The patchwork ceiling, the new frontier for WeChat, and the direction of alibaba's counterattack
The advantages of Alibaba's e-commerce platform
Which categories are the fastest growing Tmall? Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), up 44% from a year earlier, apparel up 26% and consumer electronics up 22%. Moreover, the strong growth of these categories has continued to 2020. Clothing and beauty makeup are the top priorities of Tmall. The generic clothing category on Tmall can probably contribute about 30% of the GMV of the whole Tmall — the generic clothing category includes clothing, footwear, underwear, sports, luggage and other categories; Beauty and skin care contribute about 10% of GMV, which adds up to 40%. The monetization rate of clothing and beauty makeup categories is very high, among which beauty makeup is the highest and clothing is not bad. In other words, until the second half of last year, Pinduoduo's rise had yet to hit Amoy's base. As long as Pinduoduo does not pose a serious impact on clothing and beauty products, Ali's base camp is safe. As an e-commerce platform of alibaba, Tmall focuses on developing high-end products and new products. In 2018, Tmall launched more than 50 million new skus, and we estimate that there should be more than 70 million in 2019. In Tmall clothing category, new product sales account for 53%, which is exactly the weakness of ptyoduo. In the huge e-commerce platform of tao department, GMV and revenue are the two major categories of clothing and beauty makeup. And new SKU is the income responsibility within these two categories. So far, at least, Pinduoduo has not entirely shed its image as a mid-to-low-end e-commerce platform, remaining largely a destocking channel with billions of dollars in subsidies for some of the high-end goods it offers. From this perspective, we can say that pinduoduo is far from hurting Tmall's lifeblood.
The new frontier for WeChat e-commerce
On the traffic side, there is a noteworthy trend. WeChat recently launched a "group shop" where you can sell things in groups, not only group manager but also your friends. There is "WeChat shop" officially upgraded to "WeChat small shop", zero yuan shop, free service fee, live with goods, based on WeChat small program to provide businesses with strong infrastructure. After the launch of WeChat small store, Tencent's share price rose for a while, while the share price of WeChat SaaS companies such as zan and weimeng was affected, indicating that the market still attaches great importance to. The decentralized e-commerce ecology within WeChat is becoming more and more powerful. Will it put pongduo out of business? We can think that taobao or PDD are both centralized platforms, but PDD is not as centralized as Taobao. In a strict sense, "decentralization" means that there is no unified e-commerce traffic entrance set in WeChat, and it completely relies on WeChat small programs, groups of small stores, etc., natural selection and survival of the fittest, and relies on word-of-mouth marketing and social marketing to spread stores and products.
Ali's counterattack
Recent one or two years, ali faces the company of Tencent department (Meituan, pinduoduo) why to play not enough? Because they have WeChat behind them, WeChat is the APP with the most users and the highest user stickness in China, and alibaba cannot defeat WeChat. However, xiaoyao now thinks: I don't have to beat WeChat, I can also create a high frequency traffic entrance for myself — that is, bypass the WeChat defense circle, to play high frequency local life and local retail market. Therefore, neither blind optimism nor blind pessimism can be applied to a company or an industry. In 2018, the whole market is blindly pessimistic about Tencent and cannot understand pinduoduo's consensus. In 2020, it turned into blind pessimism for Ali and unanimous praise for Pinduoduo. From the perspective of the company's business and strategy, both of these views are extreme. For Pinduoduo, the toughest battles have just begun; For Ali, there is much more to the battlefield than just doggone.
