Several transformations and fan effect helped Darling establish a foothold in overseas e-commerce
Under the strong demand for overseas shopping, domestic consumers have supported the development of many cross-border e-commerce enterprises, including the overseas shopping division of jingdong Global Shopping, Tmall International and other comprehensive e-commerce enterprises, as well as B2C cross-border e-commerce enterprises such as Xiaohongshu and Darling. Data show that among various types of cross-border e-commerce, 57.4% of users prefer to use self-operated cross-border e-commerce platforms, among which Darling, which completed the D round of financing last year, has recently obtained strategic investment from Suning.
Darling has undergone several transformations during its development. Initially, it was named Darling Gift Store, which was a vertical e-commerce platform mainly selling creative life and accessories. Later, it was transformed into cross-border e-commerce when overseas shopping demand increased, and its name was also changed to Darling Global Good Goods. Darling’s rise in such a short time has something to do with the way it operates.
Darling made its fortune in the trend of consumption upgrading, and the positioning of both the gift shop and the global shopping is to follow the trend of consumption upgrading. Darling adopts the direct purchase and self-management mode, establishes overseas supply chain by itself, cuts down the links of middlemen, directly contracts with more than 300 well-known brands overseas, selects high-quality goods through full-time buyers, and purchases at the price of major customers, so that users of the platform can buy overseas goods at a relatively low price.
Secondly, Darling has lu Han as a living brand to endorse, and its success is also fueled by the fan economy. Darling focuses on “her economy” and its users are the post-85 and post-90 generation, which overlap with the fans of Xiao Fresh Meat. Therefore, Darling employs lu Han, its popular idol, as the director and spokesperson of the company to attract users with the fan effect, and within a short period of time, it has exceeded 10 million scale and jumped into the first tier of cross-border e-commerce. In addition, in the following operation, Darling also launched various operations activities in the name of Lu Han, such as the full reduction of “Running Deer Festival” and the promotion of “420 Birthday Gift”, so as to make the best use of IP effect.
Finally, in addition to the fan effect, darling stands out because of the high frequency of discount events. It is understood that although the price of darling’s goods is high, there are many discount activities and the discount range is also large. The high cost performance also brings darling many consumers who like overseas shopping.
With the gradual development of e-commerce, Darling also transformed itself and extended its layout offline. It cooperated with small and medium-sized offline service stores through joining, and darling provided goods for the stores, so as to reach offline female consumers. Suning is a leading enterprise in offline layout. Suning cooperates with Darling. Suning, which is strong in household appliances and 3C products, can supplement its weakness in beauty makeup and skin care products through Darling. With the resources of more than 4000 offline stores of Suning, Darling has the channels to improve user experience offline, and with the help of Suning, it can expand the offline female consumption aggregation platform and complete the transformation faster.
The advantages in the above aspects make Darling jump up quickly to be the leader in cross-border e-commerce. However, there are still many problems in the development of Darling, which strives for speed but does not seek stability. As a quality-oriented cross-border e-commerce company, Darling’s quality control and service are not recognized by consumers.
Quality control and after-sales system is not perfect, darling reputation is not good
The fan effect and high frequency operation activities have brought a lot of users to Darling, but there are still many deficiencies in products, quality control and after-sales service.
First of all, Darling’s products are mainly popular. Its public data shows that 75% of the products collect hot products on major social networking sites through the system, and only 35% come from buyers’ experience. Although popular style can help Darling bring sales and new users in a short time, it also means that the category is limited. After more and more cross-border e-commerce, popular style has become the standard product of every platform, darling’s products have almost no advantages at all. In order to compete for limited users, the platforms will inevitably fall into a price war. Although Darling’s frequent discount activities can attract users’ attention, price-sensitive users tend to be less loyal and will inevitably choose the cheaper ones. In addition, these activities are narrowing the already narrow profit margin, Darling’s profitability may decline.
Second, pay attention to make in the slogan of the APP store that read “no fake goods”, the platform also positive publicity channels for the real thing, no fakes, APP in the commodity rate is around 98% more, but on the China electronic commerce research center on darling a lot of complaints, the most complaints about the “suspected” counterfeits.
According to the statistics of “2017H1 Distribution of Factors considered in The selection of Cross-border e-commerce Platform of China’s Overseas online shopping Users” in the report of IMedia Consulting, 60.3% of users value authentic products the most, followed by popularity, complete categories and brand coverage, and only 24.6% support rate of category coverage. Although Darling has a wide brand coverage and high popularity, it has been reported by users for many times suspected of selling fake goods, which may indicate that darling’s quality control system actually has problems.
