Text / Liujin

This year, e-commerce platforms have tacitly advanced the start of Double 11, and even sounded the signal gun for the preheat of "Double 11" during the National Day holiday - during the 7-day holiday, Li Jiaqi's live streaming room added products every day, 11 days earlier than last year; famous live streaming rooms such as Lieer, Make Friends, Bee Surprise Society, etc. also started the preheat for Double 11.

Jiedian Finance also observed an interesting phenomenon that the closer it gets to Double 11, the more new stores seem to be opened by merchants. Tmall's latest store opening data shows that the number of newly opened brands in the third quarter of this year increased by 70% month-on-month. Among them, the most brands were opened in September, a significant increase of 239% month-on-month, and many international big brands were included. Yohji Yamamoto, one of the "Big Three" of Japanese fashion design, the fragrance of luxury brand Jimmy Choo, and "aristocratic" skincare brand La Mer, among others, all joined Tmall around September, actively preparing for Double 11, and fully preparing for new products.

The intention of the brands is obvious, they are all coming to catch up with the Double 11 sale.

Merchants are gearing up, and e-commerce platforms have also set up the stage. It is worth noting that this year, Taobao Tmall, JD.com, Kuaishou, Douyin, and other platforms have actively optimized the business environment in the run-up to Double 11, introducing measures to reduce costs, improve merchant repayment speed, and ease financial pressure, allowing merchants to put their minds at ease when going to the "front line" of Double 11.

It is evident that although the industry situation remains complex, Double 11 remains the biggest growth opportunity of the year, and merchants remain positive and optimistic about this year's Double 11 promotion, with the jump-start having already begun.

01 The smoke of battle for Double 11 preparations is thickening

Jiedian Finance learned in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong, and other places that some beauty brands began stockpiling Double 11 products right after 618, iterating new skincare product sets, and efficiently following up on production capacity, starting preparations for Double 11 half a year in advance; other beauty brands said they started adjusting inventory and stockpiling packaging materials from August, which they initially thought was quite early, but after having a meal with peers, they realized they were actually late?

Many beauty and daily chemical brands have started preheating consumers since mid-September, introducing gameplay such as locking in Double 11 discounts for as little as 0.01 yuan or 9.9 yuan, offering repurchase coupons and other benefits to consumers, and some brands have also organized offline pop-up events to build momentum for Double 11.

The channel manager of a pet food brand in Shanghai told Jiedian Finance that the factory has been frantically looking for suppliers to place orders since July and August, and the factory machines have been "smoking" from overwork. Now, live broadcasts and celebrity endorsements are rehearsing and reviewing every day, "using broadcasts as training," just waiting for a big Double 11 showdown this year.

The marketing manager of a home appliance brand said that multiple Tmall store matrices have signed up for Double 11 activities, and detailed deployments have been made in sales, warehousing, logistics, and other aspects since August and September. When Jiedian Finance contacted the manager, he said that the department was hanging up large banners for Double 11 to boost morale. Facing Double 11, the biggest sales opportunity of the year, many departments have set "military orders" to set new records this year.

In terms of clothing brands, many merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have entered a state of full preparation. Some have stocked up on hundreds of thousands of woolen coats and more than twice the fabric of last year to flexibly follow up on orders and production as needed. A store selling down jackets has been budgeting and making schedules for this year's Double 11 since midsummer, and employees have already started shift work, entering a pre-battle state; the owner of a Hanfu brand in Caoxian, Shandong, said he was too busy preparing for Double 11 to have time for a long conversation with Jiedian Finance, taking three calls from factories, warehouses, and live broadcast bases within ten minutes.

Anchors in Hangzhou and Suzhou told Jiedian Finance that recently has been a peak season for anchor recruitment, and many bosses predict that live broadcasts will contribute 70% to 80% of sales during this year's Double 11, indicating that brands are particularly active for Double 11. Browsing Xiaohongshu, there are also e-commerce employees preparing for Double 11 by bringing their own golden retrievers to "camp out and work overtime" at the company.

02 This year's Double 11 may be an "unprecedented" turning point

Why are everyone so enthusiastic about this year's Double 11?

From a macro perspective, a series of monetary stimulus measures have been recently announced to boost the economy, and consumer sentiment has been repeatedly ignited, especially as online consumption recovery continues. The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that from January to August, online retail sales of physical goods grew by 8.1%, faster than the 4.7 percentage point growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods. Coupled with the implementation of many subsidies for large household appliances, merchants' expectations for Double 11 are no longer simply a numerical frenzy but also an expectation of economic improvement.

Among them, Taobao Tmall still plays the role of releasing users' consumer demand during this Double 11, bringing business opportunities for merchants right in front of them.

From a market perspective, the living environment for merchants has improved. E-commerce platforms are no longer blindly biased towards consumers but instead focus on improving the business environment to allow merchants to make money, making the development of e-commerce more sustainable.

