Financial Services Association | New Consumer Daily, May 9 (Researcher Liang Youyun, Reporter Xu Cihao), getting closer to “618,” several major e-commerce platforms have begun to promote events and announced promotion strategies for this year.

Unlike previous years, Tmall, JD, and Kuaishou announced the cancellation of the pre-sale model in advance this year. Douyin e-commerce, which has also recently launched investment promotion, also no longer emphasizes “pre-sale gameplay.”

From Taobao's first introduction of the “pre-sale” concept in 2012, to the official announcement that pre-sale was completely cancelled in a major promotion; from the initial 10-day pre-sale to covering a long delivery waiting period of more than a month... 12 years have left many consumers and merchants tired of the “front line” that has dragged on for a long time.

In the face of “consumption downgrading,” and consumption stimulation and gameplay innovation are weak, reducing complexity and simplifying and improving consumer services has gradually become the current consensus in e-commerce shopping.

Pre-sales are collectively cancelled, and the promotion “front line” is still long

According to Taobao's Tmall 618 investment promotion materials, after 618 cancels pre-sale this year, the first round of promotion will begin at 8 p.m. on May 20, and the second round of promotion will begin at 8 p.m. on May 31.

For merchants, Tmall 618 opened investment promotion on May 6. According to reports, the rules for merchants participating in the platform's 618 promotion this time are also simpler; they can register for products if the conditions are met. For consumers, the promotion routine introduced by Tmall has indeed been reduced a lot. In addition to spot sales and full discounts, the platform will insure prices throughout the process from launch until July 5. Previously, there was no publicity for all kinds of red envelope grabbing and mini-game gameplay that had been heavily promoted in advance.

Kuaishou e-commerce, which also canceled pre-sale gameplay this year, revealed that it will officially be “on sale in stock” on May 20, starting a 42-day shopping carnival. The promotion campaign is roughly divided into three stages: early purchase, explosion period, and return, which correspond to different product categories and anchor marketing methods. At the same time, Kuaishou also launched a “300 yuan minus 60 yuan” cross-store full discount.

As early as 2023, JD cancelled the pre-sale gameplay for the first time in Double 11, and directly sold it as a spot. It received a lot of praise from mainstream e-commerce platforms where pre-sales were piled up at the time. As the biggest promotion of the year on the JD platform, 618 is once again completely canceling pre-sale this year, and it is scheduled to officially go on sale at 8 p.m. on May 31.

Looking at the horizontal comparison, JD launched the 618 promotion much later than other platforms. However, JD stated in this regard that to return 618 to June, there is no need to lengthen the front, buy if you want, and return shopping to simple happiness. According to reports, this year JD 618 will also simultaneously launch themed events such as 10 billion subsidy day, 9.9 free shipping day, and super live streaming day to further strengthen the platform's low price and affordable label.

As for e-commerce channels such as Pinduoduo, Vipshop, and Suning Tesco, no pre-sales and direct sales have long been the norm for platform promotions. In addition, Xiaohongshu also announced that during the 618 period, it will upgrade support resources, upgrade live streaming gameplay, upgrade live streaming products, and provide users with 100 million platform subsidies.

The New Consumer Daily observed that despite the collective cancellation of pre-sales, in addition to the JD platform, Douyin, Tmall, and Kuaishou all offered longer promotions during this year's 618 promotions. The campaign period is expected to reach 26 days, 30 days, and 42 days, respectively. In comparison, the 2023 Douyin, Tmall, and Kuaishou 618 promotion periods (including pre-sales) are 27 days, 28 days, and 31 days, respectively.

Consumers return to rationality, platform merchants seek change

“This year's 618 event was longer than previous years. It shows that after experiencing e-commerce platform shopping festivals in recent years, consumers have also gradually returned to their sanity. They no longer simply pay attention to the dazzling price 'offers' during the campaign period, and pay more attention to the quality of the product itself.” Liao Chen, head of e-commerce at Zhejiang Aijia Group, said.

Regarding this adjustment, industry insiders generally believe that the biggest impact may be on the overall transaction scale. Previously, the pre-sale “deposit+final payment” model, although there were many cases of impulsive purchases and returns after payment, brought about a rapid increase in the transaction scale and turnover of the platform and merchants.

“Cancelling the pre-sale will definitely affect the final size of GMV, but now major platforms are no longer using GMV as a core requirement.” Liao Chen told the Financial Federation reporter that the cancellation of pre-sale gameplay indicates a change in e-commerce's model of boosting sales through major node promotions.

As early as 2022, most e-commerce platforms that participated in the 618 promotion and the Double 11 promotion stopped announcing whether the overall transaction amount had increased. In particular, Taobao and Tmall pay more attention to active users, increased brand transactions, and increased live streaming room turnover. According to reports, in 2022, Dai Shan, the then CEO of Taotian Group, simply revealed that “we have once again achieved a positive year-on-year increase in retail sales of 618.”

At the same time, compared to the 618 discount promotion in 2023, major platforms stopped using slogans such as large subsidies and “the biggest discount in history” as promotional gimmicks this year.

According to Liao Chen, “low price,” “simple,” and “direct” is the core focus of this year's “618” promotion. This year, various platforms claim to use simple participation methods for consumers and merchants, and this is also an adjustment made by Platform Connect to rational consumption.

For large brands with a certain brand influence and a fixed consumer base, canceling pre-sales can more efficiently guide consumers to place orders directly, arrange inventory, rationally prepare and schedule production, and reduce after-sales pressure.

“We have indeed experienced inventory problems in the past business process, especially during the big promotion period.” According to Liao Chen's disclosure to reporters, in the past, 20% of the monthly production volume was reserved for e-commerce, and the production situation was determined the following month based on the actual consumption of the reserved amount. This year, in response to the gameplay of 618 events on various platforms, Ai Jia also adjusted the product mechanism and updated the member gameplay. It is hoped that product sales during the 618 shopping festival will increase significantly compared to the same period last year.

For more small and medium-sized manufacturers that lack brand influence, canceling pre-sales means that drainage and marketing channels must be adjusted in order to have a chance to break through in the competition for discounts and product quality.

However, some netizens said on social media platforms that now promotion rules such as receiving exclusive product vouchers, store coupons, full discounts, first XX minute discounts, and daily red envelopes are still very complicated; simply canceling the pre-sale won't change anything.

Some netizens also asked, “Why can't we directly discount” since the pre-sale has been cancelled? At a time when costs are rising and consumption is becoming more rational, this is a difficult question to answer for both platforms and merchants.