Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

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On June 18, byte jump announced the establishment of the e-commerce department, using Douyin platform as a pedal to formally enter the e-commerce field.

With the entry of e-commerce this time, Douyin has changed the old routine of simple drainage to compete with Taobao, JD.com and other platforms in the e-commerce field with the mode of short video "live broadcast + e-commerce".

Douyin's trial of e-commerce will begin in 2018. On the double 12 e-commerce festival in 2018, Douyin drained goods for Tmall. Since then, Douyin has cooperated with a number of e-commerce companies to expand its influence in the e-commerce field. The outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 has given Douyin new opportunities for development.

Affected by the epidemic, e-commerce live broadcast has become a big tuyere in 2020. It is worth noting that, as a video platform, Douyin does not have a complete supply chain in the e-commerce industry, and the source side is highly dependent on Taobao, JD.com and other platforms, which has become a bottleneck hindering the development of Douyin live e-commerce. In order to solve the supply chain problem, Douyin vigorously promotes the "small shop" model, in order to improve the ecology of its "live e-commerce" and solve the supply chain problem.

Premeditated for a long time

In March 2018, Douyin began to provide shopping channels for accounts with millions of fans, adding jump links to Taobao pages in the shopping cart function. In December of the same year, Douyin led to 1.2 million transactions for Tmall's double 12 e-commerce festival.

After the great success of the pilot test, Douyin speeded up the pace of carrying goods. In April 2019, Douyin launched e-commerce Mini Program such as "Xiaomi Mall" and "JD.com Haowu Street", further expanding Douyin's business in the e-commerce field.

From Douyin's many layouts in e-commerce business, it is not difficult to see how Douyin covets the cake of e-commerce. Behind the frequent involvement of Douyin in e-commerce is the huge consumer demand and huge market potential in the e-commerce market. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of online consumer goods in China reached 41.1649 trillion yuan in 2019, with the number of users exceeding 700 million.

The broad market prospect of the e-commerce industry attracts live video platforms such as Douyin to move forward. On the other hand, the epidemic prompted the live broadcast to bring goods into a new tuyere. According to the China Internet Information Center, the live broadcast scale of domestic e-commerce has reached 433.8 billion as of March, and the total market sales are expected to exceed 961 billion yuan in 2020.

In Luo Yonghao's live broadcast on Douyin platform on April 1, the transaction volume with goods in three hours exceeded 110 million. Douyin, as a partner, feels the dividends of the e-commerce industry more and more.

The establishment of an e-commerce department this time is not only an upgrade of Douyin's previous e-commerce business, but also a sign of its positive entry into the e-commerce industry. But for Douyin, as a newcomer to e-commerce, Douyin first has to face the problem of supply chain gap.

Supply chain becomes the first problem.

Douyin, which was born in short video, encountered the biggest problem in the e-commerce industry in the supply chain.

Although the cooperation between Douyin and Taobao in 2018 resulted in 1.2 million orders for Taobao, as a drainage platform, only part of the service fee was charged, and the benefits of commodity supply were still in the hands of Taobao.

For e-commerce enterprises, mastering a mature supply chain is tantamount to mastering the source of profits. And a sound supply chain system can speed up logistics delivery while quickly processing orders, shorten the cycle of goods, and then reduce costs and improve efficiency.

E-commerce giant Taobao, its main sop model has been very mature, merchants set up shop in Taobao, the supply and delivery of goods are completed by merchants, Taobao supervises the whole process. And another giant JD.com, with a unique FBP model to occupy the advantage of logistics services, businesses only need to operate in the background, from warehousing to distribution are completed by JD.com. The supply chains of both platforms, no matter which one is, are very mature.

However, Douyin has a gap in the supply chain of the e-commerce industry, which can only guide other e-commerce enterprises and can not touch the dividends of commodity sales and distribution. Therefore, for e-commerce newcomer Douyin, how to establish a sound supply chain has become the key. And Douyin is also frequently testing the waters in the supply chain. Recently, under the limelight of live streaming with goods in the limelight, Douyin pushed the merchant's own "small shop" model, providing an idea for it to solve the supply chain problem.

Push the "small shop", Douyin is meant to break the game.

According to the official introduction of Douyin, Douyin stores can use Toutiao, Douyin and volcano accounts to register and log in, and after submitting application materials, they can enter the shop. After successfully settling in, merchants can drain the drainage on Douyin platform by means of advertising and video.

Benefiting from the traffic of the video platform, a large number of merchants have settled in since the Douyin store was launched. On May 7, Douyin opened individual residence and allowed 0 fan users to apply for its "live shopping cart" permission.

As the threshold for entry is lowered, more businesses begin to pour into small shops. As of May 28, the number of merchants stationed in Douyin stores has approached the level of one million. And a large number of merchants pouring into "small stores" provide Douyin with a rich source of goods, thus closing the gap in Douyin's supply chain.

Douyin stores operate in a way similar to Taobao's sop model. Merchants settle in Douyin stores, the platform provides management services and collects deposits, and the merchants are responsible for distribution and later refund. The operation mode of "small shop" solves the embarrassment of Douyin in the commodity supply link of e-commerce industry, and forms the ecological closed loop of "live broadcast + e-commerce".

But this is just Douyin's good hope for the ecology of "small shop". When entering e-commerce, the ecological chain closed by Douyin with "small shop" mode is still facing a huge test. Supplier management, order processing and so on are all problems that need to be solved. Therefore, there are still many problems to be solved in the small shop model.

E-commerce ecology has a long way to go.

A perfect e-commerce supply chain, from front-end suppliers to internal production, and finally to finished product management and services, every link is indispensable. If anything goes wrong, it will have an impact on the whole supply chain.

In the e-commerce industry, Taobao's mature sop model has been perfected only after years of experience. In contrast, Douyin's "small shop" model is just started, and Douyin stores still have a long way to go to improve their supply chain.

In the long run, Douyin power e-commerce has a large traffic advantage, especially the rapid development of its TikTok, and can even help domestic merchants to enter overseas markets in the future.

However, from the current point of view, the improvement of the supply chain is not achieved overnight. At the same time, once Douyin fully enters e-commerce and breaks up with Taobao, it is bound to cause Douyin e-commerce to face Taobao, JD.com, pinduoduo and other e-commerce platforms in the future, Douyin's e-commerce road may be full of blood.

At present, logistics has been carved up by Cainiao, Shunfeng and JD.com, and pinduoduo is also at a disadvantage in the construction of logistics. For the short video giants Douyin and Kuaishou, which have just entered e-commerce, logistics construction also has a long way to go.

Whether Douyin can become a new pole of China's e-commerce market depends on the speed of Douyin's own e-commerce ecological construction!

(official account of Liu Kuang / tr. by Phil Newell) ID:liukuang110

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