Text | Moment Business, author | Wu Tong, editor | Bai Yang Recently, there has been a constant flow of "bad news" in the live broadcast e-commerce circle. First, a brand sued MCN Wuyou Media for spending 3 million yuan to hire a well-known male star to live-stream the goods, but

| Moment Business, Author | Wu Tong, Editor | Baiyang

Recently, there has been a constant stream of “bad news” in the live streaming e-commerce circle.

First, a brand sued mcn Wuyou Media, spending 3 million yuan to hire a well-known male star to live-stream the goods, but only sold more than 200,000 yuan; then 60 million Internet celebrities "Taiyuan Laoge" live-streamed goods and suspected fraud 1911 Wan was put on file for investigation by the police.

major anchors and well-known mcn institutions have fallen out of public opinion, and institutions that teach people to live broadcast are also overturning.

According to media reports, a student spent 80,000 yuan to pay tuition for the Make a Friend E-commerce Academy, but the gmv was less than 4,000 yuan, so he was cut off from the leek.

Behind the constant push by head mcns, anchors and merchants is the fact that the entire live broadcast e-commerce industry is undergoing new changes.

On the one hand, with consumption declining, the dividends of China’s live streaming e-commerce industry peaking, and the willingness of brands to launch decreasing, the empowerment of top MCNs and anchors for brands has decreased, and “making fun but not making money” has become a way for merchants to disenchant them. Main reason.

In fact, this trend has been going on for some time. In the past two years, from Wei Ya retreating behind the scenes to Li Jiaqi, Simba, Luo Yonghao, and Crazy Little Yang gradually reducing the number of live broadcasts, the industry influence of leading anchors is accelerating.

On the other hand, with the support of the platform, merchant store broadcasting has become a new trend.

Based on these two points, those big anchors and mcn organizations that have received greater industry dividends in the past have also ushered in a new industry stage. Under the new market trend, they need to find new ways out.

Head mcn and anchors have been disenchanted one after another. Who is still willing to believe them?

html At the beginning of August, a news broke by the merchant Sichuan Green Materia Medica Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as " Materia Medica Technology") attracted a lot of attention.

During June 18 this year, Bencao Technology tried to use the star effect to increase traffic and sales, and contacted the leading mcn "Wuyou Media" through a third-party intermediary company. Based on past sales data, it finally selected Wuyou's anchor Mingdao to conduct a special live broadcast. .

This cooperation was signed by a third-party intermediary on behalf of Bencao Technology and Wuyou Media. The contract amount is 2.438 million, including transition fees and commercial launch fees. In fact, Bencao Technology paid a fee of 3 million yuan to a third-party intermediary.

However, after spending 3 million yuan on "Materia Technology", the results were not satisfactory, and it can even be said to be "dismal sales" - only more than 200,000 were sold, and the return rate reached more than half.

Then the two sides began to pull. Bencao Technology stated that "the other party is only willing to provide after-sales service and is not willing to refund." The after-sales plan provided by Wuyou Media is that Bencao Technology can extend the screen during Mingdao Live Broadcast, allow the use of the artist's exclusive link to continue to sell products, and continue to sell products. Bring goods to at least 10 mixed live broadcasts.

Wuyou Media also stated in its response that the company has not made a commitment to promotional sales, and Mingdao’s sales data can be seen by both parties. Finally, Wuyou Media also said that Materia Medica Technology's products are a new brand and consumers are not very aware of them, so the live broadcast focused more on the product promotion effect.

Wuyou Media’s response, picture / Weibo@无码 Media

In fact, overturning of live broadcast products is not a new problem in the live broadcast industry.

For example, Yangzi and Huang Shengyi, a couple, brought goods for the New Year Festival and paid RMB 100,000 for a slot, but only sold one order of bacon for the merchant; Tian Liang and his wife sold tea sets live, with nearly 900,000 viewers, but the sales were less than 2,000 yuan...

