E-commerce today is a traditional industry. The Taobao brands that grew up relying on Taobao Mall have successively staged their own records of their rise and fall. For example, Liebo acquired Angel City, Semir acquired GXG for 2 billion yuan, and more celebrity Taobao brands such as Maibaobao, Green Box, Fangcaoji may "go out of Taobao" or decline. Taobao brands seem to be in a collective state of sinking, and only a few brands such as Handu Yishe, Liebo, Xinnong Ge, and Gereer are still moving forward. It is undeniable that Taobao brands are the product of Taobao’s traffic dividends, but when the dividends gradually lose and new ecology such as micro-business, cross-border e-commerce, rural e-commerce, and Internet celebrity e-commerce continue to follow, how can Taobao brands cross the so-called "life and death line" in this shock and reshuffle, and how can they be reborn?

Tao brand, Phoenix needs nirvana

Taobao brand originally refers to those young brands that have been born and grown on the Tmall platform. We have also more or less contacted those leaders in various segments, such as:

Call me mainstream, I am OSA, a white-collar fashion guide

Call me cotton leprosy, I am Inman, a cotton linen artist

Call me pure natural, I am Fangcaoji, the first plant skin care concept

Call me a vacation style, I am Spoditka, I live a relaxed, natural and slow life

Call me a nut master, I am Xinnong Brother, I want Xinnong Brother

. . . . . .

A large number of Taobao brands completed the original accumulation of wealth at this stage, but when the Taobao brand was officially renamed Tmall original, when Taobao Mall changed its name to Tmall, and a large number of traditional offline brands poured in, Tmall's traffic resources were tilted towards big brands, and Taobao brands began to encounter the double squeeze of brand and traffic. Take the ranking data of Tmall’s “Double Eleven” clothing category in recent years: In 2013, among Tmall women’s clothing, 5 seats were each in the top 10 sales of traditional brands and Taobao brands. In 2014, Uniqlo ranked second after Handu Yishe in women's clothing, with traditional brands occupying three places in the top six, while traditional brands "unify the world" among men's clothing. In 2015, Uniqlo became a Grand Slam in the clothing category, leaving only one Taobao brand in Handu Yishe. Even among the top 20 single-store sales in Tmall, only Lin's Wood Industry and Handu Yishe are Taobao brands, and traditional brands such as Uniqlo, Haier, Gree, Jack Jones, and Semir have achieved overwhelming advantages.

This is because more and more traditional companies are slowly changing their thinking and learning the operating rules of Taobao brand. E-commerce companies such as Amazon, Gome, and Dangdang have also settled in Tmall. They have super strong traffic urge and ability to grab traffic, and Tmall's traffic growth has slowed down and has begun to tilt towards them. On the other hand, it is because most of the early Taobao brands are still in the "Tao Cheap" stage, with weak supply chain capabilities, serious product homogeneity, and no brand planning. When the traffic dividend disappears, the shortcomings will be exposed.

More importantly, consumers' online shopping model has changed: from the original price sensitivity to time sensitivity ; gradually abandoning high cost performance and pursuing higher quality; fashion and health have become new consumption driving forces; with the improvement of spirit and ideological awareness, more and more people are willing to pay for good content, etc., which has given birth to new e-commerce models such as cross-border e-commerce and Internet celebrity e-commerce. At the same time, sellers began to emphasize the output of values, and the craftsman spirit model that pursues high-quality and ultimate expression began to be called out. Taobao brands are undoubtedly facing an unprecedented crisis. The group of phoenixes of Taobao brands need to be reborn and rebuild their brand value.

You should learn all these things

Although I don’t believe that “when standing at the wind, even pigs can fly”, if I can enjoy the dividends, the development of the brand will naturally achieve twice the result with half the effort. Nowadays, brands are becoming more personalized, and Internet celebrity economy is becoming popular. Brands that can make full use of fragmented time and affect customers at high frequency will be more likely to stand out. Therefore, Taobao brands first need to "kidnap" Internet celebrities to achieve brand personality and try the company's media route. This is no longer passively adapting to the socialization of e-commerce, but rather actively embracing Internet celebrity e-commerce, giving full play to its advantages of low-cost and strong monetization capabilities, and achieving a leap from 0 to 1. Regarding Internet celebrity e-commerce, Taobao brands must at least understand these.

