When Double 11 is no longer a carnival

Author | Xiao Man

1 minute and 36 seconds, breaking 10 billion.

5 minutes and 25 seconds, breaking 30 billion.

12 minutes and 49 seconds, breaking 50 billion.

17 minutes and 06 seconds, exceeding the total transaction volume of 57.1 billion on Double 11 in 2014.

1 hour, 3 minutes and 59 seconds, breaking 100 billion...

This is the real-time transaction amount displayed on the big screen at Tmall’s Double 11 event in 2019 - but it is more like a numbers game of Tmall itself and has little to do with consumers.

In 2020, this game is no longer played, and things have changed visibly.

In fact, it is not just Tmall, but even its old rival JD.com, which is presenting a different approach and look on the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of Double 11.

But the rivalry between the two companies continues.

If I had to use one word to describe this year’s Tmall Double 11, it would be “stable”.

Unlike the single-day rush to place orders on November 11 in previous years, the Double 11 event sales period in 2020 is divided into two waves - November 1-3 is the first wave, and November 11 is the second wave, and the prices given by merchants in both sales waves are the same.

When "Singles' Day" turns into "Nunchaku", this year's Tmall Double 11 comes earlier than ever before.

But the changes are much more than that. The most important change is that the record-breaking sales figures have become less important.

According to previous announcements, record-breaking transaction data in previous years, and time breakthroughs in transaction volume nodes such as 1 billion, 10 billion, and 100 billion, are undoubtedly the focus of attention on the night of Double 11.

The first data released on this year's Record Night was that the peak order creation rate during the 2020 Tmall Double 11 Global Carnival Season reached 583,000 orders per second.

It was not until 00:30 on November 11 that the first transaction data appeared on the screen. It was also the only sales data on the evening of November 11. From 0:00 on November 1 to 00:30 on November 11, the real-time transaction volume of the 2020 Tmall Double 11 Global Carnival Season exceeded 372.3 billion.

Obviously, for Tmall Double Eleven, breaking the sales record is no longer the focus - what is more important than sales is the performance of each category; what is more important than data is the deployment behind it.

Take Cainiao Logistics as an example. Before the start of Double 11, Cainiao Logistics was well prepared and entered a combat readiness state in advance.

Whether it is the joint preparations by 14 domestic express logistics companies to deliver some pre-sale goods to the community in advance, or the international logistics companies establishing "second-level customs clearance" channels with 15 customs in advance, both have achieved speed-up results.

According to the first wave of delivery information for Tmall Double 11 announced by Cainiao, as of 10 a.m. on November 7, consumers who purchased Tmall Double 11 products between November 1 and 3 had generally received their goods one day earlier than last year.

In addition, as of 6:33 a.m. on November 1, 10 million orders had been successfully cleared, 2 hours and 14 minutes earlier than last year's Double 11, a 25% increase in speed.

It is worth mentioning that in some scenarios, the logistics robot "Xiaomanlu" that was put into use ahead of schedule has also become one of the reasons for speeding up and increasing efficiency.

On October 30, 22 logistics robots led by Xiaomanlu entered the Zijingang Campus of Zhejiang University and took on more than 30,000 parcels. It is reported that users can make an appointment for delivery online, and the robot will take no more than 10 minutes from departure to delivery.

In addition to the well-prepared logistics, Tmall’s focus on Double 11 is inseparable from the newly launched new manufacturing and Taobao Live, which has been launched for four years.

New manufacturing is not difficult to understand. As the next engine for the development of Alibaba’s “Five New Strategies” following “New Retail”, Double 11 is undoubtedly the best training scenario for the Rhino Manufacturing Platform launched in September this year.

As for Taobao Live, since the first wave of sales, live streaming has become an indispensable presence during Double Eleven.

According to the daily live broadcast rankings of third-party data agency Zhigua Data, on October 21, the first day of Tmall's Double Eleven pre-sale, Wei Ya ranked first with sales of 5.32 billion yuan, and the cumulative number of people watching the live broadcast was 148 million; Li Jiaqi ranked second with sales of 3.87 billion yuan, and the cumulative number of people watching the live broadcast reached 162 million.

In addition, Taobao Live’s official data shows that the number of live-streaming merchants has increased by 220%, and the GMV of merchants’ self-streaming accounts for more than 60%. During the Double 11 shopping festival this year, Taobao Live had more than 300 celebrities and 400 CEOs enter the live-streaming room.

