****" ************ In recent years, WeChat business performance rankings often surface in moments, with listed companies' sales easily exceeding 1 billion yuan, and those below this figure are embarrassed to show their faces. The miracle creators are mostly underdog companies you've never heard of, just emerging recently (using 'underdog' here without any offense), while well-known traditional enterprises rarely make the list. Of course, there are also excellent offline-performing companies and brands entering WeChat business, such as Liby, Hanshu, and Hanhoo, which have entered the WeChat business field with symbolic significance. OSM and Sancao Liangmu, among others, have also done well quietly. However, those achieving this level are few and far between; most brands enter with great fanfare but quickly fade or remain lukewarm. Overall, compared to the frequently heard overnight success stories of underdogs, traditional brands' performance in WeChat business lacks the necessary narrative appeal for those seeking quick success. " 1. Why Traditional Brands Lose to Underdog Companies ▼ Logically, these enterprises should have advantages in R&D, products, planning, and sales promotion over new WeChat business brands. In terms of capability, strength, and resources, there is no reason they should perform worse than WeChat business brands without market foundation. The key to this contrast lies in the distinct 'barbaric growth' late-mover advantages of underdog challengers:

  1. No need to consider existing interest patterns or balance channel relationships Traditional brands entering WeChat business must first consider existing interest patterns and balance channel relationships, especially fearing resistance from original distributors, often hesitating and unable to act boldly. Although initial expectations and enthusiasm are high, in practice, WeChat business remains marginalized within the entire company system, which determines its outcome. New WeChat business brands, having nothing to lose, roll up their sleeves and create miracles in this new ecosystem. This is similar to the early e-commerce period when Taobao brands thrived while offline brands faced constant criticism.
  2. Difficult supervision and unprincipled marketing Selling goods on Moments is currently difficult to supervise, essentially a lawless area. Many WeChat business brands dare to sell 'three-no' products (no production license, no quality inspection, no legal address), while traditional brands have passed the primitive accumulation stage and begin to cherish their reputation, unwilling to ruin the brand they've worked hard to build. Traditional cosmetics brands dare not casually deceive without a 'Special Cosmetics Production License'; enterprises themselves must pass psychological and legal hurdles. Those WeChat business brands' unprincipled deception sometimes stems from 'ignorance is fearless'—because they may not know that without special certification, they cannot advertise special effects, and some may not even know that cosmetics must be filed before sale. In such cases, law-abiding brands are at a disadvantage on Moments.
  3. Relying on channel fission and maximizing incentive mechanisms So far, WeChat business mainly relies on channel fission. To fission quickly, the incentive mechanism must be maximized at the distributor level, focusing on recruiting agents and wholesale, essentially profiting from small and medium agents. This is why we occasionally see people on Moments showing off piles of money—it's bait for recruiting agents. Traditional brands have basically formed a 'distributor—retail store—consumer' channel model, following the path of channel flattening, and are embarrassed to reverse history by adding too many intermediate levels. WeChat business brands have no such ideological baggage; they immediately adopt multi-level distribution, with three or four levels visible and three or four hidden, frankly not much different from pyramid schemes. Without enough small and medium agents, terminal sales cannot rise, eventually leading to a vicious cycle. In contrast, WeChat business brands, from the start, don't think too much; they just want to collect more agent fees. Therefore, booming WeChat businesses mostly play the game of harvesting small and medium agents. 2. Revolutionary Factors Behind WeChat Business Prosperity ▼ Of course, attributing WeChat business miracles entirely to 'late-mover advantages' is clearly unfair. WeChat business's significant impact on traditional commerce stems from its inherent revolutionary factors:
  4. New forces and creative gameplay WeChat business as a whole is the battlefield of the new generation; the new generation are natives of the mobile internet world, adept at new gameplay, and the WeChat-based marketing system is entirely constructed by them. Bold thinking and action are advantages, with many creative gameplay methods; otherwise, how could they overtake on curves? In contrast, founders of traditional brands lack both the ability and motivation to play business on social media like newcomers. With accumulated wealth, they generally don't want to stir things up or take risks. Some think simply and hand it over to young employees, hoping they'll take the lead. Little do they know that for a strategically significant new venture, if the top leader doesn't 'get their hands wet,' the probability of success is near zero. WeChat business is essentially a model that promotes market metabolism, reshapes market structure, and lets new forces rise.
  5. Low channel barriers and low entrepreneurial costs Traditional channels, after long evolution, have solidified in rules and personnel, with severe fragmentation and high barriers; everything must follow old rules, and channel transaction costs rise year by year, making it hard for newcomers to enter due to high trust costs, hindering channel expansion and fission. In contrast, WeChat business channels only require WeChat to play; channel barriers and entrepreneurial costs are low, attracting many young people with open minds. People from all over, never having met, can cooperate just by adding WeChat, and dare to pay hundreds of thousands in agent fees without meeting. This system expands particularly fast.
  6. Broad mass base and high efficiency Doing WeChat business is the fastest way to become a boss; previously, one needed to rent a storefront, but now a phone suffices. This provides a vast mass base for WeChat business fission—China has no shortage of people. Since every WeChat businessperson works for themselves, they learn what they don't know, try every means to develop customers, and are highly efficient. Many stay-at-home moms and novices dreaming of financial freedom through WeChat business may be looked down upon by traditional enterprises, so they turn to new forces, and thus 'ant soldiers' achieve WeChat business brands.
  7. WeChat business is essentially sharing economy Traditional enterprises have fixed thinking in branding: they prefer stars and ads, making it high-end; otherwise, they feel users won't pay and channels won't respond. But everyone overlooks a key point: WeChat business is essentially a product of the sharing economy. Many think WeChat business exploits acquaintances and overdraws Moments, but they don't realize that the products they sell are basically used by themselves. WeChat businesspeople show off products they use daily. Although many offline-origin brands have celebrity endorsements, everyone knows celebrities don't actually use them; in this regard, WeChat business screen swiping is more persuasive than celebrity endorsements. Having discussed these advantages and disadvantages, in short, the key to WeChat business lies in rapid fission, which is based on WeChat's unparalleled diffusion as a social tool and the trust endorsement of Moments—don't think pure deception can succeed. The cost and price of lying in WeChat friend groups are much higher than in e-commerce—everyone's WeChat includes mostly friends and family. Traditional brands are too deeply influenced by existing models, with severe path dependence, and switching both thinking and tools is not easy. Source: "Sales and Marketing" Magazine Management Edition -END-