1. Recognize that the phenomenon of Internet celebrities is essentially the individual decentralization of the fan economy . The advantage lies in the conversion rate of fans. The rise of Internet celebrities is consistent with netizens' aesthetics, ugliness, entertainment, stimulation, voyeurism, imagination and spectators. However, the premise of Internet celebrity e-commerce is still industrialization and industrialization operations. Not all industries need to become e-commerce internet celebrities. Categories such as clothing, tourism, beauty (cosmetics), maternal and infant products are more worth trying to leverage Internet celebrities.

2. It is not only the silly sweet white, melon-shaped faces, and long legs that are the internet celebrities. Cats, dogs, dolls, and corporate leaders can all become internet celebrities . Jack Ma and Liu Qiangdong are also using their personal charm to endorse the company. However, the e-commerce Internet celebrityization still requires a solid supply chain foundation, and the supply chain must be coordinated with product planning and marketing planning. Internet celebrities and even the front end of the supply chain. Taobao brands not only need to constantly find and cultivate suitable Internet celebrities and reserve Internet celebrity resources, but also need to continue to help them package and attract fans, and continue to pay attention to the stickiness and monetization capabilities of fans.

3. Details determine success or failure , and there are some small things to pay attention to. For example, the content is updated regularly to cultivate users' reading habits. In terms of sales, it is best to adopt a flash sale model with limited time and limited quantity for non-standard products. The inventory depth needs to be controlled based on the fan base and viscosity, and it will stop selling out, so you cannot think of fighting. Even if deep stickiness is established, the establishment and notification of rush buying scenarios are not a problem, but the user's expectations must still be controlled and cannot be fished in the dry pond. Of course, traffic diversion methods can be designed according to different platforms, such as Weibo imports into e-commerce platforms through store links and Weibo windows, WeChat attracts social communication through official accounts, and diverts traffic on multiple platforms to strengthen store profitability.

4. Positioning upward and communication downward . Taobao brands need to lower their attitude. With the help of social media leverage and through celebrity CEO+ product culture, try brand animation and entertainment, create a sense of fan identity, encourage fans to share, complete the dissemination and consumption loop of fan culture, highlight corporate characteristics, create corporate image, and narrow the distance between enterprises and consumers, while amplifying the economic effect of fans, fill in shortcomings, trigger topics, strengthen content output, add services to relationship chains, and expand corporate social radius.

And all this is not achieved overnight, nor is it just by birth. Taobao brands can try it out, and the future is on the way.

If you are unwilling to sink, what else should you do?

In addition, product digging, content reconstruction, traffic entrance segmentation, and brand reshaping may be the sharp edges for Taobao brands to break through, but Ringling believes that at least these three items are imminent.

1. Strengthen product capabilities and say NO to price marketing war

Taobao Vice President Zhang Qin previously revealed the three major development strategies of Taobao in 2016 - personalized customization, cloud shopping guide, and C2B2M . Among them, customization emphasizes product development capabilities. This is because the extensive growth of Taobao brands that rely on new customers is a false weight, and they need to continue to advertise and buy traffic, which has huge marketing costs; second, Taobao brands that rely on price wars have no brand premium and no user stickiness. Over time, sales increased through discounts will not grow any longer, but will gradually decline the brand.

Therefore, only by strengthening product capabilities and talking about price wars, can Taobao brands establish their own competitive barriers, among which product capabilities include product development capabilities and product integration capabilities. Taobao brands without product development capabilities are just online dealers who resell. The direct result is that they fall into a vicious cycle of price war after product homogeneity.

The product integration capability is centered on the target consumer group, expanding sub-brands, establishing product matrix, and seizing users' minds. For example, Handu's sub-brands include 19, covering all age groups such as girls' clothing, ladies' clothing, middle-aged and elderly women's clothing, children's clothing, men's clothing and other products. The styles are becoming more and more diverse, from the original Korean style to European and American styles and Oriental styles. The sales share of its main brand hstyle has exceeded half, and other sub-brands have accounted for more than 50%. This way of expanding the product line can also help tap more consumption potential from the existing user base and increase sales.

2. Forget big and complete, continue to be vertical and refined

One statement that Ringer has always agreed is: When the supply of goods becomes more and more abundant and users have more opportunities to choose from, the intermediate market will gradually disappear, and the market will show the characteristics of segmentation and niche. Especially online, more choices are chosen, and consumers' personalization is more obvious. Big brands will be dismembered by countless, more professional or more subdivided small brands. In fact, let’s look at the existing Taobao brands. Each has its own distinctive style: the Korean style of Handu Yishe and the literary style of Liebo; Afu’s essential oils and Yunifang’s masks. They deeply cultivate the niche market and create distinctive and advantageous products to win consumers. At present, Taobao brands should adjust their strategy from "grasping the big and letting go of the small" to "grasping the small and letting the big and enlarge", and continue to do a detailed and detailed approach in the vertical market segment.

