The launch of the “Smart Retail” applet can be seen as a concentrated display of Tencent’s smart retail sector results over the past year, and to some extent shows Tencent’s ambitions for the retail business.
After more than a year of hard work, Tencent’s “Smart Retail” finally has its own exclusive position on WeChat.
On November 2nd, during the double 11 promotion period, WeChat paid the “Smart Retail” applet in Jiugongge, but it is currently only visible to users in Fuzhou. Based on LBS, this small program that aggregates users’ good shops and business districts and provides services such as purchase and door-to-door distribution is positioned as a “retail service collection and recommendation platform” by Tencent.
The main interface consists of three sections: a small program, a store clerk, and a product category. In addition to the fresh home service, it also covers clothing, maternal and child, home and other multi-category.
Smart Retail Applet Portal
The launch of the “Smart Retail” applet can be seen as a concentrated display of the results of Tencent’s smart retail sector in the past year. It also shows Tencent’s ambitions for retail business to some extent – B-end On the C side, cultivate the user’s long-term shopping habits in the small program, and create a new retail format of their own “online + offline”.
Smart Retail Outcome Display
Tencent Smart Retail Strategic Cooperation was established in March 2018 and is part of CSIG (Cloud and Smart Industry Group). At the two sessions of the year, Ma Huateng explained his understanding of the smart retail sector for the first time. “Mobilize and lead the resources of various BG and business divisions to create a complete digital solution for smart retail and commercial real estate. “
Around this mission, in the past year or so, Tencent Smart Retail has only done one thing: to solve the problem of brands lacking their own traffic pool, to help them build their own .com, open online and offline, and precipitate themselves. There are digital assets. To this end, Tencent has created a class tool package: WeChat public platform, WeChat payment, small program, Tencent advertising and marketing services, Tencent cloud, enterprise WeChatAnd pan entertainment IP.
Cooperative brand merchants can open stores in small programs or communicate with users through Enterprise WeChat, Create their own WeChat operations group; The “1 to 1” shopping guide service can also be used to launch Tencent social ads.
The smart retail applet launched this time is a centralized display of what the smart retail sector has done in the past year.
Open the smart retail applet, the top bar is “small program good store”. At present, the “big brand good store” consists of small-app stores with retail brands such as fresh home service and famous products. It is the main partner of Tencent Smart Retail, which is responsible for the services of fresh food and food in Fuzhou. It is mainly Yonghui Life, Home and Daily Fresh.
WeChat Smart Retail Applet Page
Starting in June 2018, Yonghui Yunchuang began to cooperate with Tencent Smart Retail to create Yonghui Life and Home Business, providing users with a 30-minute home delivery service. At present, this service has basically covered the main city of Fuzhou. According to the data provided by Yonghui, with social fission (social red envelope + bargain + KOL brought goods), Yonghui home business day orders reached 60,000+, Small program orders contribute more than 50% in the home business.
In Fuzhou, Yonghui Cloud created about 500 WeChat groups. These WeChat groups are built based on residents near the satellite warehouse, which can improve daily life and maintain user viscosity. At present, Yonghui Satellite Warehouse is gradually extending the practice of community operations to various sub-sectors.
Outside the small program, the “clerk said” was also accepted.Into this smart retail applet. In this module, store guides can publish content recommendations to surrounding users, communicate directly with consumers, and provide exclusive services. The clerk dynamic zone also displays “nearly shopping malls” and recommends selected brands in the corresponding shopping malls. It can also communicate directly with the corresponding brand stores.
In a way, it is a replica of Tencent’s “store guides” that have been working with brands for more than a year. The difference is that in the previous cooperation, the brand can usually only sell to members who have joined the shopping guide group, and now its radiation range is greatly improved.
Another difference is that in the previous consultation with the shopping guide, the company’s WeChat QR code will usually pop up, and users need to add friends to talk. In the smart retail applet, users do not need to add The clerk’s corporate WeChat, but a direct dialogue within the customer service message. This lighter weighting helps reduce the cost of user attempts and reduces churn.
This model is very similar to the “Cloud Shop” applet launched by Jingdong. By clicking into the store, on the one hand, the user has obtained the exclusive “1 to 1” service of the shopping guide. For the enterprise, this part of the user directly precipitates as his own private domain traffic.
