text | Handset tech
JD.com couldn’t find its own “Dong Yuhui”, so Liu Qiangdong “went off in person” to do the live broadcast.
At 6:18 pm on April 16, JD.com’s sales staff shouted the slogan “Three two one, welcome Dong Ge digital people” in the live broadcast room. Liu Qiangdong transformed into an AI digital person and appeared at JD Home Appliances and JD Supermarkets at the same time. Two live broadcast rooms for purchasing and selling officially launched the "live broadcast debut".
Of course, this is not Liu Qiangdong himself. The anchor in the live broadcast room who sits upright, is slightly fat, and has a small bunch of white hair in the middle of his forehead is just Liu Qiangdong's digital identity, and is called JD.com's "Purchasing Brother".
The first batch of products delivered that night included agricultural products such as meat, eggs, milk, rice, flour, grains and oils, as well as electrical products such as air conditioners and televisions. For this debut of "Purchasing and Marketing Dongge", JD.com also prepared many benefits, such as the 2024 European Cup Finals tickets, 618 yuan supermarket card, etc.
Since the "Mingzhou Incident", although Liu Qiangdong has made a strong comeback, led JD.com's strategic transformation, and issued some important internal letters, he has almost never appeared in public, so the outside world is full of confidence in Liu Qiangdong's live broadcast. Out of curiosity, some people even waited in the live broadcast room in advance.
But "Purchasing and Marketing Dong Ge" did not impress everyone, and even caused many people to complain.
Some people think that the digital person does not reflect Liu Qiangdong's personality and characteristics; others said, "It feels a bit strange to see an unreal Liu Qiangdong live broadcast"; others bluntly said, "The live broadcast lacks emotional value and interaction time, unattractive."
Although "Purchasing and Marketing Dongge" only aired for about half an hour that night and was hurriedly taken off the air. Many people were a little confused about JD.com's launch of digital live broadcast this time, but the live broadcast still brought good traffic.
When "Purchasing and Marketing Dongge" was first broadcast that night, the number of viewers in both live broadcast rooms was more than 2 million. After two or three minutes of broadcasting, the number of viewers exceeded 3 million. When the broadcast ended, the number of viewers in the two live broadcast rooms were respectively Both reached more than 11 million, and the number of likes in the live broadcast room was also higher than usual.
In the past few years, JD.com has missed the upsurge of live streaming e-commerce. In the past two years, it has intentionally increased its live streaming to bring goods, but it has been unable to find a big anchor. Therefore, it can only vigorously promote JD.com’s purchasing and selling live streaming rooms, but it has always been unable to do so due to the lack of an experienced person. Influential anchor but less attractive.
’s launch of Liu Qiangdong’s digital live broadcast is a prelude to JD.com’s efforts in live streaming and content e-commerce. A few days ago, on April 10, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion yuan in cash and 1 billion traffic as rewards to attract more original authors and high-quality content institutions to settle in.
can see that after fully implementing the low-price strategy in 2023, JD.com will increase its content layout this year. However, for JD.com, which lacks content genes, the pressure to produce content is not small.
Unpopular Digital Live Broadcast
Wang Qin, who works in Beijing, is an old user of JD.com, and her annual spending on JD.com is not low. When she saw the news of Liu Qiangdong’s Digital Live Broadcast two days ago, she was looking forward to it and used her own She said, "Firstly, out of curiosity, I want to see how Liu Qiangdong's appearance has changed in recent years; secondly, I want to find a bargain and see how big the discounts are in the live broadcast room."
But when she saw "Brother Dong, the buyer and seller" "At the first glance, I was a little disappointed. Wang Qin said bluntly to "Tingtong Tech (id: tingngtech)": "Liu Qiangdong's personality and characteristics cannot be seen at all from this digital person, and there is no interaction in the live broadcast room. It was a bit embarrassing, and I quit after watching it for a while.”
