Sometimes, do you notice that:
When our 'new arrivals for the season' only launched in mid-November, our competitors had already sold out 300 down jackets in October.
After releasing 10 new products in one go to prepare for Double Eleven, the lack of a segment plan resulted in scattered traffic, out-of-stock hot items, and slow-selling products piling up in the warehouse.
After the new products were launched, the click-through rate of the main image was only 1.5%. Compared to the competitors' 'scenario fitting', our flat display images performed poorly.
……
In fact, the root of these problems is not the product quality, but rather a lack of understanding of the new 'timing laws' and 'visual logic.' Only by accurately controlling 'when to launch, how to segment, and what visual scenes to use' can a hit product capture the traffic during Double Eleven.
In the first three episodes, we respectively broke down the three major operational secrets: discovering explosive products, preparing for major promotions, and design directives. In this episode, we continue to learn about the timing of new product launches and traffic adjustments before a major promotion. Together, we'll explore how to use Zhiyi to accurately determine launch times, make the right segment planning, and optimize visual presentation so that good products are no longer "missed by traffic" and buried.
Being newly listed is not just 'go up whenever you want'.
To monitor the 'activity nodes, category cycles, and competitive store rhythms' in three dimensions.
Dimension 1: Keep a close eye on activity/platform rhythm - New products must check the annual activity/big promotion rhythm of the platform 1-2 weeks in advance, with particular attention to the cold startup periods before and after the big promotions.
Many merchants wait until the big promotion starts to launch new products, missing the 'cold start accumulation period' before the promotion, resulting in their traffic being taken away by competing stores that have already promoted their new products. To be well-prepared for traffic reception on the platform, it's generally necessary to accurately align the rhythm of new product launches in advance.
Pay attention to the annual promotion schedule of the official Taobao platform and marketing announcements (such as the Double Eleven pre-sale on October 20 and the Opening Red on November 1). We can refer to the rhythm of platform activities to mark the "golden period for new products" suitable for our own store's main product categories, which is generally 1-2 weeks before the big sales (as shown in the figure below).
Tips
For the clothing industry, temperature is also a very important seasonal attribute. In the new product planning schedule, the best approach is to break down the calendar into multiple dimensions of the solar calendar, lunar calendar, and platform activities, specifically locking in three dimensions based on 'festivals, solar terms, and major promotions.'
Dimension 2: Targeting the Category Lifecycle - Different categories have their own "exclusive launch month".
Consumer demand is not static; it should be designed with consideration of the actual temperature and seasonal clothing needs of consumers. 'Selling down jackets in summer and short sleeves in winter' violates category lifecycle principles and will inevitably lead to poor sales.
In order to define the lifecycle of categories, Zhi Yi's "Head Insights" provides the ability to view historical new trend data for each category: by selecting the industry, time, and statistical dimensions you want to view, you can quickly see the new trends of different categories within different industries.
For example, in the chart below, we can clearly see that among the Top 300 women’s clothing brands on Tmall, the top brands in August are focusing on launching knitted sweaters and sweatshirts, while casual pants experienced a peak in new arrivals in July and then quickly dropped.
After determining the past rhythm of Top brands, we can establish our own monthly launch rhythm and strategy for the category. For example, in the overall strategy for the category set for September:
(1) Focus on market hits and adjust details at any time.
(2) Use short coats and wool coats as the first tier.
(3) Sweaters, knitted pullovers, hoodies, and pants are in the second tier.
(4) The overall approach is focused on small orders with quick responses, primarily for testing.
(5) It is necessary to implement a blockbuster strategy and allocate a high budget.
Tips
The official business advisor provides real-time supply and demand relationship data on the demand-supply ratio. During the execution of category strategy, one can timely check the status of categories with 'high demand and high supply', 'high demand and low supply', 'low demand and high supply', and adjust the new product launch rhythm or compress the style wave thickness based on their own inventory distribution.
Dimension 3: Deep dive into the new product rhythm of competing stores - Find the 'vacuum period' of competing stores.
For example, let's assume that a presale is set to begin next week, but we observe that our competitors' shops and our own new product launch cycles are concentrated between October 20 and October 27. If we choose to go head-to-head and launch all our new products during this period, while we could take advantage of the platform's peak traffic, the intense competition would severely dilute the flow of traffic, resulting in our new products being less exposed than usual.
In order to make a more detailed judgment on whether to leverage the platform's promotional traffic for the secondary sales of previously successful products, or to seize the 'new product window' to expose new items, Zhi Yi provides the 'competing store X seasonal new product' cross-launch analysis feature.
(1) Select 'New Arrival' in the competitive store, specify the most recent shelf time, and then export the new product data from the competitive store.