But , compared to the tug-of-war between Bencao Technology and Wuyou Media, the case of tens of millions of Kuaishou Internet celebrity "Taiyuan Laoge" being investigated for massive fraud during live broadcasts is much more serious in nature.

html On August 9, Taiyuan Internet Police released a video saying that Taiyuan Lao Ge was accused of cutting 9 million leeks from a businessman, and was filed on suspicion of fraud.

According to media reports, a merchant participated in Taiyuan Laoge’s live broadcasts four times between July and November 2022, and paid a total commission of 9 million yuan. However, of the total sales of 28.11 million yuan, 19.11 million yuan was suspected of fraud. The actual sales were only 9 million, and the single-game return rate was as high as 70%.

The merchant reviewed the return data and discovered that during the live broadcast of Taiyuan Laoge, the same ID would buy a large number of products and then return them instantly with the "buy too much, buy wrong". After

, Red Star News also revealed that Taiyuan Laoge’s live broadcast room once staged exaggerated plots, selling "resurrection necklaces", claiming that one can resurrect from the dead without taking medicine or injections - this was also the live broadcast chaos highlighted at last year's 315 party. image; and as early as 2019, the anchor was among the accounts blocked by Kuaishou. In addition to the chaos of

live broadcasts such as overturning goods and fraudulent orders, the institutions that teach people live broadcasting are also overturning. The most typical examples of

are Luo Yonghao and the "Make a Friend" e-commerce academy behind Make a Friend. The academy's official micro profile says that there are tens of millions of gmv anchors in the live broadcast room, and they will guide you to get started quickly offline, so that more people can seize the live stream. The outlet and dividends of goods.

Make Friends E-Commerce Academy Lecturer Lineup, Picture/Make Friends E-Commerce Academy Official WeChat

But it has also overturned recently. On August 5, a Douyin men’s shoe brand store owner publicly accused Make a Friend e-commerce academy of cutting leeks on the Internet.

The store owner said that in order to improve his ability to carry goods through live broadcast, he spent more than 80,000 yuan on Make a Friend E-commerce Academy, including a "21-day running" service worth 54,800 yuan. Including the labor costs, live broadcast room decoration, traffic drainage and other expenses during this period, the total investment was nearly 150,000 yuan, but in the end, after two accounts and one month of operation, only 35 transactions were completed, and the GMV was less than 4,000 yuan.

Subsequently, the "Make a Friend" E-commerce Academy responded that the entire escort business has a contract, the company has systematic service content, and merchants can contact legal affairs if they have questions.

Under the above-mentioned disputes, people can't help but sigh, what happened to the head mcn and the big anchor in the second half of the live broadcast?

Top anchors are all looking for new ways to survive.

Since last year, there has been a common perception inside and outside the industry that top anchors are "exiting".

Except for Wei Ya, who was forced to retreat behind the scenes due to tax issues, other major anchors seemed to intend to retire on their own initiative.

First, in June 2022, Luo Yonghao posted on Weibo that he would make friends with the management and start a business again; then, after the resumption of broadcast last year, Li Jiaqi reduced the number of live broadcasts and often arrived late and left early; in addition, Simba also talked in the live broadcast room many times And to retire, Crazy Little Yang, after stopping broadcasting for a while, now only broadcasts once a week...

html While the five major anchors are retreating collectively, a number of live broadcast rooms with their marks and characteristics are emerging, such as Li Jiaqi/Weiya ’s assistant broadcasters, and Simba/Little Yang’s apprentices.

Brother Yang and his apprentices, picture/Douyin @花小雪 Three Sheep Shangchao

Reducing the risk of "single big anchor" is one of the main reasons for their gradual retirement. This is most obvious here with Li Jiaqi.

Last year, Li Jiaqi was off the air for a full 109 days. The impact on institutions and platforms during this period is self-evident.

html In September, Li Jiaqi resumed broadcasting. In addition to being more cautious in live broadcasting, one of the biggest changes is that Li Jiaqi's live broadcast time and number of sessions have continued to decrease, with the support of "Wangwang" and other live broadcast rooms, as well as the new live broadcast rooms "All Girls" and "All Girls' Wardrobes" "Go online one after another - don't put your eggs in the same basket. This simple principle is really valued by the live broadcast industry.

