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has no time to explain, get on the bus soon🚗The old driver will take you
Recently, I was renovating my home. During the Double 11 period, I bought a lot of home appliances and furniture online. The home appliances and furniture before
were all purchased online, so I became familiar with it this time. I found the original store, browse the new models, consulted customer service, and chose, place orders, and receive goods. Compared to a few years ago, there are more live broadcast channels this time. The Dyson vacuum cleaner at home is basically disabled when it is opened. If you want to change it to a new one, your wife is waiting for Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room to join in a new model.
says that it is a comparison of all the stores. In fact, in addition to Taobao and Tmall, we have also browsed other channels. One feeling is that on Taobao and Tmall, customer service can basically respond in time, and reply in time to any questions asked, and understand my needs. On some group buying platforms, it is often a programmatic reply from robot customer service. As we all know, there are huge differences in the models, parameters and sizes of home appliances, and customer service needs to give suggestions based on needs. Therefore, after talking to the robot several times, I finally gave up.
home appliances are still considered standard products, while some small items are quite troublesome. It is said that "hard decoration is the inner part, soft decoration is the face." If you want to be more personalized, you can only "tiao" and customize it.
This is the biggest shopping service in my family ever.
01 A billion consumers
are busy with decoration, so they continue to report, write plans, and take the time to read a few books.
has a book that says, "The countryside is full of manufacturing", which describes the situation in Britain in the 18th century. It was the time when the industrial revolution, and the cities and villages of Britain were full of factories. At that time, the Birmingham was the metal processing trade center. Because the iron smelting industry was developed, there were sufficient raw materials for the manufacturing of buttons, pins, nails, and small appliances. Although there were no major inventions and new machines, it was formed by relying on the in-depth division of labor to form an industrial chain in the 18th century, and the efficiency was greatly improved.
The developed manufacturing and trade gave Britain at that time a sufficient number of wealthy people.
Matt Ridley wrote, "One of the fundamental reasons for the English miracle is that thanks to prosperous trade, after the 18th century, there were enough wealthy people in Britain to purchase products and services provided by manufacturers, so manufacturers had the funds to go outside to find technology with higher production efficiency. In the process of doing so, they accidentally discovered something similar to the perpetual motion machine of the economy."
"Production-division of labor-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-employment-promotion technological progress", this is the transmission chain of the "perpetual motion machine of the economy". In this process, consumption is an important part, which makes production meaningful and sustainable, and directly stimulates manufacturers and traders to improve their technical level and efficiency.
Economist Robert Friedel believes that "the most unusual fact in the 18th century is the expansion of the consumer class." And in the book "The Birth of a Consumer Society: Commercialization of Britain in the 18th Century", British sociologist Neil McKendrick wrote that "a consumer revolution occurred in England in the 18th century", "An unprecedented number of men and women in human history enjoyed the experience of obtaining material wealth."
Because of industrialization, millions of ordinary British people were able to consume at that time, so the trade wheels of the British Empire were rumbling, and agricultural products and finished products on sea and on land were ready to go. The British army spread the world to explore raw material production areas and open up new markets. The huge production capacity allowed British merchants to target overseas markets. The French were busy making luxury goods at that time, while British businessmen were good at division of labor among skilled workers, reducing prices, and making ordinary people affordable products.
makes factory workers affordable for the products they produce, and at the same time, the amount of labor they put in for the products has steadily decreased, which is the biggest achievement of the market.
This is also the main theme of world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. You can always hear the price of luxury bags rising again, but apart from inflation, the prices of industrial products are steadily declining, especially in countries with developed manufacturing industries, where workers' incomes are gradually affordable to the products they produce (except houses).
Although there are criticisms of "big but not strong", today's China is like Britain in the 18th century, and is the world's largest manufacturing power. The number of workers once accounted for three-thirds of the total number of workers in the world's export processing zones. The vast territory advantage has enabled China to establish two basic manufacturing areas with its own expertise: the Pearl River Delta, which specializes in labor-intensive manufacturing, parts production and assembly; and the Yangtze River Delta, which specializes in the capital-intensive industry of , , which is dominated by automobile, semiconductor and equipment manufacturing. In addition, there are the consumer electronics assembly industrial belts in the Central Plains and the West, as well as some Foshan home furnishing industry belts, Suzhou men's clothing industry belts, Jinhua department store industry belts, Cixi small household appliances industry belts, Huzhou children's clothing industry belts, Zhongshan lighting industry belts, Chaozhou bathroom industry belts, Nantong bedding industry belts, etc.
