Image source @ Visual China
Text | Photon Planet, author | Furong He, Editor, | Wu Xianzhi
The disappearance of a sister with goods has put the live e-commerce industry on the cusp of the storm again.
As a super-head anchor in the live streaming industry, weiya's news of tax evasion quickly spread to the entire industry, and li jiaqi, Luo Yonghao and other head anchors were also scrutinized by public opinion. Now Via has been banned from the whole network.
The crazy growth of live streaming with goods is accompanied by various chaos. The news of Via's tax evasion was disclosed, which is like a heavy slap in the face to the industry, and the standardization of the industry will become the focus.
The live broadcast of goods out of the circle not only led to a wave of ordinary people's wealth creation, but also led to the new players of e-commerce and new brands of domestic products out of the circle. For society, e-commerce platforms, brands, and practitioners, the rise of live e-commerce has broken the principle of centralized distribution of the industry and brought new changes and opportunities.
Under the logic of e-commerce merchants, goods and fields, live e-commerce has further highlighted the role of "people", and the industry has enjoyed the dividends brought by the anchor KOL effect, and has also fallen into the uncertainty of various negative public opinions.
Nowadays, the two Weiya and Sydney of Taobao's top three anchors are caught in the storm of tax evasion, and the "Simba" family of Kuaishou's brother has also been labeled for selling fake goods. Douyin does not have a super head anchor, relying on the way of star + store broadcast exploration.
"De-heading" may become the keyword of live e-commerce development in the future.
Head curing leads to live ecological sub-health
When live streaming first emerged, it ate the dividends of the reacher effect. However, under the Matthew effect, more and more resources are flocking to big anchors, the head is solidified, and the industry is being eaten back.
Live streaming with goods in the ecology of the e-commerce platform, relying on the support of the brand side and other sources of goods to operate. Under the whitewash of traffic, the voice of the "anchor" is constantly amplified, and even has the tendency to surpass the platform and brand.
First of all, the head anchor is like a double-edged sword for the platform, and the head anchor continues to create GMV at the same time, but also eats the live broadcast ecology of the platform.
Due to its family-style talent system, the platform first experienced the reaction effect of the excessive head power. The simba family's fake goods storm directly affects the overall perception of Kuaishou e-commerce, so Kuaishou began to drastically de-family and support the middle-waist anchor. In this process, the contradiction between Kuaishou's brother Simba and the platform has escalated, and he has called Out Kuaishou several times, and even broke the news that Simba sued Kuaishou in recent days.
The impact of Kuaishou's de-heading is the slowdown in its e-commerce growth this year, which is the pain that the platform has to experience.
The heading of Taobao live broadcast and Kuaishou e-commerce is obvious. Before Wei Ya's accident, most of the attention of Taobao Live was concentrated on the two big anchors of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi, and the living space of small and medium-sized anchors was seriously compressed, which was not conducive to the balance of the platform live broadcast ecology.
Lax quality control and selling fake goods are common in the entire live e-commerce field, but when the head anchor has such problems, the uncertainty risk of the platform will be greater.
In addition, brand merchants are also bitter anchors for a long time. An industry insider told Photon Planet that the price of goods with live broadcast goods is much lower than the daily price, especially the lowest price of the whole network pursued by the head anchor now, which is like a chronic poison for brand merchants.
"If the lowest price is used as a gimmick in the long run, when consumers are accustomed to buying at a low price, the price acceptance of the brand will be discounted, and when the brand premium is gone, it will be difficult for the price to go up in the future."
As an emerging industry, live streaming goods attract consumers to place orders at low prices during the period when the public acceptance is not so high, which is conducive to enhancing the stickiness of fans of talents and promoting the faster spread of live streaming goods.
Low prices have become the default rule in the live streaming industry. If you want to enter the live broadcast room of the head anchor, the brand has to come up with the lowest price on the whole network. Daily store broadcasts or live broadcast rooms of small and medium-sized anchors will also be given to consumers at a more favorable price through gifts or packages.