To this day, the love-hate relationship between Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection still shows that getting rid of dependence on a single anchor is still an important issue in the live broadcast industry. The rise of the live broadcast rooms of

disciples has also formed the live broadcast matrix of super anchors and platforms.

The reality behind this is that when consumption declines and the dividends of the e-commerce live broadcast industry gradually disappear, live broadcast organizations and anchors need to compete for more users and traffic from multiple dimensions such as product category, live broadcast duration, and platform type.

But it must be mentioned that although the apprentices and assistants are pushed to the front of the stage, their energy is still far from that of their masters.

Take Xiao Yang as an example. During this year’s Douyin Mall 618 Goods Festival, Xiao Yang brought over 100 million in goods, but his apprentice’s best result in bringing goods was 75 million to 100 million created by the Seventh Boss.Problems such as

getting rid of dependence on a single anchor and the need to strengthen the strength of apprentices all mean that in the second half of the live broadcast, the head anchor and the organization behind it need a new growth curve.

At present, building a supply chain is the first place for major anchors to expand.

As early as 2018, when Simba first started live broadcasting, he realized that “merchants entering live broadcast e-commerce often only focus on the front-end anchors and ignore the management of the live broadcast e-commerce supply chain.”

In the following years, Simba Xinxuan has built a supply chain that integrates brand owners, e-commerce platforms and self-operated brands. The self-operated brands are Xinxuan's independent research and development and its own brand merchants. In 2021, the "Xinzao" project was launched. By integrating more than 3,000 high-standard factory resources, the factory can directly connect with consumers, cut out the middlemen in traditional retail, and reduce the supply time and price to the extreme.

Xinxuan’s supply chain smart warehouse, picture / Xinxuan official website

Wei Ya and Qianxun are also actively expanding upstream. They created the clothing brand "viyaniya", the cosmetics brand "Four Seasons Diary", and also co-created "Fengxuan" with Nicholas Tse Flavor pie".

Behind the creation of the supply chain, organizations have strengthened their control over products, and have more initiative as merchants or brands themselves. At the same time, their competitiveness returns to the organization itself rather than a certain big anchor. For example, Oriental Selection hopes that everyone will recognize Quasi-Dongfang selected this brand, not Dong Yuhui.

live streaming overseas is another option.

According to iiMedia Consulting data, the scale of domestic live streaming e-commerce in 2024 is expected to be 1.9083 billion, but the growth rate has plummeted. On the contrary, the overseas live broadcast e-commerce market has huge potential, with a scale of 284.58 billion in 2023, +155% year-on-year, and the market size is expected to reach 828.7 billion in 2025. The vast overseas incremental market of

is naturally a new place for leading anchors and institutions to compete for expansion. The first thing

went overseas was to make friends. It followed the path of "selling shovels" and copied its successful domestic marketing and live broadcast experience and brought it overseas.

As early as 2021, I made a friend and incubated a local company in Indonesia, and then established a company in the United States. The following year, the overseas business department and overseas e-commerce academy were established. According to E-Commerce Home, Make a Friend’s overseas revenue increased fourfold in 2023.

Simba’s Xinxuan and Xiao Yang’s Three Sheeps choose to open up the supply chain, but they are different.

The former cooperates with local suppliers and brands to find low-price suppliers. Simba sold durian and latex pillows and other specialties in Thailand last year, which is a typical example of going overseas. Feigua data shows that the total sales on that day exceeded 830 million yuan, and the total order volume exceeded 6.78 million orders.

Three Sheep builds its own suppliers overseas and selects products that meet local needs, such as garbage bags, face towels, etc. After 2 years of overseas deployment, in January this year, Three Sheep collaborated with Singaporean local talent @shop with sasax for its first live broadcast, setting a new record for tiktok’s e-commerce sector in Singapore.

Three Sheep Singapore premiere battle report, picture / Three Sheep Network official WeChat account

In addition, leading MCNs such as Yuanwang Technology, Qianxun, and Wuyou Media have all gone overseas.

