What Is Taobao Thinking About Returning To Shanghai?

In 2017, Zhang Yong mentioned the reason for its birth on the site of the second Taobao creation Festival. "Taobao has been on the road of content, community and intelligence. It is no longer a shelf. The most important function is discovery and recommendation, and it is to create user needs". Taobao needs a super IP to lead the times, so Taobao has Taobao creation Festival.

The theme of the first creation Festival is "everyone is a creator", which emphasizes the scientific and technological imagination for the future. The second session of the "strange city lake" launched the unmanned supermarket. Since then, the theme and products of the festival have been changing every year, but the core of the festival is imagination and creativity.

Hundreds of Taobao shopkeepers with an average age of 27 will participate in the 6th Taobao creation Festival, which will be held at the Shanghai National Convention and Exhibition Center from July 17 to 25 this year.

When the festival reaches its sixth year, how to maintain its vitality is not just a pile of novelty seeking elements, but a huge challenge for Taobao.

　　   The most important IP after double 11

"E-commerce online" summarized several major changes of this creation Festival.

　　 (1) The festival returns to Shanghai.

Creation Festival has become the most important IP of Taobao after the double 11. After the first session held in Shanghai, most of the creation festivals in the past few years were held in Hangzhou. Last year, due to the epidemic situation, the Festival passed through four cities in China in the form of a caravan tour, but the scale was also limited.

"This year, we should not only do it, but also make it bigger," explained Dong benhong, chief marketing officer of Alibaba group. This is the reason why this year's creation Festival has appeared on such a large scale.

When choosing the site for the festival, the team doesn't really have to worry about which city to host, but it must have enough space. In addition, the festival now has a national influence, and the city's transportation is enough to accommodate tourists from all over the country. The International Convention and Exhibition Center, located near Shanghai Hongqiao hub, has naturally been "targeted".

　　 (2) It used to be like a traditional exhibition, but this year it has become a global secret chamber.

In the past two years, secret rooms and scripts have become popular ways for young people to socialize offline. "Sleep no more" and other immersive dramas have to sell for more than 1000 yuan, but it is still difficult to get one ticket.

This also changed the way that the exhibition area was divided according to culture, science and technology, etc. this year's creation Festival invited the art concept design team of "12 hours of Chang'an" to build a 30000 square meter magic Chang'an city out of thin air.

　　 Panoramic sketch of 2021 Taobao creation Festival

In the cyberpunk style secret room, the audience can choose the camp and guide, unlock the mission in 240 minutes with another 5000 people, or simply walk in 15 movie level scenes such as Zhenxiang restaurant, tiangongfang, Tianji Pavilion, nishang square in Kyushu, Shanhai beast Museum, etc. Taobao sellers will appear in the form of NPC, introducing the story of their baby to the players with the plot.

　　 (3) Choose the interest category with small group and more potential, and emphasize the commodity ＇ s ＂.

Every time the merchants and shops appear on the festival, most of them carry new and unique labels, but there are also many popular products in recent years. However, according to Dong benhong, the selection criteria for this year's festival are stricter than in the past, and they have to meet three dimensions: small scale, fast growth and non explosive products.

The participating shops are not the product of Taobao pop up era, and are not limited by the existing sales volume. Some shopkeepers are new to the market, with only one digit turnover. Many shops also have the color of "small handmade workshops". For example, Zhao Yunchuan, who has been making animal bone specimens by hand since 2010, stopped fighting alone only after the sales of Taobao store gradually stabilized. He recruited two apprentices and let his wife join in. Chen Xingyi, known as the "electronic products mortuary", is still a single person who has undertaken all the work of design, camera, operation, customer service and packaging.

The interest categories of these minority circles are "small in scale now, but they are enlightening and leading," said Dong benhong.

In addition, the festival of creation also emphasizes "* *". Hundreds of merchants will make their first show with sacred objects. The archaeological rock blind box and Matchbox Han suit of Sanxingdui Museum will be opened in the creation Festival. These industries or categories which have gradually entered the public view will show new development direction through these items. Some of the novelty hunting foods are catching up with the current trend. Dong benhong said that the food of last year's creation festival also had a social attribute and would be made more beautiful to meet the needs of people to take photos. Under the general trend of healthy diet this year, Tongrentang traditional Chinese medicine coffee, broccoli ice cream and transparent hamburger will all appear on the festival.

　　 What is Taobao thinking?

　　 Zhang Yong, chairman and CEO of Alibaba's board of directors, once said that the KPI of the festival is influence.

Although the festival has gained national influence, its goal is to become a "festival with worldwide influence and let the world see the creativity of Chinese youth". To achieve this, Taobao is pushed to the front of the stage by a group of young people, who are also constantly emphasizing their creativity, rather than pursuing sales or scale, as the commercial roadshow does to attract investment or boost investment.

Chen Xingyi, 21, has yet to consider how to expand the scale. He opened a Taobao store because of an attempt by mistake. When he graduated from University, he opened a milk tea shop that lasted only half a year. To commemorate his entrepreneurial experience, Chen Xingyi disassembled and made an art specimen of the iPhone 4, which was used to pick up takeaway orders. Inadvertently released the works to Taobao store, did not expect that consumers placed a single.

At first, it was only regarded as the dismantling specimen of sideline business. Later, it was gradually seen by more people, and Chen Xingyi's orders increased accordingly. He decided to devote himself to Taobao store and expropriate his living room as a studio. All his works were born on a few square meters workbench. At the busiest time, Chen Xingyi worked from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. At present, Chen Xingyi's Taobao shop has an average of 78 or 80 orders a month. His next goal is to develop some more interesting businesses. Including him, many owners who participated in the festival believed that their selection was the result of unintentional.

