The annual “618” is a little different now. This year is called “the most difficult 618 in history”. Behind it, consumers, merchants, and platforms are limited by the uncertainty of logistics and supply brought about by the epidemic; ”, they have come up with the biggest promotion efforts, and compete with Douyin and Kuaishou for the most important consumption battlefield in the middle of the year.
access:
Alibaba Cloud’s exclusive benefits for resumption of work start from 1 yuan for the first purchase
The surging journalists observed that this year’s 618 was not as “powerful” as in previous years. E-commerce platform propaganda has lowered its tone, and consumers’ choices have become more rational. For merchants, 618 has certainly released a certain amount of consumer demand, but in the environment of rising raw material and logistics costs, and inventory backlog, what they need to face is the pressure of survival.
Data improved, but not necessarily profit
“Greatly exceeded expectations.” Speaking of this year’s 618 sales data, Nie Wei, director of Shanghai Suer e-commerce, told The Paper. “It’s up more than 40 percent year-on-year.”
Affected by the epidemic, in April, the sales of Nie Wei’s company fell by 70% year-on-year. Falling profits, overstocking… The epidemic has affected the entire supply chain, which has spread to many places. In this context, the shopping festival has become an outlet to release consumption.
This year’s 618 sales are better than expected, which is the common view of most companies. The founder of Shanghai-based Yongpu Coffee, “Uncle Iron”, told The Paper: “The goal of this year’s 618 is to increase sales by 60% to 80% in the same period last year. In terms of stocking, it is also twice as high as the same period last year. Come get ready.”
However, the increase in sales will not directly translate into profit. “The shopping festival takes a long time to warm up. The previous sales will be concentrated in one day, but if it is calculated by one month, the profit will be lower.” Zhang Wenjie, general manager of Wenzhou Desai Shoes, told reporters. At the same time, the shopping festival will also “overdraft” sales in the future.
“It seems to be busy in shipping, but I can’t make any money, and the profits are affected by the inventory.” Li Shiwen (pseudonym), general manager of a shirt manufacturer in Suzhou, told reporters that to calculate the income at hand, the cost of inventory must be subtracted. . “If I have a 10% profit and my inventory costs are as high as 40%, then not only is there no profit, but there is actually a loss.”
Even Nie Wei, whose sales were driven by “Liu Genghong Girl”, admitted that this year’s profit was flat compared to previous years. “The high cost of logistics and warehousing dragged down the growth in sales.”
Businesses “survive”, e-commerce has become a “life-saving straw”
For merchants, 618 in previous years was mainly to establish word of mouth and promote profits. This year’s goal has changed – the first priority is survival.
The most notable pressure is cost increases. Uncle Tiepi introduced that if you look at the samples of new products, first let the sample factory send them to the Suzhou warehouse, and then find a way to transport them from the warehouse to Shanghai. Usually, when transferring from Suzhou warehouse to Shanghai warehouse, the transportation cost is only about 1,000 yuan per car, and the transportation price soared in the early stage of the epidemic.
Zhang Wenjie also calculated the account in the interview, “Originally, the cost of express delivery was about 5 yuan, but now it has reached 6-7 yuan, which has risen by almost 20%, and the cost of raw materials such as shoe leather and sole has increased by 20% to 50%.” At the same time as the decline, the pressure from employee compensation and marketing spending has not eased.
Compared with offline physical stores, online e-commerce has almost become the only channel for merchants to dump inventory, and it has also become a “life-saving straw”. Zhang Wenjie said. “With the improvement of the epidemic, the overall sales have improved, and the logistics operation has gradually accelerated, but it is difficult to say whether the losses can be covered.”
He revealed that more than 60% of the shoe-making factories in Wenzhou had been closed for holidays, but since the beginning of June, they have gradually resumed production. “The promotion of shopping festivals to consumption is still obvious.”
However, due to the excessive pressure on inventory, this year’s e-commerce war is more intense than in previous years, and some merchants choose to leave traditional e-commerce and go to live e-commerce. Zhang Wenjie analyzed that when traditional e-commerce platforms face traffic competition, the strategy is to protect the head and give up the merchants at the waist and tail, so that the benchmarking effect of the head can gradually emerge. “Many platforms will invite top Internet celebrities to do activities, and they will take away most of the traffic, but small and medium-sized businesses like us will be affected to some extent.”
