China Internet Watch

How Watsons China’s online sales almost doubled in 2021

CIW Team — Tue, 31 May 2022 00:00:48 +0000

Watsons China's total revenue in 2021 was HK$22.77 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14%, the largest increase in the past five years. Watsons' online sales increased by 94%, providing a strong impetus for the recovery of performance.

Watsons' long-term digital transformation has initially yielded fruitful results, which has become its biggest driving force to resist risks.

In February 2020, Watson's WeChat mini program was officially launched, which means that the private domain is becoming its new home. The reason for the change stems from Watsons' deep insight into consumers.

Watsons noted that post-90s and Gen-Z consumers focus on online convenience and offline experience. The traditional O2O marketing strategy unilaterally drives customers from one platform to another, thus increasing sales.

Watsons implements the O+O platform strategy, breaking the limitations of O2O in the past, and becoming closer to the needs of customers so that they can experience products,...

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9 Brands’ great results from WeChat Mini Program live streaming campaigns

CIW Team — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 01:00:41 +0000

The epidemic stopped the offline stores from opening for business. To keep the service to consumers uninterrupted, many offline shopping guides transformed themselves to webcasters and brought excess growth of traffic and turnover to brands.

Here are nine brands that took the lead in showing their achievements according to WeChat.

Alibaba’s DingTalk beat WeChat in total downloads amid coronavirus outbreak

Brands like Innisfree, a beauty make-up brand, Septwolves, UrbanRevivo, Lily, Jack&Jones, VeroModa, MISS SIXTY, Ochirly, retailer Watson, Rainbow, Jiangxiaobai, have all been connected to the Mini Program’s live streaming. Let’s see some quick case studies below.

An Jiao La, a beauty make-up blogger recently launched a live streaming session at the webcast room of the “Perfect Diary Member Store” Mini Program.

This is the first time that she made sales in the form of a live streaming. She demonstrated beauty make-up products in front of over a hundred thousand people.

Perfect Diary Live Stream on WeChat Mini Program

In two and a half hours, the live broadcast received 1.709 million likes. Products like Queen’s Day Gift Box, Make-up Brush Set were sold out, the average sales volume of the Mini Program live broadcast sessions increased by 8 times.

How Taobao’s social affiliate platform Taoxiaopu works

In February 2020, WeChat Mini Program live broadcast of the fashion brand Perfect Diary saw the average number of people watching the show increased three to ten times from the previous month, while the purchase conversion rate was two to three times higher than other platforms, according to WeChat.

Han Guang Bai Huo on WeChat Live Mini Program

The retail brand Han Guang Bai Huo first tested live broadcast of its franchised stores, which witnessed over 10 thousand views per session and online sales increase of 300% for a single item within one day.

VGRASS, a women’s apparel brand, presented a brilliant result of its debut webcast on the 26th of February – over 120K views of a single session, 740 thousand interaction and likes.

The short two and half hours live streaming created sales value of over 1 million yuan, with the average order value of 2,500 yuan while the highest single item price was 8700 yuan.

Another women’s apparel brand Eifini debuted on the 6th of February, the number of the Mini Program visits increased by 566% compared with the previous month while the sales increased by 372% over the previous month.

On February 21, the debut of the women’s apparel brand Inman‘s live streaming attracted over 1 million views and gained 260 thousand likes; and, total comments during the live broadcast exceeded 110 thousand.

BBG, a retail brand, launched the live streaming function on its Mini Program on February 26, within the first 30 minutes, the sales exceeded 400 thousand yuan, the click to purchase conversion rate of the debut session was 15.3%.

The number of new users of the beauty make-up brand Misifu’s Mini Program – Misifu Smart Store, increased by 500% over the previous month since the brand launched Mini Program live broadcast on February 18.

The sales increased by 300% and the average transaction value increased by 70% respectively as compared to the previous month.

The leisure clothing brand Fast Fish gained 200 thousand views through its debut Mini Program live streaming on February 5, which ended with sales of 500 thousand yuan. The next day, the sales soared to 1.3 million yuan.

Out of the 1.135 million yuan sales of the fashion branch Aike, which was gained during its debut Mini Program live broadcast back in November of 2019, about 200 thousand yuan was contributed by new users.

All the above-mentioned brands have leveraged WeChat Mini Program live streaming function, which was officially developed by the WeChat team.

Check out our business guide to WeChat Mini Program live streaming

Watsons partners with NetEase in offline retail

CIW Team — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00:25 +0000

The roughly 3-year-old NetEast Yanxuan co-branded with Watsons to form a sub-brand as a brick-and-mortar retail store featured with life aesthetics. It launched in Pazhou Poly Plaza, Guangzhou on January 19, 2019.

Yanxuan, one of NetEase's e-commerce platform, focuses on select daily living products since 2016. It's the first on the original design manufacturer (ODM) model.

In a black & white minimalist style, the 250 square feet store showcases an array of products ranging from Watsons' cosmetics and personal care to Yanxuan's daily necessity, bedding products, and smart home, etc.