The new narrative of Douyin Mall's 618 campaign allows good supply to speak for itself.
The resource focus of the platform is shifting from "who offers the lowest price" to "who provides the best supply."
At 9 p.m., Li Wei, a merchant who had just finished restocking, sat on the sofa. Without time to relax, she habitually opened Douyin. She wanted to check the latest popular trends - the trend of setting up street stalls in real - life scenarios was booming, and the addictive AI infinite - stream content had many people shouting how enjoyable it was.
In Li Wei's view, the trend of content is the trend of business. This has also allowed Li Wei to stay calm in the face of regular large - scale promotions like the 618 event in recent years.
On May 15th this year, the 618 Good Products Festival of Douyin Mall officially kicked off. Even though the battle started earlier, the essence is not to pursue a longer time period, but to release value more precisely.
36Kr learned that this year's 618 Good Products Festival of Douyin Mall has focused on several dimensions: "good products, good content, good prices, and good services", which means that doing well in this kind of supply is more likely to stand out in the large - scale promotion.
According to the data released by the platform, a set of remarkable results emerged at the beginning of this year's Good Products Festival - The number of merchants with a turnover of over 100 million yuan driven by consumer vouchers increased by 325% year - on - year. In the business driven by both content and shelves, the number of merchants with a turnover of over 10 million yuan from searches and short - videos increased by 161% and 100% respectively year - on - year. At the same time, the number of beauty brands with a turnover of over 100 million yuan increased by 75% year - on - year, and the number of clothing brands with a turnover of over 100 million yuan increased by 100% year - on - year. The order volume of stores of merchants participating in the "national subsidy" increased significantly. The order volume of air circulation fans, ice makers, and mobile phone radiators increased by 348%, 122%, and 167% respectively year - on - year.
What this set of data reveals is the differentiated path laid out by the 618 Good Products Festival of Douyin Mall for merchants: Centered around good products, good content, good prices, and good services, let business grow naturally between real - life scenarios and shelves.
Make good products more visible
Stylish car air fresheners, new skincare brands focusing on ingredients, and established hair - care brands with decades of accumulation. These hidden good products that failed to enter the public eye in the past have been continuously setting new records in Douyin Mall in recent years.
The beauty and skincare brand Lingboshi is a representative of this kind. Despite the fierce competition in the beauty industry in recent years, Lingboshi, founded in 2021, has taken a unique path driven by scientific research, moving from the laboratory to the market with its full - molecular - weight hyaluronic acid technology. This has also enabled Lingboshi to continuously produce competitive good products.
In Douyin Mall, good products always achieve good results. Through refined operation, Lingboshi has even achieved a double increase in scale and profit in Douyin Mall.
Looking back in detail, the essence lies in its establishment of a stable and efficient regular replenishment operation system. It expanded the replenishment live - streaming room matrix from 1 to 6, completed a large - scale and fully - formed layout, and then achieved efficient traffic reception and refined operation of goods through the linked operation of the overall live - streaming rooms. Finally, by precisely polishing the core explosive product of muscle - gene essence, it drove a year - on - year increase of 310% in GMV and a year - on - year increase of 132% in overall GMV, achieving a leap from scale expansion to healthy profit.
This kind of mutual - benefit story naturally extended to the 618 period. In the past, the essence of large - scale promotions has always been the efficient matching of supply and demand, which is to help good things find those who want to buy them faster. This year, the 618 event of Douyin Mall has given clearer guidance on the product side: Make good products more visible and convertible.
The support policies are also clear and definite - Explosive products participating in the one - item direct - discount/immediate - reduction promotion will receive more support, which will directly guide the key promoted categories and high - search products to unlock platform traffic support. It should be noted that high - search products are also one of the focuses during this 618 event. The strategy of giving priority to shipping in - stock products and stocking up products through multiple channels for the main products and channel products can achieve efficient traffic conversion and make good products truly achieve high sales.
Meanwhile, this year's 618 Good Products Festival of Douyin Mall divides the period into several stages: the pre - purchase stage, the opening stage, and the sprint stage. The pre - purchase stage corresponds to the special 520 node, and gift categories are more likely to gain attention. The opening stage is the main stage for all categories. In the final sprint stage, coinciding with special nodes such as the World Cup and the Dragon Boat Festival, in addition to the explosion of all categories, more attention should also be paid to categories related to the World Cup and the Dragon Boat Festival. For example, categories such as clothing, sports and outdoor, food and beverage, and digital appliances also naturally attract attention during the World Cup.
Of course, with the help of emotional and node - based marketing, good products have a better emotional foothold for their debut. After finding the right target group, scenario, and traffic pool, good products can naturally stand out.
Content planting, search catching
Doing business on Douyin, content is the hub of all business and also the turning point for many brands to make a comeback.
The recently popular new Chinese - style service brand YASTEE (hereinafter referred to as "YASTEE") is the best representative.
Not long ago, Elon Musk's son X wore a new Chinese - style top and carried a tiger - head bag with distinct Chinese traditional characteristics, instantly becoming a hot topic on social media.
As the designer of the tiger - head bag, YASTEE also became popular and witnessed a sales explosion. On May 14th, the turnover of its live - streaming room increased dozens of times compared with normal days. The same - style tiger - head bag was once out of stock, and the single - product GMV directly exceeded one million yuan.
But this is not the first time YASTEE has felt the influence of content. As early as the end of 2021, when the live - streaming e - commerce boom emerged, YASTEE started doing live - streaming on Douyin. The relevant person in charge of YASTEE said, "I judged that this must be done."
At that time, on the one hand, they did a good job in design and built the supply chain. On the other hand, they decided to firmly invest in content operation. Coupled with the uniqueness of the products, the data performance was excellent as soon as the live - streaming started, and the performance in 2022 even doubled directly.