Wang Li was also surprised that she could participate in the creation Festival. At the end of last year, the Han suit enthusiast of the post-90s, who was born in the 1980s, and an investor, started a Hanfu shop called "Meiji" on Taobao.

Compared with some famous stores, Meiji is still in its infancy. In particular, in recent years, Taobao has sprung up a number of original Hanfu shops and brands. During 618, there were more than 13 categories of Hanfu, with nearly 4 million fans and about 500 SKUs. The number of fans in Meiji is only more than 1000, and the store only has 12 items on the shelves. The volume of a Hanfu sold by Meiji is only dozens.

However, Dong benhong said that the Judging Committee of the creation festival was optimistic about Meiji because it saw a big opportunity for the development and rise of Hanfu again. At present, Hanfu on the market is stacked in layers, and most of them are magnificent, while Meiji has pushed the Hanfu to the direction of being light and light.

Meiji has designed several coats called "Matchbox Hanfu". The lightest one is 24g and the heaviest is 61G, which can be folded into the matchbox for easy carrying. This is a tribute to the Han Dynasty Mawangdui Susha Zen clothes. The latter is the lightest clothes unearthed so far. The length of the clothes is 1.32 meters, the length of the sleeves is about 1.8 meters, but the weight is only 49G. It can be folded up and put into a small matchbox.

　　 Exhibits released by Matchbox Hanfu merchant "Meiji" at the creation Festival

The matchbox jacket is divided into length and length, which can be worn with daily clothes or as sun proof clothes. Its fabrics and patterns also use a lot of "national style" elements. Silk and rutin wrinkle fabrics are featured with different patterns of Chinese herbal medicine in each Hanfu, which also corresponds to the taste of herbs such as wormwood, Codonopsis pilosula, honeysuckle and angelica. Wang Li told e-commerce online that consumers could customize their favorite Chinese medicine flavor for Matchbox Hanfu at Taobao creation Festival.

The group of young people inadvertently opened a window. They can vaguely feel the atmosphere outside the window, but they may not really explain this feeling clearly. A platform with more business experience can bring together a large number of meticulous observations, and tap out huge commercial potential, turning "small interest into big business".

In 2018, Taobao creation Festival awarded the award of "the most made in the world" to the large size Hanfu. At that time, large size and Hanfu were regarded as niche businesses. Now, the market for large size Hanfu has exceeded 10 billion yuan. Various categories, including nightdress, cheongsam and shorts, can be subdivided into large size market.

It is disclosed that in 2020, Taobao will have more than 10 billion year sales segments, including the "three pit" market composed of Hanfu, JK and Lolita, the hand-made blind box market, and the foreign pet market. The personalized demand that has never been seen has been rapidly pushed to the public's view.

"Today of young people is tomorrow of business," said Dong benhong.

　　 Taobao needs these small and medium-sized businesses

Taobao, which has been established for 18 years, is a young man in the field of Internet in China, but the owner of Taobao is always young. Dong benhong said that this year, the number of Post-00 businesses entering Taobao is far more than that of the post-90s, while the average age of those who enter Taobao every year is only 26 years old. In other words, opening a Taobao store has become a lot of young people's first venture after graduation from university.

A large number of small and medium-sized sellers newly added to Taobao are equivalent to living water for Taobao, "every big business used to be a small and medium-sized business before growing up. Small and medium-sized businesses are the most dynamic part of the market. A considerable part of the increment in Taobao's market every year comes from new stores opened this year or last year. " Kaifu, head of Taobao industry, once told "e-commerce online".

For the e-commerce platform where the growth of users is gradually peaking, "increment" does not mean that the development of traffic type in the past, or simply refers to the increase of sales volume, but represents the deep mining of consumer groups. Taobao can also take this opportunity to mine more long tail and fragmented traffic at the end of the dividend period of Internet traffic, and realize the brand transformation by supporting the original characteristic businesses.

For consumers, an obvious change is: whether online or offline, they are more likely to socialize with circles or interests, and they are more willing to pay for the fun of life and the beauty of space. This is not a new change, which determines the strategic direction of the creation Festival and even the whole Taobao in recent years.

"We don't encourage Taobao now. We encourage Taobao shopping," Dong said. "Nearly 20 million people visit Taobao every day, but they don't buy anything."

But if an e-commerce platform can really let consumers browse, it needs more diversified products and corresponding contents“ In every circle, we must find the matching merchants and goods, so that consumers can choose their own interests, "said Zhang Shuai, head of Alibaba's Taobao marketing department." this is the reason why Taobao can always maintain its vitality. "

How can young shops and shopkeepers be seen when the number of commodities flows into a platform by tens of millions or even hundreds of millions every day?

This is also the reason for a series of product changes in Taobao in the past few years. For a long time, Taobao's Buyer show and seller's show are the reference for many consumers to make consumption decisions, and "ask everyone" has become the birthplace of many network blockbusters. After last year's double 11, Taobao put more emphasis on recommendation and discovery, or launched the online content platform "shopping". These are all ways that Taobao tries to let consumers browse through more content and change their traditional decision-making habits. Even in the recent revision, Taobao's slogan has become "too easy to browse.".

Young people understand young people better and represent new consumption trends. When the new categories such as Guochao, Sankeng and heterosexual are constantly created, more and more new businesses will be attracted“ China's consumer market is the world's fastest changing, most diverse, and most critical. In such a market, only young people can serve young people, "Qiao Qiao, head of Taobao clothing industry, said in an interview with e-commerce online.