So how to make detailed vertical and create a niche brand?

First, make unique products without wasting any strategic resources on non-strategic opportunities. For example, Xinnong Ge cut off the Tmall Mall store as early as 2010, focusing only on selling products from the Xinnong Ge brand. It also ended its cooperation with all supermarkets at the end of the year-end nut sales season, and then cut off non-nut product lines such as candied flower tea, and finally stood out as a specialty for nuts. Three Squirrels expanded from a simple nut category to a multi-category category in 2015, but after August, they had to close the official stores of its two sub-brands, "Squirrel Xiaomei" and "Squirrel Xiaojian" on Tmall, JD.com and No. 1 stores. After several twists and turns, they almost went in the wrong direction.

Second, shape the chain of contempt and provide a sense of superiority. The most direct and effective way to provide core users with a sense of superiority is to despise your non-user. For example, Inman created a cotton and linen artist. Some people like it very much and some complain about it casually. However, Inman still does his own way, ignores those non-users who do not agree with it, and even sells it resolutely, thereby enhancing the exclusive feeling of loving those who love themselves.

Third, provide social currency to trigger communication. Background knowledge implicitly outside the product is more important than visible products, especially those that only enthusiastic fans know about, and is more likely to be self-disseminated by high-quality social currency. For example, the legend about Yuni Fang about Yuni made the first batch of users transmit in any corner of Weibo, Tieba, etc. to show off their professionalism. These discussions and exchanges have gradually formed subcultures, and the formation of subculture is precisely the symbol of the maturity of the vertical niche field.

3. It is not just "out of Taobao", but "out of Taobao" continues to be branded

Perhaps as Yu Zhongwu, CEO of Xinnong Ge, said: Taobao brand is not a real brand, but it cannot always be just a seller. Because the 10 years of development of Taobao brands are the ten years of COPY, imitation can be from zero to hundreds of millions, but it is basically possible to achieve billions and hundreds of billions of dollars by imitation. But just like Xiang Yi, the founder of Aiken Cowboy, the metaphor: the brand is a female rabbit, and the sales volume is a male rabbit. If you catch the female rabbit, the male rabbit will come naturally. "The brand is the guarantee of sales. If "going out to Taobao" is to take off the hat of low-priced and fake goods, then "going out to Taobao" is a necessary trend for Taobao brands to improve their grades and establish core capabilities to achieve branding. At present, Taobao brands need to do at least these two things well.

1. Users cut and refine brand positioning. The screening and cutting of the target user group directly affects brand positioning, and there are few brands that truly position in high-end markets in Taobao brands, and it is difficult to have room for premiums. Therefore, the first thing Taobao brands need to do is to reshape users and strengthen their core positioning based on their own advantages.

2. De-Taobao channel and focus on implementing multi-channel business strategies offline . Opening offline physical stores can not only increase the opportunity to contact the target customer group and increase traffic, but also increase the influence of the brand and thus increase the "conversion rate of the product. Now Yunifang has opened nearly 100 stores, Disha has exceeded 300 offline stores, and Inman has also launched the "Thousand Cities and Ten Thousand Stores" project, announcing the "Inman+" strategy, planning to spend 100 million yuan to expand offline stores. These Taobao brands have begun to develop brand expansion from e-commerce to counters, and only the only way to truly implement the Only by entering traditional offline channels and establishing an interactive three-dimensional online marketing system for Taobao brands can the rebirth of "drawing". In early February this year, the media revealed that some batches of creamy melon seeds were detected to have exceeded the standard saccharin content. On March 1, Three Squirrels issued a statement to respond, apologizing to consumers, and removing all related products, and applying for refunds. It may remind us that the premise of brand expansion is that it already has a strong management and operation system and product quality control capabilities.

In short, brands are synonymous with high premiums. Taobao brands not only need to learn to leverage the trend of Internet celebrities to achieve a counterattack from "Taobao brand" to "brand brand", but also need to re-examine themselves, re-create channels, and do it in detail. Otherwise, there is really not much time left for Taobao brands.