Shortly after YASTEE became popular, within just a few hours, the sales volume of the tiger - head bag soared rapidly, and the inventory was sold out on the evening of May 14th. The merchant urgently arranged for additional production. The hot sales of this tiger - head bag also drove the sales growth of other products in the store.
Another brand representative that does well in content is Kangwang. As a key brand in the domestic functional hair - care and skin - care field, Kangwang collaborates with a large number of KOLs and KOCs every month to focus on promoting its core products. Its self - operated short - videos are shot with the main promoted products as the core, and combined with high - frequency mixed editing of influencer materials, ensuring the supply and use of more than 200 pieces of materials per day on average. This has enabled its advertising ROI to steadily increase.
By collaborating with influencers with strong live - streaming capabilities for live - streaming, Kangwang achieved a GMV of over 2.1 million yuan in a single 4 - hour live - streaming session. At the same time, Kangwang also built a 24 - hour non - stop live - streaming room to seize traffic opportunities and stabilize the daily live - streaming sales base. Eventually, the proportion of live - streaming in the store's overall GMV increased by 71%, a year - on - year increase of 58%.
After laying a solid foundation for product supply, content will provide the most solid framework for brand sales growth. This year's 618 Good Products Festival of Douyin Mall has provided sufficient support and incentives in terms of short - videos and live - streaming.
There are two major gameplay methods in live - streaming: Collaborate with top influencers to form a "Value - for - money Team", and obtain exposure support based on the GMV increment and the intensity of traffic investment to strive for a peak; on the other hand, industry - specific influencers and merchants focus on industry - specific live - streaming, and then create special content in combination with nodes such as 520, the World Cup, and the Dragon Boat Festival. The platform will also provide traffic incentives.
Short - videos are divided into two categories. One is the short - video with product links that directly drives product transactions, allowing users to place orders directly after watching. The other is the short - video for live - streaming promotion, which can efficiently pre - heat and attract traffic to the live - streaming room, further driving the explosion of live - streaming. Short - videos with product links are more inclined to direct transactions, while short - videos for live - streaming promotion are more inclined to pre - heat in advance and increase the live - streaming volume. Both of them will receive support in different dimensions. It should be noted that this is a combination of strategies, and combining the two gameplay methods can more comprehensively cover the short - video business link during the large - scale promotion period.
In addition, this year, Douyin Mall encourages merchants to actively use tools such as AIGC in the content production process, aiming to produce more high - quality video materials more efficiently.
Douyin Mall has also prepared a "Search - after - watching Word - Cultivation Plan" in synchronization: When users are attracted by short - videos, they can directly search for the keywords you set and jump to the mall to place an order. This solves a problem that many platforms are troubled by - after being attracted, users leave. Now, both attraction and conversion are completed within Douyin, and the loss rate has been significantly reduced. This also shows that merchants can completely use content to catch the large - scale promotion traffic and even convert it into long - term customers of the store.
Good prices and services, catalysts for long - term operation
In addition to product supply and content supply, price competitiveness and service are the most calibrating indicators during large - scale promotions.
When good products naturally reach consumers, price competitiveness and service will be the key catalysts to retain consumers.
The first trump card played by Douyin Mall is the 618 consumer vouchers funded by the platform. It is worth noting that in addition to the Douyin app, multiple apps under ByteDance, such as Doubao, Hongguo Short Drama, Jinri Toutiao, Jinri Toutiao Lite, Fanqie Novel, and Fanqie Listening, also issue vouchers simultaneously. Users can choose to receive multiple vouchers of various denominations on each platform according to their actual needs and use them to purchase products on each platform. This means more traffic and business growth for merchants.
In addition, Qianchuan also launched two product benefits during the 618 period: intelligent vouchers and AI advertising tools. This includes additional coupon subsidy budgets for key supported categories and the issuance of large - value vouchers for high - unit - price categories, further reducing the decision - making threshold for consumers and helping merchants acquire customers more efficiently. The red - envelope benefits during this large - scale promotion are quite generous, and multiple red - envelope incentives will be used to attract new customers for products/live - streaming, directly driving business growth.
The service side is also on the table: Feige intelligent customer service is free for a limited time, the ability to retain orders after - sales is strengthened, and logistics support for the large - scale promotion is provided... For merchants, improving the store experience score, opening freight insurance, and making good use of intelligent customer service are not complicated actions, but they can effectively reduce the operational friction cost during the large - scale promotion.
According to 36Kr, during this year's 618 event of Douyin Mall, the shipping GMV is also a key variable, which means that merchants need to ship products as early as possible to ensure the consumer experience of users. In terms of products, it means trying to supply in - stock products with short shipping cycles.
Looking back, the logic of the large - scale promotion track is being rewritten.
In the past few years, the keywords of the 618 event were once dominated by "competing on low prices" and "chasing GMV", and merchants were struggling in the flood of traffic. This year, the signal released by the 618 Good Products Festival of Douyin Mall is clear enough. The resource focus of the platform is shifting from "who offers the lowest price" to "who provides the best supply" - Product differentiation, rich content, sincere prices, and warm - hearted services. The comprehensive score of these three dimensions is the real bargaining chip for merchants to obtain traffic.
When large - scale promotions change from extensive operations to precise stage - by - stage operations, the competition is no longer about who can reach the highest peak in a short time, but about who can make good supply continuously visible, convertible, and repurchased within the 35 - day period. This also means that merchants need to re - understand the concept of rhythm. Instead of being exhausted by adjusting according to the platform's rhythm, they should find the best resonance point with the platform's traffic nodes within their own supply capacity.
The real end - game of the 618 event is not about who sells more, but about who truly retains users after the hustle and bustle fades away.