Thirdly, darling’s after-sale and evaluation system also needs to be optimized. Dahling is one of several cross-border e-commerce companies that still find it difficult to return goods after the interim Measures for Returning Goods Online for Seven Days without any reason came into effect. Darling’s domestic products such as beauty care and food products are not allowed to be returned within 7 days without any reason. Overseas direct mail products are not allowed to be returned within 7 days without any reason.
According to the complaint, if users doubt the products are not genuine and apply for after-sales service, Darling’s customer service is also perfunctory, only showing certificates to prove the channel is normal, and said that there will be 1/10,000 or even 1/1,000 defective products in the production process, without directly solving the problem.
Not to mention the fact that many brands destroy defective products, there are so many complaints of “suspected fakes”. Such after-sales mode will not only cause poor consumption experience, but also make consumers doubt the guarantee of genuine products of Darling products, and their trust in the platform may plummet. According to the report of IMedia Consulting, darling’s approval rate was only 13.6% in the “Distribution of trusted platforms for authentic guarantee of Chinese mobile online shopping users in 2016”.
Meanwhile, darling’s rating system does not appear to allow users to question whether their goods are fakes, according to complaints from the China E-commerce Research Center. Although Darling said that it has a strict authentic product control system, for high rate of goods, bad comments as many as two or three, low re-purchase rate will be removed from the shelves, but in terms of complaints, the whole evaluation system needs to be improved, authentic product control ability needs to be further strengthened.
Fourthly, darling commitment to free trade zone spot delivery within 24 hours, other 48 hours to deliver goods, but in addition to the “suspected” counterfeits complaints, China electronic commerce research center platform about the slow delivery, not on time delivery, hair wrong too many complaints, also suggests that darling domestic logistics system and bonded warehouse management has yet to be strengthened.
Fifthly, although the number of fans darling said Lu Han accounted for in the users have been very few, only about 5% to 7%, the platform also began to reduce the influence of stars on the platform, but still alone makes many operations around Lu Han, years of IP marketing make star not so easy to fade, the influence of reasonable speculation fan effect or support the important factors for the development of darling. Relying too much on the IP effect of stars, I’m afraid it will cause some adverse effects on the subsequent development.
Based on the defects mentioned above and some management problems, darling’s user reputation has also suffered some negative effects. Data from China E-commerce Research Center show that the user complaints of Darling in the first half of this year accounted for 1.41% of the complaints of cross-border import e-commerce. In the “2017H1 Authentic Trust Ranking of China’s Cross-border E-commerce Self-Operated Platform” and “2017H1 Satisfaction Ranking of China’s Cross-border E-commerce Self-Operated Platform” in the report of IMedia Consulting, Darling ranked lower, with only 14.3% trust and 7.3 satisfaction.
Trust wall is difficult to build, Darling must improve the quality control, after-sales system
Genuine product guarantee, after-sales service and evaluation are the three elements to ensure the consumption experience of cross-border e-commerce. As a vertical e-commerce provider with a higher reputation, Darling has gained strategic investment from Suning. However, due to the imperfect quality control, after-sales service and evaluation systems, Darling is gradually losing the trust of users. The trust wall is difficult to build and easy to collapse. Darling still needs to improve its service from the following aspects so as to have more advantages in the offline retail competition in the future. After all, offline stores pay more attention to quality and service than online stores.
First of all, Darling’s products are mainly popular, with limited categories and small profit margins. Darling still needs to add categories to create differentiation advantages. For example, on the basis of her economy, some customized products are launched.
Secondly, the significance of the evaluation system lies in allowing users to supervise the platform, so as to improve the service capability of the platform and maintain the quality of goods. The operation of offline stores also needs the support of word-of-mouth from users. Mr Darling also needs to improve flawed quality control systems, such as strengthening supply chain oversight and control. It is also necessary to further improve the after-sales service system, such as customer service, to improve the timeliness and accuracy of handling problems.
It is better to be practical and develop a reasonable evaluation mechanism, just like tmall and Jd.com, so that users can supervise the platform to improve service and quality control.
Finally, the speed of logistics is also one of the important factors affecting users’ choice of e-commerce platform. Darling must strengthen the construction of domestic logistics system and bonded warehouse, and reduce the occurrence of slow delivery, delivery on time and other problems, so as to make the promise more than just empty words.
conclusion
Cross-border e-commerce thries on consumption upgrading, and in the context of consumption upgrading, users value quality and service most, while users’ trust and satisfaction come from the platform’s product, after-sales and customer service experience. Darling still needs to improve quality control and after-sales system. Darling’s problems also represent the problems of a large part of the platform. There is still a long way to go to build trust barriers.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110