for this year's Double 11 is no longer solely focused on price competitiveness but rather on the quality of products. Alimama's recently fully launched full-site promotion, by altering the search and recommendation algorithm for products, has created a new path for merchants to promote high-quality products. We can gain insights into this from Alimama's "Double 11 Product Performance Breakthrough" live broadcast.

1. Returning to quality products during Double 11 is the key to capturing the demographic dividend

The dual shift in the significance of Tmall's Double 11 for consumers points to one conclusion: merchants must return to quality products to capture the demographic dividend.

During Double 11, both high-end luxury brands and mass consumer goods are facing similar market challenges – whether their products offer good value for money, whether their service experience is satisfactory and meticulous, and whether their brand values withstand scrutiny.

So, what exactly constitutes a quality product?

We have observed that merchants' self-defined quality products do not always align with those favored by platform algorithms, making it more challenging to create a hit product.

A true quality product must conform to the platform's logic for creating bestsellers, a methodology derived from data. It must meet the criteria of good pricing, effective presentation, and high conversion rates. Additionally, the product itself must possess sufficient market competitiveness, such as high-quality, affordably priced goods from reputable industrial belts.

Manufacturers with strong supply chain capabilities or brands with design and development expertise often have competitive products, but they often face a common challenge: a lack of online operational capabilities. They may not know how to effectively promote their quality products, let alone select products that align with online marketing strategies.

Alimama's full-site promotion effectively addresses the issue of finding quality products. By leveraging big data analysis, it intelligently categorizes product inventories and identifies potential bestsellers based on factors such as GMV growth, traffic growth, and ROI delivery. In other words, merchants no longer need to worry about identifying the "quality products" that best fit their target audience; Alimama's full-site promotion automatically selects the most suitable products for promotion across the entire site.

In essence, Alimama's full-site promotion offers a turnkey solution for merchants seeking quality products. The next focus is on how merchants can reach their target audience with these quality products and propel them to become bestsellers. This necessitates an understanding of the product weighting mechanism.

2. How does full-site promotion alter the product search and recommendation weighting mechanism?

In the broader context of Taobao and Tmall's focus on quality products, merchants who can achieve higher product weights will genuinely realize cost savings and efficiency gains.

Generally, e-commerce platforms evaluate products based on metrics such as exposure, click-through rate, conversion rate, save rate, basic sales volume, and other store service indicators. To boost product weights and attract more traffic during Double 11 promotions and on a daily basis, merchants must focus on these metrics.

Amid the trend of intense price competition across the industry, offering discounts to consumers and lowering prices have long been the most direct way for merchants to enhance product weights. However, this approach has thinned their profit margins, making it challenging to increase sales volumes.

It is noteworthy that this year, Taobao and Tmall have introduced significant changes to their product weighting mechanism.

As a paid and free promotional tool, Alimama's full-site promotion offers merchants additional product traffic weighting during this year's Double 11 bestseller recruitment program.

In other words, by promoting eligible products through Alimama's full-site promotion, merchants can further leverage natural search and recommendation traffic, receiving additional search and recommendation traffic weighting benefits. Consequently, their products will have higher weights than their competitors'.

To illustrate, two products with similar search click-through and conversion rates will be ranked higher and gain momentum faster if they participate in Alimama's full-site promotion Double 11 bestseller recruitment program.

Specifically, merchants who promote products labeled with "Traffic Boost" and select the platform-recommended ROI can receive a 10% to 30% traffic boost. If the target product meets consumption targets and continues to be promoted during Double 11, merchants can enjoy an additional 10% to 20% to 40% boost.

With this policy support, merchants no longer need to worry about a lack of product traffic or failing to grow their business due to compressed margins. By following the platform's guidelines, they can secure stable traffic and significantly increase their chances of creating hit products.

3. Merchants must quickly and efficiently capture more traffic to dominate the market

Since 618 this year, various e-commerce platforms have successively eliminated the pre-sale system, raising the bar for merchants' inventory management capabilities. However, many merchants only discover operational issues during major promotions, such as insufficient lead generation beforehand, inadequate branding efforts, and difficulties in seizing consumer attention amidst intense competition.

Different types of merchants adopt distinct promotional strategies. Given the tight timeline and heavy workload during major promotions, merchants must act swiftly to gain an early advantage. Those who can swiftly occupy market high ground will secure a greater edge.

Horizontally, all products can be categorized into four growth stages: cold start, growth, explosion, and stable sales. Standardized and non-standardized products have different criteria for these stages.

For example, in standardized product industries like beauty and major appliances, merchants can utilize Alimama's newly launched one-click volume increase feature within full-site promotion to accelerate sales and consider a product successfully launched if it achieves cumulative GMV of over RMB 10,000 in the first 30 days. Subsequently, they can adjust their bidding strategy to maximize volume, aiming for a 100% increase in sales and propelling their product to the top 5% of its category, making it a popular bestseller.

Similarly, in non-standardized industries like apparel and outdoor sports, merchants can also leverage the one-click volume increase feature for cold starts. However, once a product's added-to-cart count exceeds 100 and transaction count surpasses 10, they should shift their bidding strategy to maximize volume to rapidly climb the category rankings and secure premium traffic.

Analyzing the overall operational logic of Alimama's full-site promotion, it is evident that this year's Double 11 further embodies Taobao and Tmall's commitment to putting users first. On the one hand, "quality products" have become the cornerstone for attracting traffic, urging merchants to prioritize product selection in their business operations. On the other hand, Alimama's full-site promotion directly informs merchants of where data-driven "quality products" reside and enhances their weights, making them more visible to consumers and lowering the operational barriers for merchants.

It can be predicted that this year's Double 11 will continue to serve as a platform for fulfilling users' consumer demands, presenting merchants with ample opportunities for business growth.

*The featured image in this article is from Shutterstock, based on the VRF agreement.