Who Is Making You Eat Dirt Behind the Shopping Carnival?
by Super Neuro
Most young people should start their day in a similar way:
I got up and checked my phone. Half of the things I bought in the middle of the night on December 12 have been shipped. I scraped together enough money to pay off my Huabei loan a few days ago, but it’s only been five days since I had to pay off my credit card bill at the beginning of the month.
Look around your home, open your drawers, look through your makeup bag, look at your desk, and you'll find a lot of things you don't use and don't want to throw away, but you can't remember why you bought them.
I opened my Kindle, logged into Steam, and opened Zhihu Live. I also had a bunch of subscribed courses, games, and books that I had never read.
We are not an exception. According to statistics from this year's Double Eleven, there were nearly 500 million active online consumers participating in this grand shopping feast. According to statistics from credit institutions, the debt of Chinese people born in the 1990s is 18.5 times their monthly income, with an average debt of 120,000 yuan per person, ranking first among their peers in other Asian countries.
It’s only one month away from Double 11, and Alipay’s Huabei red envelopes have swept the circle of friends in the past few days, encouraging everyone to continue shopping.
Technology is creating your additional needs
Cheap and fast e-commerce, ever-changing payment methods and credit, and booming new media and social networks have enabled young people to draw a lot of joy from life, but have also drained their energy and pockets.
This is actually the encirclement of young people by Internet technology, and Double Eleven is a roundup operation aimed at reaping the benefits.
You don’t have to wait until you open Taobao or JD.com. From the moment you pick up your smartphone and scroll through social media, brands and shopping platforms are eyeing your data.
Zhang Xiaohua
3 years of experience as a designer
Consumption type: beauty products, women's clothing, celebrities
Work income: 15,000 before tax
Hobbies: Yoga, movies, music
1. Social Insights: Merchants and platforms work together to set traps for you
Zhang Xiaohua found that she had been under great mental pressure during the past few years of work. She had acne and fine lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. She was so busy with work that she had no time to take care of herself and she became less and less particular about her clothes.
She was so scared that she quickly followed a fewBeauty V , saw their five-point girlAmateur transformation, each of them became a fairy, Zhang Xiaohua admired them very much.
In the big VPlanting grassNext, she bought threeBeauty Instrument, applied to different parts of the face; I bought 7 of them, the colors are similar, but the blogger said that delicate girls must have themLipstick; Even for her favoriteIdol, bought a full set of men's shampoo products.
Many brands use crawlers to capture entertainment information from the entire Internet. By collecting data on each celebrity and collecting and analyzing the exposure of celebrities on social media, they can accurately describe and then analyze the commercial value of celebrity artists, as well as their personality, temperament, recent works, and future development potential.
Through these data, brands can confirm their spokespersons, title them as cooperation ambassadors, celebrity experience officers, etc., and attract more fans.
After launching products that are more in line with market expectations, designing a publicity strategy that touches people's hearts, and then combining it with carefully designed shopping guides by various beauty bloggers, the sales of these "carefully designed" products can easily exceed one million.
Even in recent years, driven by Xiaohongshu and beauty KOLs, many dormant European and American brands have been revived by the amazing purchasing power of Chinese people, which makes people sigh: It's so easy to make money from women.
2. Algorithmic recommendation: Try your best to stimulate original sin
Zhang Xiaohua watches TV series and Douyin every night, and likes to collect funnyPet VideosBecause her roommate was allergic to animal hair, Zhang Xiaohua had to post a video on Douyin.Cloud Dog Raising.
She can clearly remember the names of all the pets she cares about, their owners'Tik Tok accountand their living habits.
Five minutes on Tik Tok is like an hour in the real world.
I swiped again and again, looked again and again, and it seemed that there was never an end to the interesting content.
Users immerse themselves in the colorful world that best suits their aesthetic tastes and spending power, constantly swiping out their favorite pets, the opposite sex they admire, the vacation spots they want to visit, and constantly swiping out the life they have never experienced but yearn for.
These content communities know their users better than their own mothers, including each user’s age distribution, city, usage time, interests, spending power, and so on.
As long as they use appropriate recommendations and guidance, they can keep users in their apps, convert their love into rewards, convert their attention into advertising, and convert their curiosity into consumption.
3. Promotional trap: If you don’t buy, you’ll lose out
In the past few days, Zhang Xiaohua's circle of friends and WeChat groups have been occupied by Alipay red envelopes. The various red envelope messages make her feel angry and funny.
go through 11.11 After a night of fighting, she seemed to have no energy left for 12.12 She contributed too much, but she was pulled into a shopping group by her colleagues. Seeing everyone grabbing red envelopes of a few or dozens of yuan, she always felt that she was "You'll lose out if you don't participate."
Cash back for attracting new customers, cash back for sharing, cash back for opening red envelopes, and cash back for annual membership allow us to receive greetings from friends we haven’t contacted for a long time from time to time.
During this year's Double Eleven, many people were confused by the complicated discount calculation method, membership level system, and annual and monthly packages, leaving consumers with no idea whether they were saving money or spending more money.
The various promotional methods used by merchants and the exaggerated shopping guide pictures always create a “It’s really the cheapest to buy it now!”The app also keeps pushing you "8 hours left before the event ends", "There is still a 20 yuan coupon that has not been used.", "Five people are browsing this out-of-print item with you!"
For the current main consumer groups, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, they have basically never experienced a period of material scarcity or resource shortage. Moreover, the long-term healthy economic development and sustained income growth have made them more impulsive to consume. "Show your personality", Consumption UpgradeUnder the influence of the concept and the high convenience of P2P, it seems that the most important thing in life is shopping.
You and I have already been deeply tricked
In Greek mythology, there is a "Sword of Damocles"According to the story, Damocles was a minister of the lord Dionysius II, and he liked to flatter Dionysius very much. Dionysius proposed to exchange identities with him for a day, so that he could experience the fate of the leader.
On the day of the exchange of identities, Damocles enjoyed the feeling of being a king. When the dinner was almost over, he looked up and noticed the sword hanging above the throne with only a horsehair. Damocles immediately lost interest in food and beauty and asked the tyrant to let him go. He never wanted to have such luck again.
later "Sword of Damocles"It is also used to describe "resource exchange with fatal costs".
The Internet products that we are addicted to and dependent on are like a "Sword of Damocles". Although they allow us to easily obtain massive amounts of information, browse content that we enjoy, and create happiness in our lives more efficiently.
But behind the swiping, what are being exchanged are one's most authentic habits and privacy. These are becoming the entry point for e-commerce players, creating a large amount of additional consumption impulse among users.
If you don't believe me, look, the sword is hanging over your head.