White crow said should write a topic specifically “taobao flow”, in order to avoid others grab a topic, I want to write out first. However, this article is still a little difficult to write. In the past few years, I did not pay attention to e-commerce, and inevitably there were mistakes. I would like to ask the founder to correct me.

one

Taobao at the beginning of the flow of how? At the beginning, it was actually “free” to attract traffic.

The biggest competitor was eBay, which had just been sold to eBay. Ebay, founded by Shao Yibo in 1999, was already charging merchants by the time Taobao was launched. Taobao said, I here free.

Free is the best advertising. Always will be. Small sellers naturally run away when they see profits, which puts a lot of pressure on ebay. What did ebay do? Eachnet signed exclusive advertisements with all mainstream websites in China, not giving Taobao exposure. Even in taobao company near the computer city opposite to buy a big outdoor advertising, hit the door.

Taobao’s response is very “China”, with small and medium-sized websites and personal stations to buy traffic, these small websites in order to make money, of course, everything is extremely, crazy pop-up, Taobao turn a blind eye to this. A time of complaints, Internet users lambasted. But scold scold, this kind of rural encircle city’s way to let Taobao get enough flow.

There are many more stories about this process, but some are unverifiable. It is said that Taobao first signed a cooperation agreement with netease, but netease went back on its word and chose eBay as the exclusive provider. Because of this, Old Ma and Old Ding have been a bit at odds.

Actually netease and Ali are not quite to deal with all the time, whether there are other reasons, do not know.

Among these web portals, Zhang Chaoyang from Sohu said that we should have a spirit of contract. We should not break the contract when we see American money, which gives Face to Ali. So, support sogou last time, Ma Yun expressed similar “return sohu favors” meaning. I wonder if I can return the favor.

two

I still remember in 2005 when I looked at the internal traffic sources of Taobao, I was very impressed that one tenth of the traffic at that time was from a popup window of an unknown personal website, one tenth ah. It’s horrible to think about. I can’t even remember the name of that station.

EBay’s then-CEO said China’s online auction market would end in 18 months. Back then, the key word was “auction market”.

Taobao also draws traffic from ebay, which discourages communication between buyers and sellers, whereas Taobao encourages it. The process of this communication is slowly transferred to taobao’s tools. In addition, the seller sometimes will suggest the buyer to taobao, there is no handling fee.

At the time, Taobao also had what it now calls “growth hacking” operations, fleecing ebay from traffic. Taobao action is fast, eachnet action is slow, even if it is found to seal again, Taobao side sometimes also got the hand.

After eBay was sold to eBay, the whole company was slow. One in the light, one in the dark, one slow, one fast, who wins and who loses, is a foregone conclusion. And then when the dust settled, there were all kinds of analyses, all of which made sense.

This is the fate of ebay.

three

Ali has been buying traffic from search engines.

The earliest alibaba, the initial stage is a BBS, and then derived from the portal and a variety of businesses. But where is the traffic coming from? Search engine advertising, media advertising, ma everywhere to do speeches and exposure. I even held up a sign outside an eBay user meeting to get traffic. It might seem cheap today, but back then, no one thought it bad.

In its early days, Alibaba made money from two businesses: one was Chengxin Tong and the other was a Chinese supplier, internally called Zhongyi. What is the good faith tong? In fact, it is to issue licenses, in other words, it is the verification of the qualifications of third party merchants. That is to say, I give you a certificate, you can do business on Alibaba. For this business, the annual fee is 3000 (the price in 2005). What is the supply for in another business? It’s complicated to say to the user, but easy to say to do the technology. The one that makes your web pages. Essentially, you pay tens of thousands of yuan a year, and you’re allowed to post a few product introductions on the site, along with your contact information. It’s that simple, really.

One might ask, that simple? How do foreign buyers find sellers on Ali? The answer is that Ali buys ads abroad. Alibaba is a big advertiser of search engines like Google and spends a lot of money on Google every year.

This business, in fact, is the wholesale flow of work.

To put it simply, I charge Chinese suppliers 10 yuan, then spend 8 yuan on traffic, then the remaining 2 yuan is profit. If you spend 1 yuan to do traffic, the rest of the SEO free to take traffic, nine dollars is profit. See?

Also do web pages, China’s ten thousand net these chi chi chi do not make money for so many years, and was finally accepted by Ali. You can see how important product positioning is.

Depending on these two businesses, Ali was already a very profitable company before the launch of Taobao, but the external can not understand, always think that the company will go bankrupt at any time. The old horse was thin and looked like a runner, not like now. When I saw him, I thought he was a god and wanted to kneel down.

four

So Ali always has a lot of good SEO hands. Supposedly, these people to Ali saved a lot of money every year, should be able to get a lot of stock is, but at that time the value of the flow of cognition is not enough, so later a lot of SEO experts ran out to start their own business, do flow related business, are very profitable, but these people are low-key, do not show off.

