text | Speculation on Finance
Whether Alibaba e-commerce can still compete has been the most concerned topic in the market in recent years. This former No. 1 brother of Chinese e-commerce is now constantly being challenged by late-stage talents, and was once ridiculed as "Integrity Po" Old."
Alibaba's new management will take office in 2023. The industry hopes that it can clean up the past company's abuses and bring this commercial ship back to the right channel. In 2023, it will be reformed into a corporate keyword.
has been on the list for nearly a year now, and the market can’t agree on the results. If some people are very concerned about Alibaba’s profitability, Taotian’s prospects will dim after 2021, and the assets in the previous “buy, buy, buy” period have begun to become a burden, which has caused a great impact on profitability. A big impact, and if some people care about growth, this is the decisive factor of Alibaba e-commerce's "talker's identity". Single-handedly turning Double Eleven into a carnival for the whole society lies in strength. If the company loses its growth, it will have a negative impact on the merchants. As the binding force decreases, the industry's rule-making power will be lost, and growth is related to the premium issue in the capital market. After the release of
's 2024 fiscal year report, the stock price fell 6%. The market is divided on the effectiveness of the reform. So how should we view the future of Alibaba e-commerce?
The core point of this article:
Firstly, in the new quarter financial report, Taotian's performance is relatively "differentiated", sacrificing short-term interests in pursuit of growth, and expanding period expenses in order to show favor to merchants and users, and does not fully follow the "cost reduction and increase" policy. "Efficiency", this is an important reason for the amplification of market differences;
Secondly, what Taotian needs to do now is to regain its popularity. The monetization rate and cost consumed by the early hot start are also necessary, but the platform needs to accelerate reform as soon as possible. Entering an inertial growth cycle;
Third, 618 has lifted sales restrictions, and Taotian is already adjusting its self-identity as a "talker" in the industry.
Taotian reform: bloodletting to attract popularity
In 2024 Q1 (Alibaba's fiscal year 2024 Q4), Taotian gmv returned to double-digit growth, customer management revenue was 5%, and adjusted EBita (profit before interest and tax) fell by 1% year-on-year. .
This is indeed a set of figures that makes market observers very tangled. On the one hand, Taotian has indeed shown a new atmosphere, and GMV has been effectively improved; on the other hand, the cost is also quite high, not only to reduce the monetization rate (management expenses have been reduced) ), moreover, it is necessary to increase investment in period expenses to improve the ability to acquire and retain customers. It is not an exaggeration to call it the cost of reform.
As mentioned at the beginning, both the growth and profit factions can find evidence of bearishness and bullishness. Is Taotian currently in the "first light of dawn" or "continuing to grope in the dark"?
The first thing we need to consider is what Taotian needs most right now?
China’s e-commerce has developed for more than 20 years. From the initial supplement of offline retail to the mainstream of today’s retail, its main driving force is the explosive growth of China’s Internet users.
Scale effect is the most popular word among business commentators. Simply put, the intervention of massive user demand can dilute the fixed investment of merchants to the greatest extent and improve the operating efficiency of enterprises. This is why e-commerce price wars have been ongoing, but Chinese manufacturing still maintains considerable profits. main reason.
The picture above shows the CPI situation of the clothing industry. This is one of the categories with the highest degree of e-commerce. In the past ten years, its price growth has been very restrained.
In addition, online transaction information is almost completely symmetrical. Between brands and platforms, price must be the first bargaining chip in competition. Price comparison has become a necessary shopping behavior for users.
In 2023, Jack Ma said that Alibaba would return to Taobao. At that time, many analysts believed that Alibaba would return to the idea of low prices. This is certainly true. Recently, Taotian has also been particularly fond of flaunting its low-price advantage. is just a prerequisite for returning to Taobao: a large number of users.
Taobao is famous as the "universal Taobao". Its platform is like a nationwide comprehensive market, highlighting the civilian nature and richness of products. Compared with the various offline bazaars we commonly see, the richness of merchants is indeed very eye-catching, but the prerequisite for the continuation of this model should be "hot popularity."
This is also an important factor in the rapid rise of Alibaba e-commerce. The platform has almost won the majority of online transactions in the country.