Home is only a part of the home. Based on the geographical location, Tencent Smart Retail also recommends other brands of high-quality products for users, covering apparel, shoes, beauty, home and other items. Users can go to the store. After the experience, the order is placed, and the offline store is diverted.
At present, includes 40 brands including Goodbaby, ONLY, Li Ning, Mingchuang Premium, MISS SIXTY, and Hot Air, all of which have settled in the smart retail applet. Participate in Tencent’s “multiplier plan” and have a certain ability in the operation of small programs.
The so-called “multiplier plan” is a merchant growth plan sponsored by Tencent Smart Retail and supported by WeChat Open Platform. According to reports, the multiplier action has brought significant growth to the WeChat side performance, and the three-phase multiplier action merchants achieved an average daily GMV increase of more than 200%.
What is Tencent’s picture?
Since the birth of the Smart Retail Department, Ma Huateng emphasized that “there is no plan to go back to the business of e-commerce, we will not teach you how to do business, just hope to pay through WeChat, Tencent Cloud, social advertising, small programs, etc. Connect people and business tools to continuously provide ‘hydropower coal’ and ‘toolbox’ for retail companies.”
This is also reflected in the smart retail applet. Although a retail service collection and recommendation platform has been set up, the smart retail applet is currently unable to achieve a closed loop of transactions.The transaction behavior needs to jump to the third-party applet to complete, and the products and services obtained by the user are directly responsible for the operation of the third-party applet itself, and it is likely that this will not change in the future.
However, Tencent is not without an attempt. Since Q4 2017, Tencent has successively invested in a number of offline business, including Yonghui Supermarket, Carrefour, and BBK. At the Shenzhen IT Leaders Summit in March 2018, Ma Huateng said that “WeChat users can connect with more and more offline services,” he said. “This is my biggest goal.” The business behind the connection The result: paying for associated financial services, cloud services, and advertising.
In particular, he mentioned that in Tencent’s social system, the best solution for effect advertising. This determines whether Tencent will become a platform based on advertising revenue in the future. “This is very important and why we value this opportunity.”
Ma Huateng is right. By pulling the brand into Tencent’s social system, in order to better create private domain traffic, more and more brands are starting to launch Tencent’s social advertising, whether it is WeChat public number, circle of friends or small programs. In the multiplication plan mentioned above, almost every one has posted a circle of friends in the last six months. Some companies have already started to access the cloud service of Tencent Cloud. This is an important source of income for Tencent. .
Tencent’s second-quarter earnings report showed that financial technology and corporate services revenue was RMB 22.888 billion, a year-on-year increase of 37%, which has become Tencent’s second largest source of income. After the third advertisement of WeChat’s circle was fully opened, Tencent’s social and other advertising revenues increased by 28% to RMB 12.009 billion in the second quarter, which was mainly due to the increase in advertising revenue contribution from WeChat friends circle and QQ watch.
In the interview with the media, Lin Biao also talked about Tencent’s commercial appeal in smart retailing. “When a company has new demand, it can place advertisements in a circle of friends, or find that old customers will not come for a long time, and send a recall copy. This is a good addition. Otherwise (Tencent) does not know where to start doing retail and e-commerce advertising.”
Do not touch the goods, do not touch the supply chain, only provide the underlying infrastructure, Tencent’s idea of making money is still the old routine, which is essentially different from Ali’s consumer brand.
Traffic is Tencent’s confidence, and for many traditional retailers, not touching user data is the key to their choice of Tencent. “We are doing the basic connection, the mall will not worry because the telephone service is provided by Telecom and China Unicom. There is no business to do after it is broken,” Lin said.
At present, the “Smart Retail” applet of WeChat Pay Portal is only visible in Fuzhou. Users in Shenzhen can only search “Smart Retail” in the small program bar to see it, but Tencent expresses it through In the early stage of polishing, this product service will be quickly promoted to other cities in the future.
Accompanied by the increase in the number of settled brands. At present, Tencent’s multiplication plan has been carried out to the fourth phase, covering 80 head retail enterprises. Most of these enterprises will enter the smart retail applet in the future, and a new retail platform with Tencent features will also grow stronger. .