These industrial belts not only significantly reduced the prices of manufactured products around the world, but also increased the income of Chinese workers for a long time, promoting the formation of "billion consumers", which is the "unprecedented number in human history".
has previously discussed the national unified market formed by the infrastructure network and the Internet, which has reduced the circulation cost of products, reduced the intermediate levels, expanded the market radius, and reduced the information cost and time cost of consumers searching for products. This allows "Made in China" to directly face the huge local consumer group, with many large, medium-sized, small and even small and micro enterprises and freelancers having a large enough market to create a wide variety of jobs.
Of course, this also indirectly makes Chinese consumers the most "picky" consumers in the world because there are too many options. This time, when you open the Taobao APP, there are many types of searching home appliances, lighting fixtures, floor mats, etc., and you can’t refresh them after several pull-downs. We have become accustomed to this considerable product category, but we middle-aged people all clearly remember how scarce the goods we could buy when we were young.
is created and produced by millions of companies based on consumer needs. Such a large number of products are already difficult to manage by a centralized platform, and there is no incentive and positive feedback between manufacturers and consumers. For example, Walmart has 68,000 suppliers, and the total number of SKUs is about 200 million. This is already the most efficient offline retailers can manage the most suppliers and SKUs.
. On Taobao and Tmall, SKU is much larger in scale. As a producer, China's industry has countless manufacturers and suppliers. On the Taobao and Tmall platform, they can face consumers directly and capture consumers' needs and preferences in a timely manner. The fierce competition has made merchants pay great attention to operations and accumulate fans, members and reputation. Judging from the daily experience, it can respond instantly in most stores. This time I wanted to change the wall clock. I am a night owl again. I almost always consult in the middle of the night. The waiter is online and patiently helps with the choice. The shopping experience session was also optimized to be able to operate "foolly". I bought a carpet, but the size was wrong. I negotiated with the merchant and refunded it. The "speed refund" service was quickly received. What's more intense this year than in the past is that the delivery is very fast. I stayed up late several times and planned until five or six in the morning. There was a courier delivering the goods at home so early.
These service experiences are optimized through years of interaction between platform-merchant and consumer, and can greatly cultivate consumer loyalty. Once you buy more times, you will recognize those companies. For example, my little Corgis bought dog food on a monthly basis at a certain online store. After a while, the store also gave some canned dog food. After all, trial and error also have costs.
merchants generally have a fan group, send new product information every day, and interact with customers. The most active fan group I have ever been to is the sea group. Everyone communicates how to make seafood from time to time, and the group owner will also post recipes.
I think the reason why China's online shopping has developed so well is not only the fierce competition in large production capacity, but also a very important reason is the "customer first".When traveling to Japan and South Korea, I found that people's service experience was indeed done well, and in the era of shortage of products, my country's consumption experience was indeed very evident. After years of market cultivation, the service awareness of the entire retail market has been greatly improved. Against this background, Taobao and Tmall have paid great attention to helping merchants build a service system at the beginning, from fast payment, door-to-door delivery to real-time updates of logistics information, from instant messaging to fast refunds for returns and door-to-door pickups, the commercial capabilities accumulated by the platform help merchants improve the entire service process, which is a gradual implementation of "consumer experience-centered" in place.
So for consumers, this almost forms a fixed mindset: as long as it is a legal and compliant product, you can buy it on Taobao and Tmall; as long as it is not satisfied, you can return it and exchange it. This mental positioning allows consumers to buy with confidence. One public data is: "Among consumers who shop for more than 10,000 yuan on Taobao and Tmall, 98% are willing to continue to stay on Taobao and Tmall to shop."
At the same time, the huge number of consumers also brought unexpected results to merchants.
02 Determination in uncertainty
That is certainty.
The first time I made a plan about ten years ago, the topic I suggested was "Find certainty in uncertainty". When my colleagues heard this, I said that this was not the theme of last year?
Looking back, we have spent every ten years even every month and every day in uncertainty. At the beginning of this year, few people could predict the extent of the situation in Russia and Ukraine, and few people could predict the macro and micro trends. The same is true for the operation of a company.
Galbraith has a book called " The Times of Uncertainty ", which writes at the end of the book, "In such an uncertain era, only one is certain: we must face this 'uncertainty' fact."
Therefore, uncertainty does not exist today. Every era has its own uncertainty. We must get used to uncertainty.
Professor Knight has distinguished the difference between measurable risks and unpredictable uncertainties. Most business uncertainties can be analyzed using data, and the short-term prospects can be predictable and risk management can be carried out. From a financial perspective, some speculators are happy to see uncertainty, because uncertainty means amplification of volatility, and amplification of volatility means that once the bet is successful, you can get high returns.