But then the company switched to Tmall as the center, users viewed the platform with standard products, and the "shopping" attribute of the market disappeared. Although Taobao is still "all-purpose", the increasingly indifferent users can no longer enhance the market atmosphere . Taotian platform, which has lost its popularity, has gradually lost its pricing advantage, and merchants seem to be inseparable. The culture of the platform has also undergone important changes.
On the contrary, a very important reason for the rapid rise of short video platforms is that the popularity of the platform complements the feeling of a market. The scale effect of e-commerce is reborn here, and the popularity of Taobao that has been taken away continues to be a shopping spree on the short video platform.
Obviously, if Alibaba wants to maintain its price advantage, it needs to regain its long-forgotten popularity. In terms of operation, it needs to use platform subsidies in the early stage to reduce merchant operating costs, and then improve the platform’s price advantage. In the middle, it needs to provide user-side subsidies (such as 88vip’s consumer subsidies). ) to increase the popularity of the platform. When the scale effect returns, the platform can remove the subsidies and return to the normal business path.
Obviously, today's Taotian is in the throes of the initial transition. When does not have the ability to grow inertially, it needs to invest more energy and financial resources in pursuit of a hot start. At this time, the monetization rate will drop and revenue will not increase. beneficial phenomenon.
The market is divided on how long this cycle will last. But from a comprehensive perspective, if Taotian does not make fatal mistakes, the cycle may be earlier.
Internally, the new management is slimming down the group. Non-core retail business is no longer the focus of operations. The home page of Taobao, which was previously piled up by Ali's various new business formats, has been revised. The valuable traffic is no longer diverted by other businesses. Taotian has the final say on Taobao's traffic.
Externally, the short video platform has quickly captured the majority of Internet users across the country, and overall it is difficult to replicate its past growth (traffic is close to the ceiling). If the previous transaction growth of merchants was riding on the fast train of user expansion of short video platforms, then when the rapid growth slows down (as evidenced by the fact that shelf e-commerce has become the focus of short video platforms in the near future), merchants will also have to look for new traffic sources. At this time, Taotian's value will be recognized again.
At this time, Taotian is at a critical crossroads, which is also the main reason why the stock price plummeted after the release of the financial report. For Ali, there is no turning back, and if you want to get back on your feet, you must go through the pain of the process.
618 Canceling pre-sales is inevitable
This year, 618 Taotian canceled the pre-sales model for the first time, simplifying and regulating: the cumbersome pre-sales model was completely cancelled, and the Blue Star Plan was launched to help the growth of new brand merchants. It has aroused heated discussion in the market. After all, the industry and outsiders have become accustomed to and accepted the logic of pre-sale, so it is inevitable to think of its cancellation now. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage to Taotian?
Let’s first sort out the beneficial aspects of the pre-sale model:
1) It can provide data support for merchants to prepare goods and reduce unnecessary inventory losses;
2) The pre-sale link often sets up several important nodes with low prices, which is the peak for users to place orders. , because of this, merchants have to compete for prime resource positions, and the platform becomes the winner. The negative side of
: The user experience of
is greatly reduced. The conversion of consumer enthusiasm into the pleasure of receiving packages has to be delayed by a month. Users who have lost patience have to switch to other platforms.
To be fair, if Taotian still maintains its dominance in the industry in the past, the pre-sale model will be completely beneficial to the platform and investor returns. Even if Taotian launches pre-sales, other platforms will have to follow suit (the business decisions of merchants are completely Following Taotian), this is also the reason why platforms have been happy to hold shopping festivals for a while: to release user needs at once, merchants can obtain low prices, and the platform can achieve higher traffic monetization efficiency, but only the user experience has been sacrificed.
is just the king's flag on the city wall nowadays. The pre-sale model has become an obstacle for Taotian to increase the user's centripetal force. It is very necessary to cancel this model. Now it seems that canceling the pre-sale for this year's Double Eleven should also be on the agenda. .
For Taotian, now it has to gradually adapt to its status as a "chaser", not only to catch up with transactions and user scale, but also in terms of mentality, forgetting its identity as a rule-maker in the industry, and forgetting the data that it was happily pursuing before. At this time, what Taotian has to do is no longer to choose between user experience and merchant interests, but to pursue "both considerations", which must satisfy merchant interests without compromising user experience. At this time, the operating difficulty and skills are far greater than "words" "Things to do with people" stage.
The process is painful, there are many risks, and there are great uncertainties, but this is a threshold that the platform must cross.
