平台霸权之下，电商人怎么活？

This article argues that the era of pure e-commerce has come to an end, with most merchants trapped in a difficult position under platform dominance. It outlines four actionable strategies for e-commerce players to break out of this predicament:

1. Proactively adopt AI to reshape corporate competitiveness. As an inevitable industry trend, AI has been fully implemented across the author’s brands including Inman (Yinman) and Chuyu, driving cost reduction and efficiency gains equivalent to the profit that would come from an additional ¥300 million in sales. Ordinary industry practitioners must learn to leverage AI to boost productivity.

2. Build offline new retail outlets to create a competitive moat. The author began expanding offline in 2015, and Inman now operates more than 600 brick-and-mortar stores. This hybrid online-offline layout prevents merchants from leaving their fate to a single channel; new stores can operate as combined live retail outlets and private domain shops, supported by full-stack enabling services. Physical stores serve as a solid foundation to counter algorithmic dominance.

3. Capitalize on the on-demand retail boom, turning stores into the closest delivery nodes to consumers to capture the efficiency dividend of 30-minute delivery.

4. Build an in-house IP matrix. Both brand owners and store owners can build their own IPs to control independent traffic and bypass algorithmic blocking. One existing case saw annual sales surge from ¥40,000 to ¥20 million after launching an IP strategy.

Most pure e-commerce brands are currently trapped by platform algorithms, reduced to "digital tenant farmers" paying rent to platforms. Platforms’ low-price cutthroat competition rules have stripped brands of their pricing power and erased long-term accumulated brand value. Brands are also stuck in the "seven highs" predicament, leaving no room for R&D and innovation. This article outlines the following paths for brands to break out:

1. For channel development: Brands must end dependence on a single platform, build offline new retail to form a competitive moat, and develop a three-in-one business model combining physical stores, live-stream stores and private domain shops. This model not only supports sales and customer experience but also serves as front-end delivery nodes for on-demand retail, providing resilience to navigate industry cycles.

2. For cost reduction and efficiency improvement: Fully implement AI to rebuild core competitiveness. AI delivers considerable cost cuts and revenue growth for brands; the author’s own brands have achieved profit gains equivalent to an additional ¥300 million in sales after AI adoption.

3. For brand marketing: Build an in-house IP matrix. When brand owners build their own IPs, they earn consumer trust, bypass algorithmic blocking, and connect with supply chain resources. Store owner IPs can also unlock massive incremental sales, helping brands control their own traffic.

Brands should prepare early to capture the dividend of the fast-growing 30-minute on-demand delivery trend.

The old pure e-commerce model has reached its end, and most sellers face "seven highs" risks under platform dominance. Relying solely on platform traffic will only lead to gradual elimination. This article summarizes risk warnings and breakout opportunities for sellers:

1. Risk warning: Operating only on a single online channel and relying entirely on platforms strips sellers of pricing power and traffic autonomy. Ultimately, high traffic costs and cutthroat low-price competition will squeeze out all profits, leaving sellers trapped in losses.

2. Incremental growth opportunities: Sellers can pursue breakout through four key directions: AI-driven cost reduction and efficiency, new physical retail layout, on-demand retail, and IP matrix building. These four areas are the new growth tracks for the future of e-commerce.

3. Actionable opportunities: When laying out offline physical stores, sellers can simultaneously operate online live-stream stores and private domain shops to maximize use of space. This disperses channel risk and allows sellers to capture efficiency dividends by serving as front-end warehouses for on-demand retail.

4. Traffic opportunities: Both brand owners and frontline store owners can build their own IPs to convert platform public traffic into controllable private traffic. One existing case saw annual sales jump from ¥40,000 to ¥20 million through IP building, and IPs also make it easier to connect with high-quality supply chain resources.

The e-commerce industry is undergoing overall transformation, bringing new business opportunities and insights for factories’ digital transformation:

1. Business partnership opportunities: As brands transform through multi-channel layout and IP-based operations, demand for high-quality, stable supply chains has risen sharply. Many brands now source supply chain partners via their public IP channels. Factories can proactively connect with brand IPs to secure cooperation. For example, when the founder of Inman posted a single video looking for children’s clothing supply chains, it attracted more than 100 factories, and 10 eventually secured long-term stable cooperation.