The contradiction between the brand and the head anchor because of the problem of "the lowest price in the whole network" has been boiling over many times.
In the middle of last month, the pre-price of a mask from L'Oréal Paris in the live broadcast room of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya exceeded the spot price of the brand live broadcast room by 66%. The anchor and the brand negotiated back and forth, and finally Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya successively announced the suspension of cooperation with L'Oréal. Before that, Li Jiaqi also "banned Lancome forever" because Lancome violated the regulations of the lowest price on the whole network.
The GMV myth that the head anchors continue to create, as well as leading many new brands of domestic products out of the circle, the head anchors are pushed to the altar by various traffic tags. No matter how big the brand is, they have lost their right to speak in front of the head anchor.
"When the traffic is concentrated on a few people, then these people have the right to speak, which is also the main reason for the contradiction between the brand and the head anchor, not only the lowest price problem, but more importantly, the pricing power." said the above-mentioned person.
How much a product sells, to let the anchor finalize, the brand side has no autonomy, which is not willing to see for any brand. Since the development of live e-commerce, the status of the head anchor has surpassed the brand side.
When one party controls the bargaining power, it will inevitably lead to the inflated cost of the goods carried by the talent. Many people feel that Via's tax evasion fine is more than one billion, and how much she earns can be imagined.
"Generally speaking, the cost of the talent with the goods can play the dual role of selling goods + marketing, which is why the cost of the talent with the goods includes the pit fee + commission. The brand pays the pit fee, arranges a schedule for you, and then draws another commission according to the sales volume. An MCN agency source said.
The pit fee can be regarded as the marketing effect of the anchor with the goods, and the higher the number of fans, the higher the pit fee. According to public reports, Li Jiaqi pit fee 400,000 + commission 10%-20%, Weiya pit fee 350,000 + commission 5% -15%.
The cost of bringing goods by talents is too high, resulting in the fact that the live broadcast room of the head anchor is mainly based on large brands, and the control of large brands over brands is often higher, and differences are inevitable.
The contradiction between the platform, the merchant and the head anchor has gradually emerged, and the de-heading has become an industry trend.
Platforms to speed up de-heading?
After Sydney and Lin Shanshan, Wei Ya's sky-high tax evasion amount has made more people begin to re-examine the industry, and the industry's irregularities will be further rectified.
For the platform, weakening the voice of the talent and the head anchor seems to have become more urgent.
Encouraging brand self-broadcasting is the main trend of live e-commerce this year, and this is the case with Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou. Since last year, Taobao Live has increased its support for brand self-broadcasting, and another brand direction photon planet revealed: "At the beginning, Tmall officials required large brands to open self-broadcasting. "Since the beginning of this year, Douyin and Kuaishou have accelerated the process of brand self-broadcasting.
Brand self-broadcasting, on the one hand, enriches the live broadcast ecology of the platform, attracts and stimulates users' desire to buy through more content and goods; second, relies on the advantages of the brand in terms of product quality and supply chain to promote the healthier operation of live streaming goods; the other is to disperse consumers' dependence on personal anchors.
According to the data, this year's double 11 Taobao live broadcast platform has a total of more than 100,000 brands interacting with consumers during self-broadcasting, of which 43 brands have a turnover of more than 100 million yuan in self-broadcasting rooms, 510 self-broadcast rooms exceed 10 million yuan, and more than 70% of emerging brands will take live broadcasting rooms as their key channels.
During this year's Double Eleven period, Douyin E-commerce has accumulated 25.46 million hours of live broadcast time in the live broadcast room, of which the total self-broadcast time of merchants is as long as 12.27 million hours, and the cumulative number of views is 39.5 billion times.
The construction of the platform for brand self-broadcasting has achieved certain results, and brand self-broadcasting for merchants just conforms to their operational needs for private domain traffic, so the brand side coincides with the platform policy.
Taobao has publicly stated that Taobao Live will drive 500 billion yuan of transactions in the next three years, of which 70% is expected to come from store live broadcasting. This vision can be seen that Taobao wants to build brand self-broadcasting as the main player of Taobao live broadcasting in the future.
