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Over the past year, macroeconomic and social consumption data have both demonstrated a consistently improving trend in our country’s market recovery. Online retail sales of physical goods increased by 8.4%, accounting for 27.6% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, reaching a historic high and becoming an important force driving economic growth through consumption. What is the underlying driving force behind this growth? Where will the new consumer increment come from in 2024? How can brands seize new consumer opportunities?
The 2024 Tmall Consumer Trend Report unveils them one by one.
In a relatively stable overall growth environment, we observe the online retail landscape and find the continuous evolution of consumption.
Consumer evolution constitutes the underlying force for growth
Four major types point to the future of new consumption
In the “2023 Consumer Star-Gazing Action” initiated by the Taotian Group among more than 5000 consumers, 57% of consumers believe the most important thing in life is to be as happy as possible. However, at the same time, practicality and comparison shopping remain their underlying disposition, with 77% of consumers indicating that they consider practicality and compare options when shopping.
We have found that today’s consumers are multi-dimensional; they are not simply rational or emotional but “intelligently” emotional, meaning they have a deeper understanding of consumption, clearer judgment of their own needs and external supply, thereby appearing more adept in their consumer behavior.
Consumer evolution four quadrants, source: “2024 Tmall Consumer Trend Report”
Consumers on the mental level possess both rationality and emotionality, and in behavior, they delve deeper into explorations both internally and externally, thereby manifesting four typical characteristics:
“Inward-focused” represents consumers paying attention to their own feelings, driven by the desire for emotional satisfaction, propelling the growth of interest-driven and emotional healing consumption;
“Beauty Seeker” represents consumers’ desire to delve into the trendy world, be at the forefront of fashion, and explore diverse cultures, which also drives the growth of fashion and aesthetic-based consumption;
“Outbound” signifies consumers’ continuous exploration outward, actively experiencing new consumption trends, and their rational characteristics of discernment and judgment before making purchases, propelling the growth of categories such as outdoor sports;
“Micro-view” represents people’s ability to discern individual needs in their daily essentials, pursuing professional functionality and satisfaction in details, driving the emergence of a greater number of niche consumer categories.
These four major consumption trends display the changes in consumer mentalities and are reshaping the consumption landscape, bringing about a new wave of growth trends.
8 Major Trend Assertions, 41 Trend Scenarios
Identifying Growth Peaks through Marked Trends
Underneath the four major population trends of centrality, beauty, going viral, and micro-observation, new characteristics have emerged in category consumption. These trend categories represent new consumer needs and are the incremental spaces delineating future growth. Through data from the Tmall platform, we’ve observed diversified category growth trends and summarized 8 Major Trend Assertions and 41 Trend Scenarios worth paying attention to in 2024.
The 8 Major Trend Assertions and 41 Trend Scenarios worth noting in 2024, source: “Tmall 2024 Annual Consumer Trend Report”
As consumers increasingly focus on the fulfillment of emotional value, wishing to pamper themselves through consumption, interest-based and therapeutic products have become their favorites. This has spurred the trend of “Loving What I Love” that drives interest-based spending and the trend of “Slow Healing” geared towards health and well-being.
Meanwhile, consumers concerned with beauty and trends are constantly integrating aesthetic demands into categories such as clothing and home furnishings. They hope their outfits will adapt to different settings and their living spaces will have more style, reflecting their aspirations for lifestyle and cultural desires, also driving the consumption trends of “Runway Innovation” and “Home Comes First.”
The desire to go outdoors and explore the wider world has been a prominent consumption trend over the past year. Consumers yearning to blend with nature head for the “Endless Wilds,” those wanting to broaden their life’s horizons embark on “Local Explorations,” and those wanting to experience the future opt for “Technological Coexistence.” These trends are also propelling the rapid growth of outdoor sports, equipment, and technological innovation products.
Additionally, consumers are taking up the eightfold glass, magnifying every detail of daily life, and experiencing a “Magnified Life.” Their requirements for products are becoming increasingly stringent, seeking not only to satisfy basic functions but also to obtain targeted and effective solutions.
Learn more about the 41 Trend Scenarios
Discover shifts in population and merchandise, capture new business growth
Click to access the “Tmall 2024 Annual Consumer Trend Report” ā
Find replicable trend marketing methods
Tmall PRO Trend Increment Model
As many new consumer trends have emerged, new opportunities for growth have arisen. But how can businesses discover new consumer trends earlier? How to accelerate the penetration of trends? How to drive the explosion of trends? Based on big data on consumption, merchant research, and combining platform capabilities with operational experience, Tmall has summarized a systematic method for trend growth, the “PRO” Trend Increment ModelāTrend Insight (Point-out) ā Trend Emergence (Release) ā Trend Explosion (Outcome). “PRO” not only stands for professional but also flagship, highlighting Tmall’s offering of more professional and systematic trend increment capabilities for brandsāhelping brands better seize opportunities, plan in advance, and achieve growth through leveraging trends.
Tmall PRO Trend Incremental Model
Firstly, it’s about the insight into trends, pinpointing the trend from massive market data to determine the next marketing move. Merchants can establish a “Data Grid” model, on one hand scanning the entire market, capturing big data from various channels, and on the other hand focusing precisely on the personalized needs of the brand, digging into small data of target groups. By combining big and small data, a series of data grids are formed. Then, conduct in-depth research on trend-sensitive pioneer consumers to form concrete trend predictions.
Next, in the trend initiation stage, it’s necessary to achieve large-scale target audience penetration. Merchants need to anchor the target audience, identify macro consumption trends in the industry, and then use Tmall’s Strategy Crowd 2.0 with its multidimensional and refined crowd classification and tagging tools to help brands capture precise target groups in specific trend markets. Additionally, it’s important to strengthen trend penetration capabilities, utilizing AI technology, building trend operation mechanisms, and enhancing trend supply to reach more users across different settings.
Finally, in the stage of igniting trend explosions, companies need to create a marketing matrix of marketing ignition, daily promotion, and cyclical re-ignition to capture business increments under trends throughout the entire cycle. Over the past few years, Tmallās āTrend Marketingā system has been built on this logic, from predicting consumer trends in advance, to strengthening consumers’ perception of trends through Tmall’s unique marketing, operations, and technology capabilities, thus providing merchants with stronger acceleration to grow with trends.
Mu Er, General Manager of Tmall Market Department at Taotian Group, stated: “One of Tmall’s core strengths is systematic marketing capabilities. This marketing power is from the user’s perspective; we capture consumption trends from the user’s angle and arrange the organization and presentation of categories, merchants, and goods. Trends represent the new increments in the consumer sector, whether it is to cater to large trends or changes within smaller trends under the large ones, we will take small quick steps, conduct rapid tests, quick launches, and respond promptly to user needs.
At the same time, we also influence merchants, urging them to increase their investment based on user demand, thereby realizing the expansion of their business scale.”
Liu Yue | Text
Liu Yue is the Director of Planning at the New Media Center of Harvard Business Review Chinese Edition
Harvard Business Review Chinese Edition Contact Information
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