Since Beijing municipal government began to withdraw its support for low-end industry such as retailing and gave up functions that aren’t suitable for the capital, almost no retailing markets were left in Beijing, even in the suburban areas.

　　Big Feng was responsible for taking pictures for products and update products info pictures, while Stone acted as the model. On February 25th, Taobao adjusted its regulations and requirements for product info pictures and store design and would distribute traffic based on these new requirements. Since Stone’s stores didn’t fit the new set of requirements, they had to re-decorate their stores.

　　“Out traffic dropped by a half during this period. It took us a long time to figure out why,” Stone said.

　　To win back the half traffic, we had to pay RMB 2,000 per day. According to the new set of requirements, Taobao preferred to recommend online stores with distinctive styles. Online stores whose decoration style may undermine the overall brand image of Taobao will be distributed to less traffic. However, based on Stone’s years of online store management experience, there was something paradoxical in Taobao’s new set of requirements.

　　“On the one hand, Taobao seems to encourage online shop owners to figure out their own style and improve user purchase experience; on the other hand, stores that sell inexpensive products still grab the biggest share of traffic,” he explained.

　　Online stores on Taobao are often divided into seven layers based on their turnover. Stores that have the highest turnover often fall in the fifth to seventh layer.

　　“These online stores account for 15 per centof all stores,but grab 70 per centof all the traffic. Of course, owners of these stores often have strong business operation capability,” he added.

　　STHOME was their online store’s American street style clothing brand name. However, they failed to make it as popular as expected. When they decided to build their brand in 2015, their sales dropped, so they had no choice but give up the idea. For a small online shop on Taobao, it takes a solid customer base, strong design, storage management and digestion capability as well as strong cash support to experiment original brands and succeed. Only then can you find appropriate upstream factories and carry on experimenting new products.

　　At the end of every month, they would sell the rest products on a clearance sale via Stone’s WeChat friends circle. He left his WeChat ID on the homepage of their Taobao store, and around 3,000 customers have already added his WeChat account. In fact, this also serves as a precautionary measure for Stone in case of any abrupt change on Taobao.

　　“The policies are constantly changing. If all my customers are from Taobao, I will end up nothing if my store was banned one day,” Stone explained.

　　Since I’ve already accumulated a group of loyal customers on WeChat, I may be able to rise up again one day.

　　As a matter of fact, Stone could sell 27 pairs of pants within a few minutes with free shipping via WeChat friends circle. Stone’s concern didn’t come out of thin air. Before Alibaba went public, Stone only had one store. However, after Alibaba’s IPO, Stone’s store was reported for “clothes style piracy” and suspended for a month. Although his store reopened a month later, customers couldn’t find it through internal search engine. Nevertheless, Stone managed to regain the store’s popularity, though at first the ads fee could reach as high as RMB 60,000 per month.

　　“Fortunately, we could earn at least RMB 200,000 every month. However, ads fee was getting increasingly expensive, especially after Alibaba’s IPO. In our peak time, ads fee only accounted for 5 per cent of our expenditure; at present, however, this figure already rose to 20 per cent,” he explained.

　　A customer service card is included in every package to encourage customers to leave positive comments in exchange for subsidies and warn customers of the potential impact of negative comments.

　　“Our sales could even be reduced by a half due to a piece of negative comment,” he told TMTpost.

　　They often encounter customers who blackmailed them by threatening to leave negative comments. “For example, there was a customer who bought our products for several times within two years. However, he would apply for ‘no return of goods & refund’ every time, complaining whether the product doesn’t have any lable or is counterfeit,” he said, “we can do nothing but refund the money. We don’t bother to argue with such customers. After all, we would be overwhelmed by negative feelings if we do so, and as long as such customers don’t leave any negative comment, we can bear the cost.”

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