(2) In the exported table, filter the seasonal attributes of new products by year., if it is found that the styles are all from this year's subsequent seasons, competing stores will likely implement concentrated traffic investment operations.
If most of the sales are from the older models, then you can confidently take advantage of the traffic or quickly list new products to start the preheating process. If you find that the leading competitor stores are already preheating the latest seasonal styles, you might want to consider whether to avoid the peak traffic period in the few days before the competitors launch new products.
Avoid 'new arrivals at once' and focus on the rhythm of 'introduction → climax → conclusion'.
Many times, some merchants only have good sales performance in the first month after a new product launch, but then there are no sales afterward. Therefore, many merchants can only keep launching new products to maintain stable sales.
However, launching new products is not about making one-time sales. Once consumer recognition is established, it is necessary to strive for continuous orders, ensuring a balanced match between inventory and sales rate in order to avoid falling into the 'inventory trap':
Step one: Use the 'New Product Sales Trend' to determine the 'Style Type Band'.
Select 'New Products from Competing Stores' in Zhiyi's monitoring center, and export and extract the data table for competing store new products 'Launch Time - Category - Final Price'.
The history of discovering head competition stores is generally divided into three phases.
- Prelude Period (10.1-10.20): Generally, high-profit items (such as dresses) are widely available.
- Peak wave period (10.21-11.3): Most of the items launched are traffic-generating products (such as affordable shirts and T-shirts).
- End wave period (11.4-11.11): Shelf inventory funds for high-profit replenishment.
If your core category is also dresses, you can refer to similar wave designs, starting with profit styles to warm up, then using popular styles to capture attention at the peak, and finally wrapping up to clear inventory and further enhance profit margins.
Step two: Learn the 'Repurchase Strategy for Competing Stores' and define the 'Evergreen Style Approach'.
Export the subsequent sales curves of new styles launched in different months from competing stores, and track the main images and price changes of corresponding best-selling items to find the strategies for launching evergreen products.
For example, exporting the sales data of new products launched by four women's clothing stores in November last year and plotting the corresponding 'New Launch X Sales Trend' graph, it can be seen that Store C is prominently led by new styles in sales, with the main sales of the following month mainly coming from last month’s new styles.
The other three companies all use a phased price reduction strategy, traffic generation campaigns, and co-branding activities to continue generating sales for new products, which not only solves the inventory problem but also further enhances brand exposure.
The key visuals that can handle the traffic must provide a 'purchase hint'.
Regarding the issue of product main images, some profitable products have unappealing main images, resulting in no conversions even after users enter the store. On the other hand, the sales of traffic-generating products account for over 50% of the store total, leading to a situation where orders increase but profits do not improve at all.
This issue is mainly attributed to the strong correlation between the store homepage and the visual presentation of the products. Generally, the most conversion-driven aspect in a store is not the exquisite setup or the perfect models, but rather the product itself.The product image with the strongest 'purchase hint'。
Step 1: Organize the main images of best-selling products and identify key visual features.
Use Zhiyi to open competitive stores or hot-selling product libraries, filter 'TOP 100 hot items' by category (such as dresses), and immediately view the current popular main image designs.
If you find it inconvenient to view and organize online, you can also choose to export with images in the export options, allowing you to download all the main image files of the popular items with one click.
Step two: Match key features and summarize the validated element scenes.
Summary comparison of the labeled 'high-conversion visual features' over the past two years - for example:
- Commute style: scenario fitting (office / café background), highlighting 'structured shoulders, cinched waist';
- Vacation style: outdoor shooting (beach / flower sea), highlighting 'floral patterns, flowing fabrics'.
Step three: Use the Mei Nian tool to create a 'bestseller visual reference library'.
Use Zhi Yi's free inspiration style management product - Mei Nian collects and manages style images for every year or every style characteristic, without worrying about styles being taken down or main images being changed. You can view the most popular and high-conversion main images anytime in the cloud.
In the Know Your Clothing product line, any style image can be collected into a beauty inspiration folder. If you don't want to click one by one, you can also batch collect images of all best-selling products, creating an inspiration collection folder for management all at once.
When finding popular competing product images externally, you can also use a plugin to quickly save them to the corresponding inspiration collection 'Reference Library', allowing you to easily revisit the popular main images from past events and keeping the abstract 'visual effects' in a concrete way for retention, review, and analysis.
Conclusion
From "not knowing when to go live" to "precisely hitting every traffic node", the current tutorial from Zhiyi is here to help you complete the final piece of the puzzle for Double Eleven bestsellers.
In the next issue, we will aggregate the content of the four tutorials into a landing page.You can use the most suitable tools for the industry just by looking at one image.Let you 'clarify direction', 'create good products', 'set rhythm', and 'stabilize profits', helping to ensure a steady and explosive sales during Double Eleven!
Looking forward to your attention!
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