2. Insights for digital transformation: Brands have begun full-scale AI adoption to cut costs and improve efficiency. Factories should also proactively embrace AI, using it to optimize production and design, reduce operating costs, boost core competitiveness, and meet the transformation needs of downstream brands.

3. Insights for self-transformation: Factories can also follow brands’ transformation paths to end dependence on large single-channel clients, build their own online and offline channels, develop in-house IPs to control users and traffic, diversify operational risks, and capture new growth opportunities. The growth of new physical retail and on-demand retail has driven brands’ offline expansion, allowing factories to secure more stable orders by meeting brands’ demand.

The overall e-commerce industry is stuck in a growth predicament under platform dominance, giving rise to a host of new merchant pain points and service demand, opening up new development directions for service providers:

1. Core merchant pain points: The vast majority of e-commerce merchants face seven high costs: high return rates, high paid traffic costs, high labor costs, high supply chain costs, high platform price comparison pressure, high inventory损耗, and high compliance costs. Profits are completely squeezed out by platforms, upstream and downstream players, and merchants urgently need solutions that can cut costs, improve efficiency, and help them end platform dependence.

2. Industry development trends: Merchants are collectively shifting toward four new directions: AI implementation, offline new physical layout, on-demand retail link integration, and in-house IP matrix building. This industry-wide transformation has created massive unmet service demand.

3. Opportunities for service providers: Service providers can develop targeted service products around the four transformation directions, such as AI implementation training, new physical store operation enablement, on-demand retail fulfillment connection, and IP incubation and operation. Enablement services for small and medium-sized e-commerce sellers’ transformation will emerge as a new high-growth track, meeting merchants’ demand for rebuilding organizational capabilities and transitioning to new business models.

The existing model of mainstream e-commerce platforms has triggered widespread discontent among merchants, exposed major flaws, and offered key insights for platforms’ future development:

1. Merchants’ core grievances and demands: Existing platforms control traffic, data, and rule-setting power, use algorithms to encourage low-price cutthroat competition, continuously squeeze merchant profits, strip merchants of pricing power, and erase long-term accumulated brand value, reducing merchants to "digital tenant farmers" paying rent to platforms. The vast majority of merchants are trapped in the "seven highs" loss predicament and generally seek to end single-platform dependence.

2. Risks of the existing model: If platforms continue to maintain current rules and squeeze merchants’ living space, a large number of merchants will exit and move to new channels such as offline new physical retail, in-house IPs, and private domains. Ultimately, platforms will lose merchants and supply resources, undermining their long-term development.

3. Potential adjustments for platforms: Platforms can adjust traffic rules and price comparison mechanisms to lower merchants’ traffic costs, protect merchants’ pricing power and accumulated brand value. They can also launch targeted support services and traffic policies aligned with merchants’ transformation needs in AI, new physical retail, and on-demand retail to retain merchants. They can also lay out the on-demand retail track early, connect with offline physical resources, and capture the new growth boom.

China’s e-commerce industry has entered a new development stage, and the old pure-platform e-commerce model has reached its end. The emergence of new problems and new exploratory practices offers high value for industrial research:

1. New industry problems: Leading platforms monopolize traffic and rule-setting power, forming platform dominance. Pure e-commerce merchants are trapped in algorithmic systems, and low-price cutthroat competition has led to excessive profit compression across the entire industrial chain. This has not only made merchant survival difficult but also created social waste such as high return rates and excessive inventory损耗, while suppressing enterprises’ motivation for R&D and innovation, which is not conducive to long-term industrial upgrading.

2. New industry trends and exploratory practices: Leading industry merchants have already tested four new business models: AI-driven organizational upgrading for cost reduction and efficiency, online-offline integrated new physical retail, on-demand retail anchored in offline stores, and traffic control via in-house IP matrices. All these are innovative practices for merchants to counter platform dominance and take control of their own destiny.

3. Insights for policy research: How to regulate platform behavior, prevent platform dominance from squeezing small and medium-sized merchants’ living space, and encourage innovative development of diverse e-commerce formats is a new issue that industrial policy needs to address. These bottom-up breakout efforts by merchants also provide valuable practical samples for industrial transformation.