Wang Qin believes that the appearance and appearance of the digital person are closer to Liu Qiangdong himself, but “the expression and movements are too simple, and the speech is too serious, it feels like he is reading a manuscript. , not vivid at all, looks weird.”
Xiao Ning, who watched the live broadcast, also said bluntly to "Handset Tech", "It felt a bit weird to see an unreal Liu Qiangdong recommending products in a serious manner, and I was not interested in watching it."
Xiao Ning said that he could not understand why JD.com would launch digital live broadcasting. “It neither reflects the characteristics of live broadcasting nor the advancement of JD.com’s AI technology, nor can we see JD.com’s sincerity in launching this type of live broadcasting.” ."
Wang Qin even thinks that using digital people to live broadcast feels like perfunctory, and it is better to watch the recorded video. In her opinion, JD.com will not only fail to attract users, but will also disgust old users like her.
In small According to Ning, the main reason why users love to watch live broadcasts is because the anchors are real people. They can get emotional value from the anchors, feel the atmosphere of the live broadcast room, or participate in interactions. Digital live broadcasts cannot achieve this effect at all
. In fact, digital human live broadcasting has been widely used. According to iiMedia data, China's virtual human core market size will be 12.08 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 94.2%, and it is expected to reach 48.06 billion yuan in 2025.
China ai. The top five industries in demand for products in the digital human industry are e-commerce and health, social security and social welfare, education, finance and transportation. Especially in the e-commerce industry, the low-cost and high-efficiency characteristics of virtual anchors can provide services. Merchants create greater business increments.
Although digital anchors already have basic AIGC capabilities and can interact based on real-time questions and behaviors of fans and audiences, digital avatars are different from real people after all, and it is difficult to establish emotional connections with users. .
Digital people are suitable for video content, not live broadcasts. This is the consensus of many people. In this sense, it is not that everyone is not interested in Liu Qiangdong’s digital person image, but that they cannot accept digital people’s live broadcasts.
Some netizens said that JD.com should let Liu Qiangdong himself do the live broadcast, or let Liu Qiangdong’s wife “Milk Tea Sister” do the live broadcast. “This is the best way, and it will definitely bring huge traffic. "
If Liu Qiangdong live broadcasts live, it will definitely be regarded as a blockbuster. Among the current major Internet companies, there is no precedent for the founder to live broadcast and deliver goods in person.
In addition, Liu Qiangdong himself has a relatively distinctive personality and also has He has live broadcast experience. As early as before Double Eleven in 2016, Liu Qiangdong personally conducted a live broadcast of cooking. During the live broadcast, he also recommended JD.com’s products and emphasized to everyone that “all ingredients can be purchased from JD.com”
. If the founder brings goods live, the company will invest more manpower and financial resources, which is another heavyweight strategy. Of course, the founder's live broadcast also faces various pressures and risks to keep Liu Qiangdong's current level. and influence, it is unlikely to end in person.
However, JD.com attaches great importance to this live broadcast. Not only did the "JD Home Appliances and Home Furnishings Purchasing and Sales Live Room" and "JD.com Supermarket Purchasing and Sales Live Room" be launched at the same time, it also provided a live broadcast that night. There are many benefits, such as tickets to the 2024 European Cup finals, 618 yuan supermarket cards, etc.
also worked very hard in the early stage of publicity and promotion, and combined Liu Qiangdong’s image IP to create some life-like and entertainment-oriented pictures
. Some people in the industry believe that JD.com may intend to turn "Purchasing and Sales Dongge" into a live broadcaster. However, judging from the current situation, digital live broadcasts are not very popular and may not be a good move for JD.com
. JD.com’s shortcomings in content
The launch of Liu Qiangdong’s digital live broadcast is seen as a prelude to JD.com’s efforts in live streaming and content e-commerce.
Just a few days ago, on April 10, JD.com announced an investment of 1 billion yuan. Cash and 1 billion traffic are used as rewards to attract more original authors and high-quality content institutions, which means that JD.com is increasing its content layout.
