On November 14th, this year’s “Double Eleven” can still maintain rapid growth in such a volume, reflecting the huge potential of the Chinese consumer market. “The data shows that the explosive growth of ‘double eleven’ is still continuing. This shows that as long as there is a suitable incentive, the Chinese consumer market will release infinite space.”
This year’s “Double Eleven” day, just on the weekend, Beijing white-collar Yuan Yuan missed her express: a fingerprint lock she has been paying attention to for a long time.
“At 0:00 in the morning, I rushed to the next order. This is a blast, and it was finished in less than three minutes. Unexpectedly, on the 11th, the courier arrived at the company in the morning, and the delivery in the past year was at least three days. So I filled in the company’s address, I didn’t expect it to be so fast this year.” She told the 21st Century Business Herald.
The data shows that this year’s “Double Eleven”, Tmall Jingdong Suning and other platforms have once again set a new record. The outbreak of “Double Eleven” consumption also shows that China’s huge consumption potential is still being released.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that the supporting policies for various consumption in China are also constantly being released. On November 13, the Ministry of Commerce website issued a notice on the issuance of the “Evaluation Indicator System for Urban and Rural Distribution Performance Evaluation”, proposing the preparation of this indicator system, which is an important measure to promote logistics work, and is to implement the main responsibility of the city and guide the transformation and upgrading of enterprises. An important grip is an important basis for testing the results of special actions for urban and rural efficient distribution, and plays an important role in innovating circulation and promoting consumption.
On the one hand, the efficiency of the seller is improved. On the one hand, the buyer’s requirements for product quality are improved, which together constitute a benign driving force for China’s “consumption upgrade”. In the long run, China’s consumption upgrades are still “on the road”.
Continuously improving consumer experience
The “Double Eleven” in 2018 has once again become the carnival of E-Commerce.
Alibaba Tmall‘s “Double Eleven” continually beating turnover was finally locked in a record 211.3 billion, a 26.9% increase from the previous year. Jingdong announced the cumulative amount of the “Double Eleven” Global Good Things Festival: 159.8 billion yuan, once again creating a new record, an increase of 25.7% compared with last year. During the “Double Eleven” period, Suning Tesco’s omni-channel sales orders increased by 132% year-on-year.
Recently, the “China Urban Consumption Upgrading Report 2018 – “Double Eleven” Ten Years of Big Data Perspective” (hereinafter referred to as the report) issued by the Ministry of Commerce’s China Business Intelligence Library quoted Tmall data as saying that the “Double Eleven” turnover was from 2009. The annual growth of 0.52 billion yuan to 168.2 billion yuan in 2017, the average annual growth rate of more than 100%. Looking at its ten-year growth history, it can be divided into three stages.
The first stage was the E-Commerce era from 2009 to 2012. The concept of E-Commerce was rapidly popularized and accepted by the whole people. The turnover in four years broke out from 52 million in 2009 to 19.1 billion yuan.
The second phase is the mobile Internet era of 2012-2016, with mobile transformation and consumption upgrades in parallel. In 2015, the “Double Eleven” transaction volume reached 91.217 billion yuan, of which the proportion of wireless transactions has risen to 68%.
The third stage is a new era of new retail opening from 2016 to the present, characterized by the deep integration of online and offline.
Zhang Li, deputy director of the Institute of Electronic Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce, told 21st Century Business Report that after nearly ten years of exponential growth, today’s “Double Eleven” can still maintain rapid growth in such a volume, reflecting China’s The huge potential of the consumer market. “The data shows that the explosive growth of ‘double eleven’ is still continuing. This shows that as long as there is a suitable incentive, the Chinese consumer market will release infinite space.”
It is worth noting that China’s consumption data has not been satisfactory this year. Compared with the double-digit growth in previous years, the total retail sales of consumer goods in the first three quarters of this year was only 9.3%.
Zhang Li said that many factors have suppressed market consumption this year. For example, the rising cost of some commodities and the rising cost of living such as housing rents have squeezed the space for consumption, while the lower income of some residents and the decline in purchasing power have also brought about the popularity of “thrifty consumption”. However, she stressed that the apparent consumption of consumption does not mean that the consumer market is shrinking. In fact, the consumption potential is still huge.
During the “Double Eleven” period, a feature worthy of attention is that more mature network technologies and supporting services have greatly enhanced the consumer experience, providing a possibility for the explosive growth of the “Double Eleven”.
Zhang Li said that the network failures and delays caused by a large number of consumers in the early morning hours of the early morning period did not appear; in the operation management, the setting of promotion activities, data-based product matching push and other technologies are more mature; more important Yes, the biggest bottleneck in previous years – logistics has improved significantly this year. “Many merchants promised to ship within 24 hours this year, logistics and distribution are also very timely, and the situation of lost orders is also significantly reduced.”
The above-mentioned “urban and rural distribution performance evaluation index system” also requires the construction of urban and rural distribution backbone networks.
In terms of logistics efficiency, the above report pointed out that the “Double Eleven” express parcel shipments broke through 100 million hours, from 48 hours in 2013 to 9.5 hours in 2017, and logistics efficiency is getting higher and higher.
In terms of payment efficiency, the above report said that the proportion of mobile payment transactions increased from 21% in 2013 to 90% in 2017. The peak change of Alipay reflects the important supporting role of mobile payment for the double eleven shopping. The total number of payments increased from 12.61 million in 2010 to 1.48 billion in 2017, and the peak value of transactions was 20,000 pens per minute from 2010. 256,000 pens per second by 2017.
