Behind the 618 Carnival: Traffic is turning to large stores and some small and medium-sized online stores may be eliminated

　　At the beginning of this year, Liu Nian from Shanghai closed the online store and gave herself a long holiday of more than half a year. The summer vacation is here, and she is preparing to travel around with her children. And this time in previous years was her busiest job. Because the mid-year promotions on major platforms have begun, she needs to join this sales carnival.

　　Like Liu Nian before, there were countless small and medium-sized sellers who needed to do their best on June 18 (i.e. June 18). However, compared with platform giants and large e-commerce companies, it is becoming increasingly difficult for small and medium-sized sellers to benefit from such carnivals, and their living conditions are worrying. Some people are struggling to keep up, and some people choose to turn around and say goodbye to the sound of waiting for the Dingdong in front of the computer.

　　From the highest annual turnover of 6 million to now "exiting in shame", Liu Nian recalled his 9-year online store experience, and only one sentence left was to sigh, "It is easy to open a store and difficult to survive."

　　A "bad review" may ruin efforts

　　Before becoming an online store owner, 38-year-old Liu Nian was an interpreter. In 2008, in order to have more time to spend with her newborn child, she chose to quit her job. Unwilling to become a housewife, she discovered the business opportunity of opening an online store from the fun of being a "shopper". So with a computer and a few boxes of women's clothing, Liu Nian began his own online store entrepreneurship.

　　In order to run his own online store well, Liu Nian did not dare to neglect for a moment. Work starts at 8 a.m. every day, and stays busy until one or two o'clock in the middle of the night. I prepare inventory, optimize the baby details page, launch store activities, serve as customer service, shipment, etc., and I am often too busy to eat.

　　But such efforts may sometimes be ruined inadvertently just because of a "bad review". When I met a customer who gave a bad review because of a bad mood today or uncontrollable reason such as express logistics, Liu Nian said he was very concerned and could only "call the call to ask grandpa to sue his grandma and ask the other party to withdraw."

　　For the store, the customer is God. Yin Xinxin, a 2013 student from Hunan University of Science and Technology, also opened an online mask store when she was in her sophomore year. Once, Yin Xinxin delayed delivery because she rushed to class, but after being reported by the buyer, she was fined. Yin Xinxin compared it to saying that opening an online store is very similar to surviving in the cracks. You must learn how to balance the platform and customers.

　　Unlike Liu Nian, when the store’s three dynamic scores are low in products, services and logistics, Li Juan, who runs a bracelet online store, will choose to close and reopen the store. She said helplessly that frequent "change" of online stores is not new. Many small sellers like her choose to reopen because of poor management of stores and low ratings. "It's very similar to fighting guerrillas, but because of the squeeze of new stores and big merchants, if they don't do this, they can't sell them at all."

　　Professional counterfeiters come to the door when sales double

　　Customers' positive reviews affect product rankings and sales. Merchants may advise them to modify their reviews through communication, but if they encounter professional counterfeiters, they need to spend money to settle. On June 18, the sales of Liu Nian's online food store operated by JD.com doubled, and then "more than a dozen anti-counterfeits came to report." They claimed that a certain food sold by Liu Nian was suspected of false advertising. If they did not want to complain to the industrial and commercial or platform and were fined tens of thousands, they would have to pay a closure fee of 500-1,000 yuan.

　　When dealing with a professional counterfeiter for the first time, Liu Nian admitted that she was "very scared and her heart was trembling." For half a month, she spent this angry and helpless compromise.

　　In order to deal with professional counterfeiters, Liu Nian sneaked into a professional counterfeiter QQ group with hundreds of people and found that they are organized and divided. Some people look for loopholes in merchants and share information, some people specialize in researching relevant legal provisions and platform rules, some people are responsible for negotiating money, and some people help to sue.

　　What made Liu Nian most incredible is that some colleagues even turned to seek merchants with the same problems for extortion because they were "harassed" by professional counterfeiters.

　　Despite this, she was fined 10,000 yuan by the platform. This made her feel disappointed in the industry. "For small and medium-sized stores without legal advisory groups, it is sometimes difficult to notice changes in legal provisions or platform rules. It is really tiring when you encounter professional counterfeiters who take advantage of legal terms and complain to the platform and receive a fine of tens of thousands of yuan."

　　More and more traffic is concentrated at the top merchants

　　After opening an online store for 9 years, Liu Nian has been involved in the fields of clothing, maternal and infant, electronic products and food. Through the computer, selling things to strangers from all over the world, Liu Nian tasted the sweetness of not leaving home. Her online electronics store can sell more than ten units a day, with a daily turnover of more than 20,000 yuan, and the best one is 6 million yuan. Another product has become the first in Taobao's similar products.