’s layout of live broadcast matrix and going overseas can be regarded as a new approach for major anchors and institutions. However, it is worth noting that the short dramas that have emerged since last year have also become a new way for them to continue to dig inward and find growth points through content.

Last year, Silver Land made crazy money by relying on brand-customized short dramas such as "Unfamiliar Lovers"; this year, ost Media arranged short dramas, and the short dramas released by its talents such as "Yan'er" and "Vitalin" all achieved the number of views Breaking 100 million.

This year, institutions such as Xinxuan and Qianxun, as well as e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, are all developing short drama businesses, trying to leverage new traffic and growth through content.

But short plays are not that easy to make. Compared with the rumors of "5 short plays won 25 million brand investment", there are more problems such as homogeneous scripts, poor acting skills, and rough production.

For example, the short drama "Master Fu, Your Substitute Bride is the Boss" produced by Xiao Yang's company has never entered the top 20 daily list since its launch in June, and the recharge situation is not optimistic either.

Generally speaking, whether it is mcn or anchor, they are using various forms to expand and lay out new paths by taking advantage of existing traffic dividends.

The industry bubble is clearing, and merchants are more willing to choose their own

head anchors and the decline of mcn. Platforms and merchants are actively promoting the development of store broadcasting. Data from

's "2023 China Live Streaming E-commerce Industry Research Report" shows that brand merchant store broadcasts accounted for 51.8% in 2023, exceeding the proportion of celebrity live broadcasts for the first time. Xinhuanet also reported that during this year’s 618 period, Tmall’s 50 store live broadcast rooms had a turnover of over 100 million, and the order volume of Xiaohongshu’s “618” store broadcast was 9.4 times that of the same period last year.

Picture/iResearch

This means that from Taobao and Douyin to Xiaohongshu and video accounts, from platforms to merchants, everyone is more willing to support their own store broadcasting system.

store broadcasting has become a new trend, and there are many reasons behind it. The most fundamental thing is that the dividends of China’s live streaming e-commerce market have reached their peak, and under the limited cake, the interests of merchants, platforms and anchors are competing.

On the one hand, the marginal benefits of e-commerce live streaming are diminishing. The most typical example of

is the overturning of the product we mentioned at the beginning - the money spent by the brand on the anchors and channels did not get the actual conversion rate, but only lost money and made money.

Compared with the live broadcast room of the master anchor, which has a relatively high pit fee, the store broadcast is first of all to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Secondly, it is different from anchors making quick money, hastily talking about quality, and blindly low prices. The brand's own live broadcast can combine sales, product promotion and other aspects of refined operations. It is also conducive to the precipitation of private traffic pools and the conversion of traffic. , directly facing user needs and improving products, etc., also have great advantages.

In fact, store broadcasting is also what the platform desires.

mcn and anchors are actually another middleman between merchants and consumers, and between platforms and merchants - both platforms and merchants are eager to get rid of this middleman.

Moreover, for a long time in the past, anchors had too much say. In addition to trying to lower prices on the merchant side, it was also not conducive to the healthy operation of the live broadcast e-commerce ecology of the platform.

To put it simply, when the big anchor link is removed, many merchants and small anchors compete with each other, and they still need to buy traffic from the platform - the platform's income will not be reduced, and its voice will be enhanced.

At present, store broadcasting is the most cost-effective, and it is also the most stable and long-lasting form of relationship between the platform and the brand.

However, the rise of store broadcasters does not mean that brands completely “abandon” top anchors. For example, there is currently no store broadcaster on Taobao whose sales can exceed Li Jiaqi.

Zhang Yi, CEO and Chief Analyst of iiMedia Consulting, analyzed: “Although Dabo lowers merchant profits, it has a higher degree of attention and can have a better drainage effect. It can be understood as investing money in advertising. Storebo is responsible for In other words, most brands currently choose to "walk on two legs" - Daren's live broadcast drives brand attention and sales, which is actually more effective. Most of them are for product promotion and shopping festival promotions, while the focus of long-term operations is on in-store broadcasts.

In the long run, this trend will be a test for almost all players in the live broadcast e-commerce industry.