In today’s world, the e-commerce industry is gradually growing worldwide. As time passes, new e-commerce markets engage, and existing markets are approaching new milestones. We are confident that e-commerce is a global phenomenon, and the growing rate of it in almost every country is very healthy.
Along those markets, China is the world’s biggest e-commerce market, with an annual growth rate of 21%. At the same time is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets, contributing $2.78 trillion in annual online sales, which occupied 52% of the world’s total retail sales in 2022.
As the Chinese e-commerce market grows, more options are showing up for international brands trying to enter through cross-border e-commerce, including but not limited to T-mall Global, JD Worldwide, Wechat, and a recent rising popular choice — Douyin. (Click here to learn more about exporting to China)
In this article, we will compare the differences between Douyin and T-mall Global in order to help you better understand each e-commerce platform and make your choice.
The Differences Between Douyin & T-mall Global
Starting in 2014, T-mall Global is currently the most significant cross-border e-commerce platform for international brands in China, with a market share of 39.6% in the past 2022. T-mall Global only accepts companies with physical companies abroad. It is not open to mainland Chinese companies. The platform aims to meet Chinese consumers’ ever-increasing consumption taste and consumption-ability. T-mall Global targets the high-end consumer group in China and recruits the purest overseas merchants worldwide. Merchants entering the platform must have corporate entities with qualifications outside mainland China have overseas registered trademarks, overseas retail qualifications, and good reputation and business conditions abroad.”
But at the same time, owning a considerable user flow and relying on livestreams, Douyin’s e-commerce has developed dramatically. According to the data released by the media, the GMV of Douyin e-commerce in 2022 reached ¥1.41 trillion, with an increase of 76% year-on-year. Some people may not feel much about these cold numbers, but in contrast, JD’s GMV has spent 13 years to break through a trillion, and Pinduoduo’s GMV in 2020 was ¥1.66 trillion. All we need to know is that the current volume of Douyin e-commerce is quite huge.
Another report from ASKCI told us that at the end of 2022, the market size of short video users had already reached 985 million, with a usage rate of 92.5%, creating a market up to ¥376.82 billion. Douyin ranked Tier 1 with an absolute advantage among those short video platforms, leaving other apps (e.g. Kuaishou or Xigua) far behind.
So, according to the data, consumers’ willingness to spend more time on Douyin, these short video platforms in China have significantly increased. Meanwhile, for domestic and overseas brands, advertising in short video form has gradually become an essential focus of their marketing strategy.
It is also necessary to mention that the positioning of Douyin e-commerce is “interest e-commerce”, which is “interests lead to demands, and demands lead to purchases.” In 2022, it was updated to become a “global interest e-commerce”. Douyin hopes to expand the scope of short videos, livestreams, e-malls, and searches. As the post released on Douyin’s social media, its next goal is to create new e-malls and brands.
E-Commerce Features of Douyin
Douyin is a powerful marketing platform for brands and advertisers. Brands can cooperate with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Douyin is the top KOLs platform to engage with the young and ready-to-buy audience. Partnerships with KOLs can build awareness and consideration for brands and provide direct sales for their products.
In addition, the Douyin mini-programs are well-developed, which allows brands to create their Douyin stores, leading users to complete the purchases by only using the Douyin app, thereby increasing the conversion rates. Douyin recognizes the power of video sales and does not want customers to leave the app to complete their purchases via third-party providers.
Douyin users are also more willing to buy. Douyin consumers are well-educated, from metropolitan China, with high purchasing power and access to foreign consumer brands, which makes the app successful in branding.
Want to learn more about Douyin? Please get in touch with us for sure!
Why Is Douyin A Better Option?
Douyin Is A Very Advertising-friendly Platform
In other platforms like Tencent QQ and Wechat, only 17% of their revenue comes from advertising, so they have always regarded advertising as an annoyance that will disturb users — their most valuable asset. But almost the exact opposite thing is that Douyin is probably the platform with the most financially dependent on advertising revenue, which means making all its revenue from advertising and commission fees that charge from the content creators and thus has the most advertiser-friendly platform interest and environment.
What makes Douyin work like this today is that the developers of Douyin have gambled on having a continuous stream of clips with minimal user control. Only watching the entire video or skipping it will lead the audience to the next one.
The user’s choice provides the necessary feedback to the app, which, in turn, uses it to further refine the video feedings based on the personalized recommendation. This continuous stream of clips creates the main strengths of Douyin’s intelligent advertising. Therefore, receptivity to advertising, combined with better recommendations in a localized content environment, Douyin win the audience.
Douyin is almost like the one and only platform where there would be nothing other than uninterrupted advertising. People come to the short video platform for relaxation, neither for variety shows nor memes, but for well-edit ads. Can we just simply describe it as an advertiser’s dream?
Douyin brings this mindset to a new level. The audience is not distracted by advertising because the format of the clips they are watching is indeed advertising and is processed in a similar way.
Thus, Douyin users are curious and happy to learn about new brands and respond positively to the ads. More than 40% of Chinese consumers on Douyin expressed no dissatisfaction with product placements in those videos according to the questionnaire for Douyin users.
The Douyin platform also offers brands a variety of advertising and marketing options, such as banner ads, hashtag challenges, stickers, music, and unique filters.
Douyin's Targeted Users
Douyin targets millennials and Gen Zs, the most valuable consumers in China, who provides an environment that makes them highly receptive to advertising. About 50% of all Douyin users are between 24 to 30 years. These users are also one of the largest consumer groups in China.
The majority of Douyin users are from developed metropolitan regions in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. These users are also predominantly female, with high incomes and academic backgrounds.
When overseas brands proceeding their businesses on Douyin, they have the advantage of reaching young and affluent people as their target users.
Douyin's Livestream Advantages & KOL Marketing
Douyin has diverse categories in its livestream channel, including but not limited to food, travelling, workouts, music, online courses, fashion shows, etc.
A practical path, which is also the mainly used method to build awareness for overseas brands on Douyin, is to utilize influencer marketing. Brands can cooperate with KOLs on Douyin to ensure your content has more reach along KOLs’ followers, aka KOCs (Key opinion consumers).
KOL marketing can reach the audience directly. Those good KOLs, they own enormous respect from their followers. It is the passageway connecting overseas brands to the potential target audience and sometimes reaching new demographics they may not expect. The relevant campaign content will also raise discussion in the community and encourage viewers to become consumers, and finally lead to purchases.
These KOLs promote a new product, service or brand by using their creativity in their videos. Brands can sponsor KOLs to feature their products in their videos, engage them in hashtag challenges or directly introduce them during KOLs’ livestream period.
Contact Us if You Want to Expand Your Market to China or Learn More About Douyin
When you finish reading the articles above, you must know that SENCENT is always ready to help your brands enter the dynamic and vast Chinese e-commerce market via Douyin. Our company has a professional team with good enough experience and practical success cases to answer all kinds of questions you encounter while exploring the market of China.
For any questions about Douyin, E-commerce, or KOL Marketing, please feel free to Contact Us!