　　Every year, the mid-year promotion is 618, and the end of the year, Double Eleven and Double Twelve are the busiest times when she sprints to sales. This is a crucial battle of the year.

　　In order to welcome the mid-618 big promotion, major e-commerce platforms have adopted methods such as attracting traffic with new products and hot products, and have discounts at full discounts, claiming that "the price is the lowest, the goods are the largest, and the logistics is the fastest."

　　Before the big promotion, the platform will focus on interviewing merchants with top rankings in related categories and ask these merchants to actively cooperate with the big promotion of the platform. All merchants participating in the big promotion need to invest a lot of energy and money. For them, sales volume on the day and traffic brought by the big promotion are crucial. In order to obtain traffic, merchants will bid for advertising spaces, and the platform will promote them from high to low based on merchant bids.

　　But for small and medium-sized stores, the promotion cost that can be invested is not much. Yanyun, 48, is a doctor from Sichuan. In August 2015, he opened a store on Taobao, which specializes in plateau specialties in Yunnan. "The product itself is very niche and it is not promoted and it will definitely be difficult to operate." On June 17, a reporter from Nandu clicked on his online store and found that the store was deserted and had only 66 fans. Considering the high promotion fees of e-commerce platforms, Yanyun chose to divert traffic on its own, "The source of customers is now attracted from WeChat and Weibo."

　　In this case, more and more traffic is concentrated on top merchants, and it is not easy for small and medium-sized merchants to stand out from it.

　　E-commerce giants account for 80% of traffic, and small and medium-sized sellers can only rely on the platform to develop. "It is difficult for them to survive independently without traffic or users. If e-commerce giants fight price wars, those small and medium-sized e-commerce companies will often die."

　　"I don't like such festivals at all." All the merchants squeezed into this day to deliver the goods, resulting in almost paralysis of logistics, and a pile of hoarded goods could not be shipped. "I waited so hard, and another pile of them sent for return."

　　For "shoppers", the choice to stock up on this day is because of the discounted prices. However, in the eyes of merchants, if the profit is too low, the more you sell, the more you lose. Therefore, many people choose to raise prices first and then lower prices for promotions, and some are equivalent to only 5-10 yuan cheaper than usual. Liu Nian said, "After all, no one is a fool."

　　"Small and medium-sized sellers will definitely lose to big stores"

　　The story of "entering the village with bare shirt at the beginning of the year and driving a small car out of the village at the end of the year" is a true portrayal of many "Taobao villages" a few years ago. However, this e-commerce model that once created "get rich overnight" has gradually lost its appeal to small sellers.

　　The entry threshold is low, and you can easily make money at home, which has made many people envious of online store owners. But in Liu Nian's opinion, when she remembered the sound of waiting for Dingdong in front of the computer, and taking care of all the work of artists, customer service, and shipping, she said bluntly, "As soon as she entered the Taomen, she was as deep as the sea."

　　At the beginning of this year, Liu Nian transferred all the stores in her hands. She has two Taobao C stores, one with 4 diamonds and the other with 5 diamonds. Although she was reluctant to leave, she did not regret it. Originally, she opened an online store at home to take care of her children, but the days when she could only rest during the Spring Festival in the year made her feel contrary to her original intention. "Some people have achieved some success through hard work, but I think the investment is not proportional to the harvest, so she had to leave in shame."

　　Yin Xinxin's online mask store, which was operated for several months, has also closed. Because of lack of experience, I do not understand management and management. Previously, the rules of e-commerce platforms were very relaxed, and now there are more and more regulations. If sellers want to do business, they still need to meet the conditions before they can gain users. "The competitiveness of small and medium-sized sellers will definitely be inferior to that of big stores, and they will naturally be squeezed out by the market."

　　Yanyun’s online store continues to be opened. "The income and expenditure can only achieve a balance. Most of my customers are repeat customers. Online sales are not as good as in previous years, and they can't make much money." He felt particularly strongly about the difficulty of operating. In his words, the era of "ding dong" sound from Wangwang has passed.

　　In recent years, consumers' concepts have gradually changed, and more and more consumers not only pay attention to price, but also care about the quality of the product. "Whether small and medium-sized sellers have the ability to provide such products is also a dilemma in their development."

　　The competition among e-commerce platforms is very fierce now, with merchants in the same category several times more than before. "The e-commerce market is cruel, big fish eat small fish. Small and medium-sized businesses can only drink soup, and it may not be realistic for big hits."

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