In addition to brand self-broadcasting, platform officials have also participated in live broadcasting. Taobao officials opened a live broadcast room last year, and hired Liu Tao with a high salary to sit in the town. In the Taobao live broadcast system, the personal anchor, the brand store broadcast, and the platform live broadcast stand tall, but the attention of the personal head anchor is undoubtedly the highest.
Due to the scarcity of platform traffic and the obvious private domain nature of personal anchor traffic, the rise of store broadcasting is more to seize the traffic of mid-waist anchors, and users' attention to Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi, the two big anchors, has not decreased.
According to the daily viewing data of Taobao Live, Li Jiaqi's number of viewers is more than 2000w+, while other brands and personal anchors have hundreds of thousands of viewers, many of which are only a few thousand. Even Taobao's official Juhuasuan subsidized live broadcast room has only one million viewers.
The above-mentioned brand merchants said that Taobao has always wanted to de-head, but it is difficult, and now ThatVia is blocked may be a small opportunity.
Mid-waist vertical anchors have become a trend
Under the general trend of de-heading of the industry, will Taobao still give birth to the next super big anchor? An e-commerce industry source said: "It should be said that it is difficult. A large part of the reason why Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi were able to grow up was that the platform also needed them. "Now, the platform's excessive dependence on the head anchor is not conducive to building a benign live broadcast ecology."
Thanks to the personal brand effect of the head master, new domestic brands such as Huaxizi and Perfect Diary have grown up in the live broadcast of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi, and many brands have regarded the head anchor as the main promoter of the brand out of the circle for a long time. The pursuit of brands and consumers has jointly boosted them to sit firmly on their heads.
After the Via incident, consumers and brands will greatly reduce the pursuit and trust of the head KOL. From the social and psychological level, many people have lost the patience to follow the growth of anchors, so why grow up to be the next super anchor?
In addition, at the economic level, the cost of cultivating a head anchor is getting higher and higher, and the industry pattern has stabilized. Coupled with the gradual increase in the requirements of live e-commerce in the supply chain and the professionalism of practitioners, the probability of latecomers wanting to catch up is getting lower and lower.
Most importantly, live streaming is attached to the platform ecology, and from the perspective of several e-commerce platforms, incubating head anchors is not a major trend in the industry.
Avoid the contradiction between the anchor and the platform and the brand, do not fight for the lowest price, and at the same time find the entry point for differentiated competition in the environment where the head anchor occupies the main traffic resources, and the vertical mid-waist anchor may become a trend.
Judging from the results of several big promotions this year, the data performance of many vertical mid-waist anchors is eye-catching.
In the Douyin live broadcast, the sales of the anchor "Mr. Dong Jewelry" in the jewelry accessories vertical category during the 618 period this year once rushed to the first place in the list of Douyin anchors with goods, and the turnover of 281 million yuan ranked first. Another anchor focusing on skin care and makeup, "Big Wolf Dog Zheng Jianpeng & Yan Zhen Couple", ranked second with sales of 260 million yuan.
During the double 11 period, in the Taobao live broadcast dark horse list, the average daily cargo volume of the "Yuanqi Zhu Zhu" double 11 in the women's clothing field increased by 10 times year-on-year, the sales volume of small durian doubled year-on-year, and the first place on the list, "Bing Luo", rose by 100,000 fans in four months.
During the double twelfth period, the three middle-waist anchors of Xi Shi Sister, Flight Attendant Xinyi and Tim Kindiy, who also do the clothing vertical category, have a significant growth rate in the live broadcast room, compared with last year, which exceeded 70%. Xi Shi sister, the turnover of the live broadcast room increased by 131% year-on-year.
More and more mid-waist vertical anchors have found the entrance to differentiated competition. When the industry is constantly changing, mid-waist anchors may have more opportunities.
However, the most important thing for e-commerce is still the control of "goods", and more mid-waist anchors can only take up this opportunity after solving problems such as product supply chain and team professionalism.