In essence, e-commerce is mainly composed of three elements: "people, goods, and places." As a traditional e-commerce company, JD.com has sufficient elements in the first two elements and has great advantages, but it has shortcomings in the "people" aspect.
In recent years, with the prosperity of short videos, live broadcast e-commerce has become more and more popular. The rapid rise of new generation interest e-commerce platforms represented by Douyin and Kuaishou has had a huge impact on traditional e-commerce platforms such as JD.
The rise of live streaming e-commerce is precisely due to the great changes in users’ consumption habits. " The element of "people" has been magnified and become more important, but JD.com has missed this wave of craze.
It was not too late for JD.com to initially deploy live broadcasts to bring goods. As early as 2016, JD.com established a live broadcast business, which is closely related to Taobao Live. It was established around the same time.At that time, Luo Yonghao also held a "Lao Luo Special" on JD.com, and Liu Qiangdong also live broadcasted the cooking in person.
But after getting up early on JD.com, he ended up catching a late episode. JD.com’s live broadcast never made waves. This is related to JD.com’s strategy and the perception of JD.com’s management.
Xu Lei, the former CEO of Jingdong Group, also said in 2019 that live broadcast is a particularly good marketing tool, but don’t build your business on it. Obviously, live broadcast is only used as a tool, not a channel.
By 2020, JD.com has realized the importance of live broadcasting, but it only expanded its live broadcast business by cooperating with Kuaishou. Since then, live streaming has become more and more popular, and interest e-commerce has become an important model of e-commerce business. JD.com I started to exert my strength, but it was too late.
JD.com realized the importance of cultivating its own anchors, and also tried to invite celebrities and well-known entrepreneurs to live broadcast on JD.com. Dong Mingzhu, Wang Feng, Luo Yonghao, Huang Shengyi and his wife all went to JD.com to live broadcast, but these celebrities did not live broadcast on JD.com for a long time. .
JD.com also tried to introduce external top anchors. During the 618 period last year, "Make a Friend" settled on JD.com. Luo Yonghao appeared in the JD.com live broadcast room to start the live broadcast. However, Luo Yonghao is now a top anchor who rarely appears in the live broadcast room. It is even more difficult to appear in the JD live broadcast room.
At the end of 2023, when Dong Yuhui, a top live broadcaster, was having trouble with Oriental Selection, there was news that JD.com was interested in poaching Dong Yuhui, but Dong Yuhui later chose to stay with his original company. After
, JD.com launched an anchor support plan. In January this year, media reported that a JD.com employee issued a notice in a work group, saying that JD.com was urgently formulating an anchor recruitment plan and would not assess GMV or gross profit for the recruited anchors. Wait for the request.
It is self-evident that JD.com is eager to increase the number of live-streaming products. However, the pattern of live-streaming and selling products is now generally formed. In addition, the traffic of JD.com is far less than that of content e-commerce platforms. It is very difficult to cultivate influential anchors. Big, it also takes time.
JD.com, which couldn’t find a big anchor, had to vigorously promote its own purchasing and sales live broadcast room. During last year’s Double Eleven, JD.com’s purchasing and sales live broadcast room promoted Li Jiaqi and gained more attention. However, it always lacked an influential anchor. Less attractive and less distinctive. A large number of facts about
's live broadcast show that it is not enough to become popular just by a certain marketing event. It needs a distinctive core anchor and a persona, otherwise the popularity will be difficult to sustain.
For current e-commerce platforms, it is impossible for the number of users to increase significantly. The focus of competition between platforms is user shopping frequency and user duration.
In this regard, content e-commerce companies such as Douyin and Kuaishou have obvious advantages, while Taobao and JD.com, which lack sources of content traffic, are at a disadvantage. This is why JD.com announced this time that it will invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic to layout content.