In Li Shiwen’s view, some traditional e-commerce companies, including Tmall, are too expensive to invest in the early stage. “If the investment cost hit the traffic two months ago, it would be useless to make more efforts at 618.” In her opinion, in order to hand over a beautiful transcript in 618, merchants may need to prepare several months in advance, and the final sales volume Often it has nothing to do with product quality, but with operation and input costs. Most small and medium-sized businesses have long been “out of the game” in advance.
“As long as you can survive, it doesn’t matter if you can only keep the capital or lose a little bit. This is the mentality of many companies participating in 618: it’s good to survive.” Zhang Wenjie said frankly. In his view, the competition of e-commerce platforms will become more and more intense in the future, because under the influence of uncertain offline consumption, the number of merchants entering online sales will continue to increase.
Under the interweaving of various risks, enterprises generally have “heavier crisis awareness”. “Now I will consider the company’s ability to avoid risks as soon as possible, what to do in case of emergencies, and how to find new opportunities.” Wang Xin, a children’s clothing merchant in Kuaishou, told reporters, “I will no longer live step by step like before. .”
E-commerce stimulates competition and overall consumption gradually picks up
In the eyes of the platform, this year’s 618 is undoubtedly an important consumption battle. After experiencing a long-term trough of confusion, this is the moment when confidence and vitality are most needed.
Various platforms have made unprecedented profit margins for this: Tmall and Taobao give a full discount of 300-50, and the Jingdong platform has adjusted the cross-store discount to 299 minus 50. Pinduoduo directly used the slogan of “3 billion yuan consumer coupons”.
Douyin and Kuaishou are not far behind. The “Douyin 618 Good Things Festival Investment Promotion Conference” kicked off on April 26, and Kuaishou launched the Kuaishou 616 Shopping Festival on “520”.
The policy level has also continued to recover: On May 29, the Shanghai Municipal Government announced the “Shanghai Action Plan for Accelerating Economic Recovery and Revitalization”, which mentioned that large-scale commercial enterprises, e-commerce platforms and other enterprises should be supported to issue consumer discounts in various ways. coupons.
Under the favorable policy environment, in order to boost performance, the once “Buddhist” e-commerce companies have once again “rolled up”. On May 20, the new “Big Taobao” head Dai Shan and JD.com CEO Xin Lijun cheered on the 618 activities of their respective platforms. Daishan promised that Tmall will help merchants achieve business certainty amid uncertainty and ensure business stability throughout the year or even longer.
Xin Lijun said that this year, JD.com will focus on small and medium-sized businesses and minimize the impact of the epidemic through a series of cost-reduction and efficiency-enhancing measures to help them increase their input-output ratio at JD.618 by at least 20%.
As of June 15, the sales volume of Yongpu Coffee on all e-commerce platforms increased by 80% compared with the same period last year, exceeding the original expectations. According to Uncle Tiepi, the incremental consumer groups mainly come from some new users in the Shanghai area, as well as people who have participated in group purchases before and come back to buy again. In addition, this year, Tmall’s talent brought goods and Douyin’s store self-broadcasted, and the sales performance was also higher than the same period last year.
“At present, the logistics cost has returned to normal.” Uncle Tin said that as of June 15, nearly 40 million yuan of coffee had been sold during the 618 period, 95% of which had been sent out, and there was no problem with the overall delivery volume and capacity.
Zhang Wenjie revealed that during the 618 period this year, the sales volume of Desai Shoes increased by more than 200% year-on-year, mainly due to the traffic support obtained by the new platform and the placing of e-commerce business at a more important strategic height.
Merchants who are cautiously looking forward to 618 focus more on the future. Wang Xin told the surging news reporter that in her live broadcast room, products with high unit prices sold better than those with reserve prices, indicating that consumer demand is still strong. “We are optimistic about the post-pandemic economic recovery.”
“Whether it is a business, a brand or a supply chain, the epidemic is a test.” Guo Jing, the founder of the trendy brand “Wanmi”, told The Paper. “When encountering difficulties, the most important thing is to have the confidence to win this tough battle. There may be a group of brands falling, and a new group of brands rising. In the face of the new situation, we must find a new way of survival. “
Reporter/Fan Jialai Shao Bingyan