Zhang Yiming wants to create his own Taobao

Author | Liu Baodan

After reaching a GMV transaction scale of 2 trillion, Douyin e-commerce launched a surprise attack on traditional e-commerce giants.

On March 26th, Wall Street News learned that Douyin quietly launched the "Douyin Shopping Mall Version" APP recently. It is positioned as an e-commerce shopping APP, providing users with services such as browsing, searching, purchasing, logistics tracking, and posting reviews, similar to the Taobao APP.

This is the first time Douyin e-commerce has launched an independent e-commerce platform outside of the Douyin APP, indicating that Douyin e-commerce is starting to separate from short video platforms and continuously compete with pure e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo.

The launch of an independent e-commerce platform signifies Douyin's declaration of war against traditional e-commerce platforms. In the e-commerce field, this internet newcomer will challenge traditional e-commerce giants with over 20 years of experience.

The person in charge of Douyin e-commerce told Wall Street News that there is a strong demand from users for active shopping on Douyin. In order to better serve these users, Douyin e-commerce launched the Douyin Shopping Mall Version.

Choosing to further promote shelf e-commerce business at this time is a necessity for Douyin to maintain high growth.

Since entering e-commerce in 2018, Douyin e-commerce has experienced rapid development after initial exploration.

According to comprehensive calculations by financial institutions, over the past four years, Douyin e-commerce's GMV scale has been approximately 500 billion, 800 billion, 1.5 trillion, and 2.7 trillion, with corresponding growth rates between 50% and 88%. Earlier this year, Douyin disclosed a set of data showing that the platform's GMV growth rate exceeded 80% in the past year.

Two years ago, Douyin upgraded interest-based e-commerce to universal interest-based e-commerce and focused on shelf e-commerce construction. In May last year, Wei Wenwen, the president of Douyin e-commerce, revealed that the overall shelf GMV ratio of the company had exceeded 30%. In the past year, Douyin Mall's GMV grew by 277% year-on-year.

Against the backdrop of live streaming e-commerce approaching its ceiling, in order to sustain high growth, Douyin e-commerce will inevitably deepen the development of shelf e-commerce.

Currently, shelf e-commerce is already dominated by Alibaba, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. In particular, shelf e-commerce places a high demand on the supply chain system and fulfillment capabilities, which are areas that Douyin e-commerce needs to strengthen.

Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, believes that supply chain management is a challenge. Douyin needs to establish a complete supply chain management system to meet the demands of young people for product quality and brand. In addition, Douyin also needs to establish an efficient logistics distribution system to ensure timely delivery of orders.

For Douyin e-commerce, the launch of the "Douyin Shopping Mall Version" APP is just the beginning. In the e-commerce arena, Douyin will face a real headwind