For example, addressing the issue of high after-sales costs that has plagued merchants, Taobao fully launched a new experience scoring system in August, loosening refund policies and optimizing the business environment; and in September, it fully launched "Refund Guarantee" to reduce merchants' refund costs.

Many merchants have calculated the benefits of "Refund Guarantee." One stationery merchant's protection cost for refunded shipping fees was reduced by 20%. For this store with an annual order volume of up to 8 million, it can save about 200,000 yuan a year. After another electrical appliance merchant enabled the service, the cost of returns and exchanges dropped from 3.6 yuan per order to 2.9 yuan, saving at least 300,000 yuan a year. Initially, Taobao estimated that Refund Guarantee could reduce return and exchange costs by 10% to 30%. During the gray-scale test that began at the end of August, merchants generally reported a decrease of more than 20%, with some even exceeding 30%. During Double 11, Refund Guarantee also underwent a systematic price reduction, starting from September 27 and lasting until the end of Double 11, with some merchants seeing a maximum decrease of 58%.

Addressing the issue of high capital costs, this year's Tmall Double 11 will provide free instant repayment services to Taobao Tmall merchants, with a credit line exceeding 250 billion yuan, the largest instant repayment credit line in the history of major promotions. This is expected to help merchants prepare for Double 11 without financial pressure and low thresholds, significantly alleviating their operational pressures.

By addressing the issues of after-sales and capital recovery, Taobao Tmall merchants have increased profit margins and reduced financial pressures, naturally making them more eager for Double 11.

From a platform perspective, information released by Taobao Tmall shows that it will invest an additional 30 billion yuan in consumer vouchers and red envelopes to promote transactions on top of the full reduction and instant discount activities. Compared to previous years, the scale of Taobao Tmall's investment in this year's Double 11 is the largest in history.

In addition, Tmall Double 11 will cooperate with over 200 Internet platforms to expand customer flow for merchants through Taobao Tmall, allowing merchants to easily reach consumers across the entire network. Furthermore, Taobao's integration with WeChat Pay will help merchants more easily reach the vast user base in the WeChat ecosystem, increasing product exposure and order volume.

It is not difficult to see that to win this important Double 11 battle, the platform's focus is on expanding customer flow and reducing costs for merchants, with the balance tilted towards helping merchants achieve more sales growth, realizing the goal of "one-click access to more business growth without worries."

03 E-commerce platforms: Serving merchants well = tapping into new growth

Some market voices believe that the "trend" of this year's big promotion for e-commerce platforms has changed, and they have begun to court merchants. In fact, this is a clear signal of the recovery of the consumer environment. Rather than saying they are "courting" merchants, it is more accurate to say that e-commerce platforms are proactively breaking the vicious cycle of competition by providing good services to tap into new growth.

On the one hand, after proactively breaking the vicious cycle, competition becomes more orderly, benefiting merchants, consumers, and platforms alike.

Among merchant groups, small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals make up the largest number, acting as the capillaries of the economy. Enabling small and medium-sized merchants to gain more operational certainty is highly beneficial to economic recovery and boosting consumption.

During the preparations for this Double 11, many small and medium-sized merchants have started recalculating their costs because Taobao Tmall has implemented multiple rounds of fee reductions for merchants this year. For example, not long ago, Taobao Live announced a one-year waiver of "live streaming technology service fees," with the focus being "covering all Taobao Live merchants," aimed at reducing operating costs for small and medium-sized merchants and making them more proactive in facing the sales explosion channel of live streaming. In addition, a series of cost-cutting measures such as price reductions for Refund Guarantee and commission-free "pay later" services primarily benefit small and medium-sized merchants with small scales and low gross margins.

The owner of a wool sweater factory in Tonglu, Zhejiang, told Jiedian Finance that free channels would, of course, be actively used, and measures such as linking store traffic with experience scores are guiding small and medium-sized merchants to believe that good service can drive traffic growth, allowing them to have more energy to refine products and services.

On the other hand, after e-commerce platforms stop chasing low prices and focus on the differentiated value of their respective ecosystems, they release better tools and more efficient business strategies, increasing merchants' profitability and naturally making the platform ecosystem healthier.

As the saying goes, "To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools." For example, during this Double 11, many merchants benefited from the advantages of large models during preparations. Jiedian Finance also found that many merchants preparing with AI did not have to "stay up all night" but instead "rested and built up strength" in anticipation of Double 11; important business tools such as Business Advisor have also been converted from paid to free. With these useful "sharpening stones," merchants can truly spend their money on growth where it counts.

Judging from this "major muster" for Double 11, how to help merchants make money is an important proposition for Taobao and all e-commerce platforms, as price wars have no end. Nowadays, Taobao Tmall understands better how to discover its platform advantages, balance the relationship between users and merchants, and help merchants win the full cycle of Double 11.

As the saying goes, "Speed is the key to victory in martial arts," and previous jump-starts for major promotions have always allowed many brands to catch the "flood of wealth." A solid operational backing and a good business environment provide a fulcrum for brands to grow with certainty amidst changes.

*The lead image is generated by AI