The new trend of e-commerce going overseas: all staff SHEIN is 'big and complete'? Or cut into the segment 'small but beautiful'?
In the newly released 2022Q2 "BrandOSTOP100 Overseas Brand Social Media Influence List", the e-commerce industry is a segmented industry with great social media influence and competitiveness.
(Reply to the keyword [2022Q2] in the background of the official account to download the complete list and white paper)
We conducted research on the TOP100 general list and the e-commerce industry segment list at the same time and found that:
Three general trends of e-commerce going overseas
Brand e-commerce, platform e-commerce and social media influence rivalry: There are 11 brands in the e-commerce industry that have entered the TOP100 list. Among them, there are 6 brand e-commerce companies headed by SHEIN and 5 platform e-commerce companies represented by AliExpress, and the proportion is basically the same.
The social media narrative change of giant e-commerce brands: SHEIN’s social media influence is unrivaled among e-commerce brands. In this quarter, BrandOS scored 57.9 points higher than the second-ranked brand in the same industry, showing a fault trend. From its social media marketing content, we can see that SHEIN, a giant brand, is gradually transforming from a fast fashion apparel brand that is popular all over the world into a fast fashion "life" brand.
- The social media influence of e-commerce brands in sub-sectors is growing rapidly: On the other hand, in addition to SHEIN, which is the “perennial leader”, the social media influence of e-commerce brands in sub-sectors represented by UNice is growing rapidly .
As a wig brand that focuses on meeting the needs of African-American female users, UNice has risen 23 places in the overall list this time, and entered the TOP30 in the overall list. At the same time, in the subdivision list of the e-commerce industry, it also surpassed the “old” e-commerce brands such as PatPat and successfully ranked second in the subdivision list.
Is it getting bigger and bigger and moving towards "big and complete" like SHEIN? Or is it more and more subdivided, like UNice, to provide the ultimate experience for vertical customers?
The future development trend of e-commerce going overseas seems to be at a fork in the road.
In today's article, we will take SHEIN and UNice, which are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the e-commerce list, as examples to explore from the perspective of social media marketing.
SHEIN
From clothing brand to "life brand", SHEIN loves "storytelling" more on social media
The ultimate demand for e-commerce brands must point to sales. But for SHEIN, the way to gain sales on social media is gradually transforming from overwhelming advertisements to telling the "story" of each category.
According to the latest report data from mobile data platform Apptopia, in the first half of 2022, in the global shopping app download list, SHEIN surpassed Amazon and became the most popular shopping app after Meesho and Shopee. This means that the opponents who compete with SHEIN on the same stage are all "platform e-commerce" in the public perception.
Judging from the actual performance of SHEIN's sales categories, the current SHEIN can indeed meet consumers' most fashion-related shopping needs.
In April this year, SHEIN just launched the environmental protection product line evoluSHEIN. In addition, according to incomplete statistics, SHEIN also has five first-class categories of women's clothing, plus-size women's clothing, men's clothing, children's clothing, and home furnishing. And dozens of secondary product categories such as tops, dresses, beachwear, sportswear, footwear accessories, underwear, home furnishing, pets, office...etc.
We can also see this trend from SHEIN's social media marketing. Take the global page of the Instagram platform with the highest rating on the OS homepage of SEHIN this quarter as an example.
- The global page takes the product line as the benchmark, and launches more life-related "story": As mentioned above, SHEIN's product categories are gradually expanding and penetrate into all aspects of fashion life. These product lines have also become the story lines of SHEIN's social media platform.
Therefore, from the global Instagram page of SHEIN, we can see a multi-dimensional display including women's clothing, swimwear, nail art, etc. In the content of the same period, traditional e-commerce "leaflet" pictures with obvious product introductions and promotions, the number of likes and comments is obviously lower than that of real people appearing on the scene and highly storytelling.
- Short videos become traffic passwords, and consumers gain recognition in “out-of-the-box”: When we obtained the most popular Q2 posts on the homepage through marketing cloud products, we found that 4 of the TOP10 most interactive posts were in vertical screens "Unboxing" short videos.
Instagram's mainstream "exquisite style" no longer attracts users' attention. Instead, the unadorned cover, the SHEIN packaging bag caught in the hand, and the excited or anticipatory expression of the video protagonist have attracted consumers' attention this quarter. The strongest resonance.
People pursue the unknown of "unboxing" and the experience of sharing the joy of shopping together, so SHEIN also seizes this trend and uses more similar videos to gain consumer recognition.
unique
"Large" brings goods, "small" interacts, UNice social media matrix plays with vertical e-commerce
Founded in 2011, UNice is a wig company located in Xuchang, Henan Province, focusing on the huge demand of African-American women for changeable hairstyles. UNice has become a leader in this field. And social media is the third-largest entry point for its website traffic.
Starting from a niche market, for vertical e-commerce brands like UNice, the most important thing is to be as close as possible to consumers, keep abreast of changes in their preferences, and respond quickly; more advanced techniques are Guide their preferences through marketing content.
On the Instagram platform, UNice adopts a matrix marketing method that combines "large size + small size" - traditional products and promotions through the Official account (official "large size"), and then through the use of effects and hairstyle tutorials for The main "trumpet" uses a combination of surveying user preferences and mobilizing interaction to continuously divert traffic to each other for the two accounts, and also collect user opinions on social media for brands.
Like the videos for hair styling and beautification of wigs, UNice's official "big" @unicehair is sure to include product prices, offers and links to purchase direct-to-sale content.
On the "trumpet" @unicehairwigs, it emphasizes more on the brand and the wig itself, mobilizing users' interest in video content.
In addition to UNice, this e-commerce segment list includes sportswear brand halara, eco-friendly shoes VIVAIA, women's luggage brand Ecosusi and other rising stars of e-commerce brands rooted in sub-categories. Although the methods adopted are different, for vertical e-commerce brands, building social media influence has gradually become a marketing strategy that attaches equal importance to simple "traffic and goods".
2022Q2 List Interpretation 02 Conclusion
Giants are still working hard, and vertical brands are trying to niche markets. For Chinese e-commerce brands going overseas, whether they are "big and complete" or "small and beautiful", they have entered the stage of building brand power.
Nowadays, major social media platforms take "social e-commerce" and its corresponding functions as the focus of platform development. For e-commerce brands, social media is also inseparable from the shaping of word-of-mouth and influence.
In the next article, we will continue to interpret the 2022Q2 "BrandOS TOP100 Overseas Brand Social Media Influence List" to subdivide industries and typical overseas brand cases, and reply to the keyword [2022Q2] in the background of the official account to download Full list and white paper.