Behind the constantly refreshing record is the continuous iteration of the entire social business, payment, logistics and services. In this sense, the annual “double eleven” consumption explosion is constantly expanding the limits of the social commercial efficiency.
Consumption upgrade trend continues to advance
The 21st Century Business Herald noted that consumption upgrades are a common key to all E-Commerce platform “Double Eleven” battle reports.
Sun Weimin, vice chairman of Suning Tesco Group, told the 21st Century Business Report at the Expo. “China is a very large and highly complex market, which provides a huge space for China’s consumption upgrade.”
Zhang Li pointed out that consumption upgrading refers to the increasing demand for quality products and services, and the growth of the latter’s sales. “From the E-Commerce data, it can be seen that consumption is obviously constantly upgrading. In the past ten years, the consumption upgrade has been characterized by individualization, diversification and branding, and the quality of goods has continued to improve. Most of the ‘double eleven’ Commodities are branded goods. The growth of data actually reflects the purchase of big brands by consumers. Consumers are willing to buy more high-quality, secure and safe branded products.”
From the perspective of the consumer segment, the driving force for supporting the upgrade of the supply side comes from the continuous evolution of technology and the resulting improvement in product performance.
“Double Eleven” provides consumers with more and more diversified choices, and the richness of consumer brands is greatly enhanced. According to the above report, “Double Eleven” initially had only 27 brands, and by 2017 it had already included 15 million products of 140,000 brands. In 2010, only 11 stores had a turnover of more than 10 million, and 181 stores exceeded 1 million yuan. By 2017, 7 brands had broken through 1 billion yuan, of which the top 3 brands exceeded 2 billion yuan.
During the “Double Eleven” period this year, JD’s sales of mobile SSDs meeting high-performance storage demand were five times that of the same period last year; the more realistic and detailed 4K HD display sales were twice that of the same period last year, and the best-selling TV size was from 50-inch expansion to 55-inch; experience more shocking full-HD projector sales three times the same period last year; Dyson curling iron first sold out 15 seconds; large-capacity embedded dishwasher sales four times the same period last year More; smart big screen refrigerator sales were five times the same period last year.
Zhang Li pointed out that from the demand side, consumers’ consumption psychology and age distribution also indicate that consumption is upgrading. “In the early years, some people were not mature in their consumption psychology. They were only willing to buy discounted low-priced goods. For example, some rural markets know that they are fakes and are willing to buy them. However, in recent years, consumers are more sympathetic to quality goods and are more willing to buy even prices. Higher quality goods.”
Not only that, as the main force of online shopping, consumers after 80s and 90s have shown great enthusiasm for personalized, segmented and differentiated products. The Tmall platform data shows that the proportion of the “Double Eleven” holiday consumer group under the age of 25 has gradually increased and has become an important consumer group. In 2009-2017, the number of consumers under the age of 25 increased by 134 times, and in 2017 it has become a higher income group after 26-35 years old.
This batch of consumers who have more and higher requirements for product quality and service experience will surely bring about the arrival of a high-quality consumer era.
Imported goods market is in the ascendant
The rise in demand for imported goods reflects the prospect of China’s consumption upgrade from another perspective.
Zhang Li said that the current imports are mainly concentrated in “light consumption” products with higher quality and standards, such as maternal and child, beauty, health care products, consumers have greater willingness to purchase such imported goods, the future Imported goods are expected to expand into more fields, which provides a huge market for Chinese E-Commerce.
According to the World Bank, the proportion of China’s imports of consumer goods in 2010-2016 has been maintained at more than 10% of total imports.
The expansion of the overseas business of E-Commerce platforms and payment instruments has accelerated the release of this demand. According to the above report, in 2009, Taobao Mall was only for mainland Chinese consumers. With the popularity of mobile payment, more than 200 countries and regions around the world have access to Alipay, covering 225 countries and regions around the world. “Therefore, I began to enter the era of “global buying.”
According to the data of Tmall International Platform, the number of national brands participating in “Double Eleven” has increased from 41 countries and regions in 2014 and nearly 5,000 overseas brands to 74 countries and regions in 2017 and nearly 18,000 overseas brands. .
Cross-border E-Commerce retail import consumer groups have also expanded rapidly. In 2017, the number of Tmall International consumers was 10 times that of 2014. At the same time, with the steady development of the cross-border E-Commerce retail import bonded model and the gradual maturity of the business operation model, the cross-border E-Commerce shopping experience has been greatly improved, and the aging time of goods has doubled. The average receiving time of the retail import bonded model was shortened from 9.2 days in 2014 to 4.5 days in 2017, and the efficiency has more than doubled.
As the consumer buying experience continues to increase, import consumption is gradually becoming normal. Through the observation of consumers, in the few years after trying to purchase imported goods through the cross-border E-Commerce platform, the customer’s customer price and the number of categories purchased by the per capita have been increasing year by year.
In Zhang Li’s view, there are still more potential needs in China’s import market that have not been fully stimulated. “The E-Commerce platform imports are relatively single and do not fully form consumer habits. Previously, imported goods were only partially covered by special channels. The consumption of the crowd, the expansion of these E-Commerce platforms is expected to open a larger blue ocean.”