In addition, Leifeng.com noticed that this year's Cat Night has become a large-scale live streaming gala with goods sold. The frequency of the word live streaming in the gala is much higher than in the past, and it is closely related to live streaming in many program settings.

It is not difficult to see that despite the low-key celebration of the festival, Taobao Live has shown a momentum of competing for every bit of territory in the live streaming field.

This is closely related to market competition.

JD.com’s “Double 11” is coming with great momentum, and to sum it up in one word, it is “rush”.

The main venue for Double 11 is JD.com.

This is JD.com’s Double Eleven declaration for 2020. Its ambition is obvious.

Different from the “Nunchucks” model adopted by Tmall, JD’s Double 11 event starts on October 21 and lasts until November 11, a total of 22 days.

On the first day of sales, JD.com was the first to hand in its report card.

• On November 1, the total transaction volume increased by more than 90% year-on-year.

• In terms of logistics, as of 13:29 p.m. on November 1, JDL Logistics' Double 11 shipment volume this year has exceeded last year's full-day shipment volume, breaking the record again.

On November 11, JD.com also released the latest data:

• From 00:00 on November 1, 2020 to 00:09 on November 11, the cumulative order amount of JD.com's 11.11 Global Love Season exceeded 200 billion yuan, close to the total cumulative order amount of 204.4 billion yuan on Double Eleven in 2019.

In addition to sales data, JD.com's high profile also lies in JD Live.

Also on November 10, when the "Cat Night" was held, the "JD 11.11 Live Broadcast Super Night" was also held simultaneously. It is worth noting that this is the first time that JD has created a large-scale "Live Broadcast Night" party.

As for the reason behind this, Zhang Guowei, head of content ecology business at JD Retail Group, said that creating the live broadcast night party is not to follow the footsteps of other e-commerce platforms, but a reflection based on the connection of business and products.

However, JD.com’s ambition for the live evening party does not stop there. Zhang Guowei said:

In the future, JD Live will also build the 'Live Super Night' into a pan-entertainment IP and a real content consumption venue, which will be replicated at major nodes and used for a long time.

In addition, Zhang Guowei made no secret of JD.com's strategic layout for live streaming. He said that live streaming e-commerce is positioned as a group-level strategic business for JD.com, and JD.com will treat content e-commerce as its core business and strive to promote live streaming to become a standard feature of merchants' daily operations.

Different from other live broadcast platforms, JD Live is positioned to create a content e-commerce live broadcast model based on pan-entertainment. In short, JD Live focuses on content and supplements it with goods.

Leifeng.com learned that JD Live currently has eight major business categories, mainly including merchant live broadcast, "President+" live broadcast, government leader live broadcast, low-tier city live broadcast, base industrial belt live broadcast, celebrity concerts, Strawberry Music Festival, and variety show live broadcast.

During the Double Eleven period, in addition to the "JD 11.11 Live Super Night", there were more than 300 celebrities and 500 live broadcasts by presidents.

The battle for e-commerce live streaming on Double 11 is not just taking place in the live streaming room, the war has spread to the evening party.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that on the same day when the Maowan Gala and JD Live Super Night were secretly competing with each other, the administrative dispute case between JD and Alibaba over the "Double Eleven" trademark cancellation review was officially opened.

The battle for “Double 11” continues.

According to people’s age cycle, the 12th anniversary of Tmall Double 11, which was born on November 11, 2009, is of great significance.

A reincarnation means a new beginning.

Compared with previous years, Tmall's "Double 11" in 2020 is obviously much more low-key, and the record-breaking sales figures are no longer the main factor of the carnival - this somewhat makes the originally carnival Tmall Double 11 seem less carnival.

JD.com still seems to be full of momentum, but live streaming seems to be its only lifeline.

Only a fish knows whether the water is hot or cold.

In any case, the carnival of consumers and merchants on this year's Double 11 may still continue as usual, but it is undeniable that after 12 years of madness, the consumerism frenzy triggered by Double 11 on the Internet seems to be slowly fading and will never be as strong as before.

Neither Tmall nor JD.com can actually do anything about it. They can only be forced to return to the essence of Double 11 in the reality after the bubble burst.

But perhaps, for consumers, this is the best outcome.