Later, the rise of foreign trade e-commerce (including listed Lanting set potential), in fact, and this group of SEO experts also have a certain relationship. You can see the data, analyze it and know where traffic sources are cheap and what products are popular. There are a few years, zhejiang several foreign trade e-commerce are selling wedding dresses, are big profits.

Of course, I knew then how to make money. However, knowing so many ways to make money, I didn’t think of starting my own business at that time. This is a cognitive problem. Blame others.

Don’t say this, I was in pay treasure at that time, the business data that can see went much. But, incredibly did not move the mind, in the business logic of thinking too little.

five

The first big external crisis taobao encountered was the failure of “make money”.

At the beginning of the competition announced that Taobao will be “free for three years”, users and the outside world have been curious, when taobao charge?

In 2006, Taobao announced the promotion of the business of “attracting wealth and treasure”. This thing put it bluntly, it is taobao version of the bidding ranking.

However, the “money-making” was resisted by users like crazy. Users banded together to boycott Taobao this disguised charges. Tencent’s Paipai website sees this as a good opportunity. While declaring itself free, it launched a service called “Ant Move”, which allows you to move your shop to Paipai with a click. It’s like, “Kill you while you’re sick.” Tencent at that time, in fact, is unscrupulous, unlike now.

Taobao was made by this thing in a terrible way, finally, said to let users vote, vote topic I still remember, with respect to two options, one is to retain, one is to scrap. I also joked with my colleagues that whoever designed the poll was probably an idiot, so why not put a “watch it for a while” option?

Taobao pulled its business after the vote. This withdrawal, the entire Chinese e-commerce in the business model can be said to be stagnant for three years.

six

Not making money is stressful, of course, but making money, by what? Taobao announced permanent free, and Alipay is still in the process of cultivating the market, although there is always a voice to ask “Alipay detention gold is not particularly profitable”, ask this topic are brain-damaged, but everyone asked.

A year later, Alibaba launched its advertising platform Ali Mom.

Ali understands the value of small and medium-sized websites. After all, they help Taobao stand firm, solve the initial flow problem, the cost is so low. If you can build a large enough advertising platform, the flow of Taobao fully realized…

Ali mother’s launch, means that Ali and Baidu began to traffic competition. After all, Ali’s mother is baidu’s advertising space. Medium and small stationmaster chooses to hang whose advertisement means to bring flow to help who make money.

But Ali’s mother just came out of the effect is not so good, how to do? Ali subsidizes it. Wait until it works out.

So ali’s mother gave her peers a lot of competitive pressure that year. The reason why Ali mother, there is another consideration, that is, and Baidu will inevitably have a war.

seven

Baidu saw ali mother cut advertising union of the market, behind there is a tao to do search. Why doesn’t Baidu do e-commerce? How about directing your search traffic to e-commerce?

Before Baidu officially launched e-commerce, it began to capture and analyze taobao’s data in large numbers. Taobao declared bubao a total ban on Baidu crawlers crawling pages. It looks like a crazy move, but it’s really brilliant.

Why brilliant? If Taobao has a large amount of traffic not through the home page but direct merchants, Taobao is difficult to sell high prices on the flow. The subsequent through train model would not have taken shape.

Just because saw this clearly, taobao just feels indifferent. At this time taobao, has formed a strong brand effect, users will think of taobao to buy things, as long as the shopping crowd expands, taobao’s flow will expand.

Baidu announced to enter C2C, with Taobao before the trick, said he free. But it didn’t work out for a variety of reasons. In my opinion, if there is no innovation on the model at this time, it is very difficult to compete with Taobao. That’s why JD can rise.

Now do not know whether Ali foresees and Baidu this battle is bound to happen, but the layout is very accurate, advance card good bit, to solve their own traffic problems.

eight

Talk about taobao customers. Taobao customers used to be called Taoke. What do you do? Help taobao sellers to promote products and earn commissions according to the transaction results. It sounds simple enough, and this model has been around since the beginning of e-commerce. Affiliate marketing is technically called Affiliate marketing.

But clean out treasure is very ambiguous to clean out treasure guest all the time, some time support, some time suppress. When to support and when to suppress? There is a rule, when the need for flow to support, and even to encourage taobao customers, and once there is no lack of flow, then want to point to a number of reasons to block.

When do you want traffic? Like double 11. Every year on Double 11, the whole Ali to buy traffic, each business also want to buy traffic, at this time, around Ali to do traffic business, basically can make a fortune.

When to encourage taobao visitors? When you need to go to other places with traffic to collect wool, like during the rise of wechat.

nine

Declare all the time free treasure out is in encounter “make a fortune” after failure, when begin flow to realize? The answer is Taobao Through Train.