But from a commercial perspective, merchants hate uncertainty because it may mean that huge early promotion will be wasted, and stocking will become indigested inventory, or the reverse is the influx of demand, but stocking is insufficient and forced to cut orders. Therefore, normal companies generally have to make budgets and goals, and use this to break down indicators layer by layer to do KPIs, and the same is true for operations.
For a long time, people's income has a determinable growth, so under the logic of " permanent income hypothesis ", people will boldly try various consumptions. In an uncertain era, there are various uncertainties in both life and expected income, and people's consumption logic often tends to be more rational and cautious.
For example, short videos have become popular in recent years, and traffic has grown rapidly. People can’t go far and they can’t make any moves to watch short videos. Short video platforms have also taken advantage of the opportunity to launch shopping functions. Some merchants have tried to push product short videos to short video audiences based on traffic logic. At that time, I also tried it and bought a few items, including sauces and quick-drying clothes, but the after-sales service is quite troublesome, so I can’t get it back or exchange. There is a long chain from traffic to service, which requires precipitation and tools.
If I would try it out in the past two years, then as the expectations for future income in the past two years have changed, consumption preferences have become more rational. It may not only be me, but most people's consumption preferences will also be like this. I no longer "order passionately" when seeing the scattered consumption content, reducing "passionate consumption" and "impulsive consumption", but rather arrange expenditures more rationally and consume in more familiar places.
Changes in consumer preferences have also changed the logic of selling goods. Live bloggers who were active in various short video platforms in the past have gradually shifted their positions to a more certain platform and a platform with real consumers rather than "viewers". For example, Lao Luo went to Taobao to broadcast . After 10 minutes of appearance, the number of viewers was close to 3.07 million. Two hours later, the number of people in the live broadcast room exceeded 10 million, and the amount of goods sold is estimated to be around 200 million.
As for Li Jiaqi, who is familiar to girls, one of his certainties is cost-effective. As mentioned above, Xinjia's vacuum cleaner is the most cost-effective thing in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, so she waited to place an order early.
There is a gap between the two "role" of audience and consumers. The former may be numerous, but for merchants, the logic of content push algorithm itself has huge uncertainty. Large investment in the early stage may not be seen by more viewers, and the audience you see may not be converted into consumers. The investment is certain, and the conversion is uncertain. In this environment, it will be more rational.
even if it breaks out accidentally, it can’t take the order, the inventory is not ready, and the stock is overflowing, which is a new trouble. This uncertainty in traffic-conversion will greatly amplify the business and reputation risks of merchants.
In fact, as Professor Knight believes, short-term prospects can be predicted to a certain extent through data analysis. But this requires data, and data requires precipitation and scientific analysis, and belongs to "friends of time". Since Double 11 was the first to "invent" by Taobao and Tmall, they have the most data and experience in this area, because they have suffered a great loss. The familiar early liquidation and downtime were solved step by step, and now we have the full ability to help merchants make short-term predictions and responses.
For example, for example, merchants who have participated in Double 11 several times before, have data, experience and tools to roughly estimate the situation this year, and can prepare stocks in advance. Some even started preparing for the purchase of positions in August and September, and had an estimate of the sales this year. If they sold several million last year, they could try to earn tens of millions this year. For small and medium-sized merchants, this roughly estimable certainty is their most important means to deal with uncertainty.
says that a small boat is easy to turn around, but a small boat also means that you can't bear the storm. Therefore, when merchants and consumers want to hedge against the risks brought by uncertainty, the best strategy is: operate well and consume rationally on a platform with greater certainty, cherish every order and every cent, and flow slowly.
As for big brands, there are many channels and large customer scale, which also means the growth of service demand. Through the brand DTC (brand direct connection to consumers) model, consumers are converted into members, and members have stronger certainty in repurchasing. A public data is that "there are 42 brands on Tmall with more than 10 million members, and 600 brands with more than 1 million members. Among them, the transaction volume of brought by most brand members exceeds 40% of their total transaction volume." The advantage of
members is that they can occasionally "flee" and buy products with more reasonable discounts. After all, no one's money is not blown by the strong wind, so it is not an exaggeration to be careful. For daily necessities, you still have to buy what you should buy, but it is more cost-effective to buy it accurately.
Finally, even if there are various uncertainties, since uncertainties cannot be eliminated in business, we still have to cherish everything and believe in the future.
Then end with the end of " Rational Optimist ": "The 21st century will be a grand era worth living."
finally shares the most expensive "big goods" I bought during Double 11 this year, which is the painting on the cover. In this uncertain era, I sincerely wish everyone a sunshine and a smile in their lives.
did a small survey: What did you buy during Double 11 or what you are planning to buy?
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