Chinese e-commerce companies not only have to celebrate 618 and Double Eleven, but also join in the excitement of the “Hands-Chop Festival” in the United States.
November 25th is the last Friday in November and also the Black Friday shopping festival. This day is often the craziest shopping day for Americans in a year, because American shopping malls generally record deficits with red pens, and record profits with black pens, and merchants call this day Black Friday.
In addition, with the rise of online shopping, the Monday after Black Friday has gradually been shaped into another promotion day, known as “Cyber One”.
“I bought a total of 20 or 30 items on SHEIN and Temu (a cross-border platform under Pinduoduo), and the total cost was more than 100 US dollars.” Wang Luo, a North American student, told Huxiu, compared with other traditional e-commerce platforms The price, the mentality is like picking it up for nothing.
However, compared with domestic e-commerce platforms showing their talents in overseas shopping festivals, many domestic cross-border sellers are more conservative.
“Due to the problem of the capital chain, I didn’t dare to prepare too many goods this year.” Liu Ling, a cross-border seller, told Huxiu. Although this made Liu Ling’s products often out of stock, he did not feel regretful, after all, he could no longer afford more inventory.
“This year, there is indeed a lot less demand for replenishment.” Long Chuhai Research Institute, who is familiar with Sino-US cross-border logistics, told Tiger Sniff. According to his description, in previous years, most of the goods were usually prepared by sea within 35-45 days, and a small amount of goods were subsequently replenished by air or express delivery, but this year this situation is rare.
“Sellers’ conservative attitude is related to the recovery of offline shopping in Europe and the United States, while Chinese cross-border platforms rely on shopping festivals to fight marketing battles.” Liu Ling said.
Cross-border platform “Black Friday” rolls up
Domestic cross-border platforms not only have a higher and higher presence in overseas hand-chopping festivals, but also bring the gameplay of domestic promotions to the past.
During SHEIN’s Black Friday period, the whole store is as low as 0.1% off, many jewelry items are as low as 0.26 US dollars, and many clothing and beauty products are also less than 10 US dollars. In addition, SHEIN has also issued discount codes on multiple social media in North America, and the discounts are based on the official website.
For example, if you enter the discount code CBFDA, you can get 15% off when you spend $49, or 20% off when you spend $99. Many KOLs who cooperate with SHEIN also have their own exclusive discount codes, allowing their followers to enjoy further discounts.
Chinese consumers are no strangers to these methods of discounts, exclusive passwords for bloggers. Even the Spring Festival collection of blessings and welfare activities appeared in another form in SHEIN’s promotions.
According to SHEIN, during the Black Friday period, users can collect cards containing the letters “S, H, E, I, N” through the APP or the official website, and users who collect the SHEIN cards can get 50 million points.
“It’s more and more like a domestic promotion.” Wang Luo said, she even mistakenly thought that she had been in the “Double Eleven” in China.
Not only are promotional routines becoming more and more familiar and friendly, but product prices on cross-border platforms are also approaching those in China.
According to Wang Luo, on Pinduoduo’s Temu platform, thick jackets for less than US$5, iPhone cases for US$2, and sneakers for less than US$10 can be seen everywhere. She led her local friends in the United States to buy a lot of things, especially 3C products. You must know that mobile phone cases are not cheap products in the United States. Even if there is a discount on Black Friday, some traditional e-commerce platforms still sell for about ten dollars. .
“SHEIN is already very cheap, and Temu is even cheaper. Local friends in the United States think this price is amazing, and they are looking forward to receiving something of high quality.” Wang Luo said.
Temu, which has only been in the US market for a few months, seems to have spent a lot of money during this Black Friday. Not only the product price breaks through the floor, but also various after-sales promises are launched, such as free shipping for purchases over US$0.1, free order for users who have not received the goods within 14 days, and full refund if they are not satisfied within 90 days. Dazzling activities and crazy subsidies are all for Temu to get out of the circle in the United States.
“However, for sellers, the cost of products and after-sales is a big challenge, and some returns need to be borne by the seller.” Liu Ling said.
What you need to know is that in Pinduoduo’s just-released financial report, Temu’s status is already very important. During Black Friday, it is worth paying attention to how much share it can gain after the battle with SHEIN. The latter will have the first downloads in the first quarter of 2022. over Amazon.
Consumers return to rationality
The momentum of SHEIN and Temu also relies on the continuous rise of online consumption in the United States.
The industry had predicted that after the epidemic was lifted, offline physical store sales would exceed online sales during Black Friday this year.
However, according to Adobe Analytics, by tracking more than 85% of the top 100 online retailers in the United States, consumers spent a record $9.12 billion on online shopping on Black Friday this year, an increase of about 2.3%. For offline traditional department stores, although the traffic volume on Black Friday has increased, it is still lower than the pre-epidemic level.
“This year, our overseas online sales have probably doubled or tripled year-on-year.” Charlie Wu, brand director of personal care and hairdressing brand TYMO, told Tiger Sniff.
“In previous years, during Black Friday, many department stores lined up and set up tents one night in advance, but this year there are many parking spaces vacant,” Wang Luo said.
However, many cross-border sellers and American consumers are much more conservative than in previous years during this year’s Black Friday promotion.
“Many sellers don’t want to stock too much, for fear of affecting cash flow.” Liu Ling told Huxiu. Many sellers would rather be out of stock than pay too much inventory cost.
Many consumers have also returned to calmness. Wang Luo’s brother writes code in Silicon Valley. Although he has not been affected by various layoffs, but just in case, this year’s shopping is much more conservative. Don’t buy anything that is not necessary. Even if you buy, you have to shop around. .
However, the return of consumers to rationality has also caused headaches for many businesses. For many, this means spending more on marketing. “Many sellers around me don’t have the cost to spend too much on advertising this year, but are just silently lowering prices.” Liu Ling said.
This has also driven more and more sellers to seek cheaper promotional methods. Compared with Google and Meta, TikTok has become more and more the focus of advertising.
“TikTok’s drainage and conversion are not bad, and it is obviously lower than the cost of other channels, which can be described as a low price.” Charlie told Huxiu that this year, in the launch of TYMO, TikTok has been divided into three parts with Google and Facebook.
In fact, TikTok also carried out a number of promotional activities during this year’s Black Friday, such as ranking competitions in the live broadcast room, Black Friday shopping short video challenge, sending discount codes online, etc. For TikTok, this is also to obtain more advertising revenue. After all, the GMV of its advertising business this year has not met expectations.
