Eight Major Online Channels in China's Toy Market

1. Traditional e-commerce

Traditional e-commerce is a concept relative to the new e-commerce form. The typical feature is to start from the PC end and expand the APP later. Looking back on the development of traditional e-commerce in the past 20 to 30 years: Amazon, which has taken a place in China through the acquisition of Joyo.com, has withdrawn from the Chinese market; Dangdang, which focuses on books, missed the window period for the development of comprehensive categories and gradually declined; "No. 1 store was acquired by JD.com and renamed as No. 1 member store, which became a channel for JD.com to test membership-based e-commerce. In the end, Taobao/Tmall and JD.com won the melee and became the two giants of my country's e-commerce.

Today, under the impact of various emerging e-commerce platforms, traditional e-commerce has fallen into a growth bottleneck. In order to compete for the limited traffic, the two major e-commerce platforms have come up with their own unique tricks, such as frequent festivals to promote sales in the form of full discounts and discount promotions; deploying live e-commerce to open up new product sales tracks; creating special editions to compete for sinking market etc.

Toys are sold on traditional e-commerce platforms, but the initial positioning of the platform will affect consumers' impression of it. It is understood that Taobao/Tmall has richer and more comprehensive toy categories because the early Taobao was more "inclusive" and was the preferred platform for many toy manufacturers to expand online channels. It can also be seen from the sales lists released by major brands every year that this platform is more valued by brands.

 

2. Social e-commerce

In those years, who hasn't received a bargaining link from Pinduoduo on WeChat? Although this method once aroused the resentment of many consumers, and the bargaining link was later blocked, Pinduoduo still opened up a new track in the field of e-commerce with the help of social platforms. And this kind of e-commerce that started from the mobile terminal and developed with the help of social platform fission is also called social e-commerce.

 

In addition to Pinduoduo, social e-commerce platforms also have platforms that adopt the B2B2C distribution model, such as Yunji, Global Catcher, and Beidian. However, after several years of development, Pinduoduo is the only platform that has outperformed social e-commerce, and the domestic e-commerce landscape has also transitioned from a two-pronged hegemony to a tripartite confrontation.

 

In order to tear off the labels of "inferior quality", "piracy" and "disorderly price" in the early barbaric development period, Pinduoduo has worked hard to introduce brands and launch various measures to combat counterfeit and shoddy products. Judging from the best-selling toys list on the platform, there are still many unknown brands and low-priced products. Toy manufacturers have mixed feelings about Pinduoduo. On the one hand, they know that Pinduoduo has relatively large traffic and is a potential e-commerce platform; It is impossible to give Pinduoduo a low price alone, which is also the main reason why brand players do not deploy Pinduoduo.

 

3. Crowdfunding platform

At the end of January this year, the news that the peripheral derivatives of "The Wandering Earth 2" raised more than 100 million yuan, focused the public's attention on the peripheral derivatives of the film and television, and at the same time pushed Taobao's crowdfunding platform-made new products to the public.

 

It is understood that making some new products was renamed from the original Taobao crowdfunding. Backed by Alibaba Group, creating new products has many advantages. For example, all apps under the group can guide traffic to the platform, which can effectively increase the exposure of crowdfunding products; sales and evaluations generated during crowdfunding will be accumulated to the product transfer In the sales link behind the store, the product can be ranked in the forefront in the search and recommendation pages. It can be said that creating new products is a platform for Taobao/Tmall to attract traffic.

 

Crowdfunding platforms that are more familiar to the public are even more popular, but few people know that this platform can not only crowdfund, but also sell goods. According to the data, in December 2019, the Modian e-commerce mall was officially launched. It is an APP version, positioned as an e-commerce platform for domestic original designers, and brings together various creative products and brands. The settled merchants can be either enterprises or individuals. At present, the mall’s classified sections include toys, cultural and creative gifts, cards, games, food, derivatives, clothing, shoes and bags, household daily necessities, publishing, trendy toys, accessories, pet supplies, and beauty care. Among them, toys are listed in a prominent position, and the brands that have settled in include Ruolai, Ruoke, Tongqu, Mojiguan, Xingbao Building Blocks, etc.

 

4. Video e-commerce

With the rapid development of the Internet and mobile Internet, video websites and APPs have ushered in an opportunity for rapid development. And just like the phrase "the end of the universe is e-commerce" circulating on the Internet, video platforms still want to realize cash through e-commerce no matter how many film and television works are broadcast and how much traffic they have.