However, JD.com, which does not naturally have content advantages, has great difficulty in creating content. Compared with platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, JD.com lacks experience in content creation, distribution, and community operations. It is difficult to establish and improve the content ecosystem. Infrastructure also takes time.
Moreover, JD.com has not established a content mentality among users. Some users told "Handset Tech" that they usually come to JD.com after thinking about what they want to buy, and then withdraw after buying. "Producing and sharing content on JD.com is a Strange things.”
is struggling to cope with pressure
Whether it is launching digital live broadcasts or investing heavily in content, behind it is the cruel reality that JD.com is facing multiple pressures.
Live streaming e-commerce fell behind and lost its low-price advantage. At the same time, it faced competitive pressure from Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou. JD.com became anxious and began to transform.
In addition to increasing content layout and supporting live broadcast e-commerce, JD.com also has an important strategy to fully promote low prices.
Since 2023, JD.com has launched a low-price strategy. First, it launched the "Ten Billion Subsidy" with unprecedented intensity, and then launched sales activities such as "9 yuan for 9 free shipping" and "JD.com Flash Sale".
By the end of 2023, JD.com, like Taobao, launched the "refund only" service, directly learning from Pinduoduo's approach. For JD.com, this is not only to proactively get closer to users, but also as a last resort in the face of competition.
Jingdong has always been self-operated, which is not conducive to its promotion of low prices, and it is also difficult to implement low prices. In order to change this situation, Jingdong has been using various methods to attract third-party merchants in the past year .
In order to win over third-party merchants, JD.com promised to give third-party merchants a fairer traffic policy, and even let self-operated merchants and third-party merchants compete with each other. Whoever has lower prices and more product choices can get it. More traffic tilt.
In order to better promote low prices, JD.com has also carried out internal changes. First, it streamlined the organizational hierarchy and eliminated the business group level. JD.com’s retail CEO directly leads the business unit. After streamlining, there are only three levels from grassroots employees to CEO.
In order to keep low prices, JD.com has even changed its business model. This shows its great determination. The current JD.com is becoming more and more similar to Taobao.
However, the one-year low-price strategy has not achieved substantial results, at least not reflected in performance.
In early March, JD.com disclosed its financial report for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023. Although the fourth quarter of 2023 is still the full year of 2023, JD.com’s revenue and net profit have achieved year-on-year growth, but the revenue growth rate has slowed down significantly, not only lower than The revenue growth in 2022 will decline significantly compared with the revenue growth in previous years.
On the other hand, as JD.com’s core business, JD.com’s retail profitability has not only failed to improve, but has actually declined.
In addition, the large increase in third-party merchants did not improve JD.com’s performance. On the contrary, JD.com’s platform and advertising service revenue declined year-on-year.
In a conference call on the night when the financial report was released, JD.com CEO Xu Ran said that this year it will continue to focus on promoting price competitiveness and platform ecological construction, and will focus on user experience improvement and market share growth in 2024.
can see that JD.com will continue to compete for low prices and will consider going global. In its New Year greetings at the beginning of the year, JD.com also mentioned "supply chain capabilities overseas."
But the overseas market is another outlet that JD.com has missed. Nowadays, major Internet companies have already deployed overseas, especially the e-commerce giants. In the past two years, they have been aggressively attacking overseas markets.
For example, Alibaba’s AliExpress has been competing overseas for many years, Pinduoduo’s temu has occupied a large market share in the North American market, and ByteDance’s tiktok shop has also been expanding its overseas business.
In the past two years, the "Four Little Dragons" consisting of four platforms, namely AliExpress, Shein, Temu and TikTok Shop, have formed a group to go overseas, first attacking the European and American markets, and then moving to Asia and Latin America.
Therefore, competition in the overseas e-commerce field is already very fierce. For JD.com, it is undoubtedly a late start.
(Wang Qin and Xiaoning are pseudonyms in the article.)