Taobao through the line, it is taobao internal flow realization milestone. It was 2008, and the initial commercial value had not yet been fully realized. As mentioned above, the failure of China’s e-commerce business model stagnated for three years, which is the period from 2006 to 2009.

Taobao express is a symbol of success in the second half of 2010, merchants encountered a boycott, noise is very big. Then came “out panning”. Taobao was under great pressure in those two years.

But since then, the business has also received education, began to recognize the reality, either advertising to buy traffic, or get out, light Shouting slogans boycott what is the use, can not make money.

It is inappropriate to describe the flow realization of the direct train with “daily jin dou jin”. Because, “fight gold” to taobao, too little.

Big bosses’ game is traffic game, big bosses spend money on traffic, of course, but also from the business back.

Businesses are out of Amoy, but also worried that they were completely kidnapped, no choice. But, you know, it’s not the right time. To the mobile Internet era, to build their own Taobao external flow system, the cost has been much lower.

Now a lot of people are still in the micro channel to their taobao shop to guide the flow, in fact, you use the white crow have praise in the micro channel end to open a store, the conversion rate is higher.

ten

Looking back, what do e-commerce giants think of weibo and wechat, these new things?

The mental journey is roughly as follows: Can I sell things on it? Can’t? No dice. What? So much traffic, people are starting to set up shop. All units should pay attention. Can’t open a shop? But there is flow, so let’s go and collect the wool.

What see a mistake is, micro letter pay hit pay treasure unexpectedly by surprise. With Ali’s thinking, Tencent may think to do e-commerce in wechat now.

Wechat and Taobao mutual seal is a muddle. P.r. wise, we both have a story to tell. But the essential reason is that I don’t want to give you my traffic. I want your traffic, but you don’t want to know my data. So the protection keeps getting better, and then the wool pulling techniques get better.

Taobao customers, when I need you, you give me.

eleven

Why will there be e-commerce brush orders? It shows that brushing is generally cheaper than buying advertising. It also shows that the cost of buying advertising is too high, and the cost of acquiring customers for e-commerce is too high.

What does it mean that the cost is too high? It shows that this e-commerce platform is really making money.

The sellers are working for the platform, and the few who make money are losing money. But if you don’t, you die faster. Flow is not in your hand, you can not buy cheaper flow, buy the flow is not good, do not lose money is strange.

Brushing will affect platform advertising revenue, so it is necessary to continue to crack down on brushing. E-commerce platforms can’t handle brushing, which means you can’t earn more advertising money.

Industry told me that JINGdong’s ability to brush just caught up with Taobao three years ago. What does that mean? Jingdong as a platform, there is still a long way to go. And this, JINGdong may not be able to make a proper self-assessment.

twelve

Why do we continue to do double 11?

My point is that Singles Day is essentially a marketing campaign for one company. In addition, you can continue to get traffic, online is not enough, go to the line to get.

To the line to take traffic, there will be a topic, there is no more attractive than the annual e-commerce carnival. Where to find more traffic? Traditional TV.

Through the live broadcast of the Double 11 gala, we can convert the TV audience into e-commerce traffic. It is not worth the sponsorship fee. It is a very cost-effective deal and creative enough. Other competitors have yet to realize how cheap this traffic is.

The flow of young people finished, to take the flow of the elderly. Chinese traffic, can also take foreigners traffic.

Double 11 is also a rehearsal to keep the team excited/busy. If you lie counting money every day, the company will lose its fighting power. The joy of life is the toss. The annual Double 11 activity is approaching the boundary of the flow. Where will the new flow come from? I don’t know.

So, in recent years, Ali is also organizing activities like creation Festival. I guess in the future, he wants to celebrate Double 11 every day.

Such is the appetite of a giant. Can’t fill up.

thirteen

Why did crowdfunding go to e-commerce sites these years? E-commerce sites consider this a traffic realization business. It is also easier for crowdfunding parties to brush orders.

A good crowdfunding, and finally become a single brush business. I don’t know how it is abroad, but in China, everyone knows.

Speaking of single brush, some people say that Jack Ma is the originator of single brush. “We asked a dozen founders each to take 10 things from home and put them online because no one was selling on Taobao,” Mr. Ma said. “Some of them couldn’t find 10 things. At first, no one was buying on Taobao, so we just bought from each other.”

But in recent years, the crackdown against brushing is getting stronger and stronger, and it is not long before there will be a big case. Then brush single also become history.

Wait, is that even possible?

fourteen

Long time, coupled with their own not in this industry, unavoidably wrong information. Forgive me if I’m wrong.

Today we all see the success of Taobao, but that year, you do not know, Ali founded early, because the operating system restart, lost some user data, several founders are distressed to cry.

When was that? Now, what these tycoons are concerned about is, how can hurun list be messed up? This time, of course, Hurun is far from reliable.

Caption: Fernand Leger

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