Among all video e-commerce companies, Douyin and Kuaishou are relatively inclusive, and therefore the fastest growing. Douyin released data at the third Douyin E-commerce Ecological Conference held on May 16. In the past year, the GMV of the platform has increased by more than 80%; Today, the order volume of Kuaishou e-commerce has increased by nearly 40% year-on-year, and the GMV of branded products has increased by more than 200% year-on-year. Therefore, these two platforms are also the focus of the current layout of game companies.

 

5. Trendy platform

The so-called trendy platform mainly refers to a platform where the products sold follow the trend and fashion, and the main target group is young people. Trendy platforms are basically developed after the rise of the mobile Internet, and each platform not only has trading functions, but also content sharing communities, so these platforms also have the attributes of social e-commerce.

Compared with other platforms, the main products of trendy platforms are more concentrated, and the consumer groups are more precise. Although Xiaohongshu has started e-commerce layout very early, and enterprises also attach great importance to this platform, it is still mainly used as a publicity platform; A platform to be reckoned with.

 

The early-established and well-known Weidian seems to be on the edge of the domestic e-commerce matrix, but in fact it has already walked out of its own development path. The early micro-stores mainly served micro-businesses, and later transformed into a platform to help entrepreneurs develop interests and create brands. Because of the low barriers to entry, Weidian is the first choice for many individuals to open a store, especially in the fan circle and the two-dimensional circle, where there are many sellers. Among them, a large number of "baby mothers" opened stores on the platform, making Weidian a gathering place for cotton doll players, which also helped the platform to successfully incubate the cotton doll brand "Rua baby bar".

 

6. Second-hand trading platform

When it comes to second-hand transactions, most people think of them as idle goods transactions between consumers, but there are also many manufacturers who sell products on second-hand trading platforms. According to a reporter from the Chinese and Foreign Toys All Media Center, manufacturers will dispose of some defective products or inventory through second-hand trading platforms at low prices.

 

Well-known second-hand trading platforms include Xianyu, Zhuanzhuan, Huishuibao, Aihuishui, etc., and Paqu, APP 52TOYS, Qiandao Chaowanzu, and Suplay also have second-hand trading functions. Among these platforms, Xianyu has a large number of users and a wide coverage. Therefore, this platform is also the main channel for manufacturers to process products.

 

7. Food delivery platform

The six platforms mentioned above are all e-commerce companies that can sell products to all parts of the country, while the food delivery platform is a channel that can quickly deliver toys in the same city to consumers. Both Ele.me and Meituan aim to build a local life service platform. They not only focus on the catering sector, but also include the local retail circle in the scope of service, inviting convenience stores, supermarkets, trendy department stores, clothing Stores, trendy play stores, etc. settled in. From this perspective, the food delivery platform is like "Taobao" in the same city, but it is only applicable to merchants with terminal stores, not to factories.

 

8. Other platforms

There are many vertical e-commerce companies in my country, and the one that has a close relationship with toys is the e-commerce company for mothers and babies. In the past few years, the development of maternal and child e-commerce has been unsatisfactory, and there have been negative news such as business closures, APP service suspensions, payment arrears, and abnormal operations. At present, except for Meitun Mama under Babytree, the mother and baby e-commerce companies that are still operating are basically self-operated e-commerce companies of mother and baby chain brands, such as Kidswant.

 

Mini Programs have become a new force in the e-commerce field due to their advantages such as no need to download, low activation cost, and simple operation. It is understood that many offline channel operators who have no experience in e-commerce operations will give priority to opening WeChat mini-program malls when expanding their online platforms.

 

The wholesale network 1688 under the Alibaba Group is an online wholesale platform, and initially it mainly faced B-end channel providers. Under the trend of channel segmentation, many small, medium and micro sellers have emerged. In order to meet the needs of these sellers, 1688 Wholesale.com has gradually launched functions such as drop shipping and small amount wholesale. The popularity of this function allows consumers to buy desirable products at a lower price, so the audience of the platform has expanded from channel providers to consumers.

 

Prior to this, the Xianyu APP issued an announcement stating that from June 6, 2023, it will officially implement a charging policy for some merchants. The "some merchants" here refer to sellers who carry out high-frequency and high-value transactions on the platform. This also shows from the side that Xianyu is not only a platform for consumers to trade idle items.