This article is from the WeChat public account: self-quadrant (ID: zixiangxian), author: Cheng Xin, header picture from: Visual China
Xu Jin has been "squatting" for three hours on the main street next to the Dubai Mall and the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, and whenever he meets fashionably dressed young men and women, he will come up to him and ask if he is willing to become a TikTok influencer for live streaming.
Most of the people squinted at each other, but there were still some people who stopped and simply registered their basic information and contact information.
According to Xu Jin, his job is to tap potential talents in the entire Saudi Arabian region, their company has a total of 5 people, two people are responsible for local construction, and the other three are responsible for mining Chinese talents in the Middle East, with a monthly revenue of 100,000 US dollars in April and May.
According to Xu Jin's statistics, there are about 3,000 online and offline influencer clues in a month, but only 20%~30% can finally open a TT account and start bringing goods.
"Now the Middle East is an emerging market, and there is no shortage of traffic and money, but there is a lack of talents, no one to bring, and they don't understand English, and they must speak Arabic for live broadcasts." Xu Jin said.
According to the "Self Quadrant", after Southeast Asian countries, the Middle East has become a new blue ocean for Chinese e-commerce to go overseas. There are fewer people, more money, a high proportion of young women, and spending power is no worse than that of the United States, which is an important label.
According to the data, Saudi Arabia has a total population of about 37 million, with women accounting for about 42.6% of the total population, and the Internet penetration rate is high, which is expected to reach 96.44% by the end of the year, with an average of nearly 7 hours of Internet access per day. At the same time, the Saudi government is planning to invest more than $100 billion in logistics infrastructure and online payments to boost e-commerce growth.
It is licensed to have an e-commerce MCN team of more than a dozen people in the Middle East, one person operates 2~3 mobile phones, and has accumulated more than 4,000 experts in more than three months, including short video and live broadcast.
However, it is said that doing MCN in the Middle East is completely different from that in China: "The experts here have no experience at all, they are all taught by MCN, and the industrial chain is not complete. ”
In 2024, the wind of going to sea will blow to the Middle East, which will also give hope to MCN companies that have been rolled up to the ceiling in China.
The ideal is beautiful, one pit at a time
The first live broadcast of e-commerce trailers done in Mina, the license did not step on the pit.
"That day, we had more than a dozen people serving an Arabic-speaking female anchor, where the cultural differences are particularly big and in China, and this anchor was not allowed to have anyone in her room during the live broadcast, but she didn't know anything, so we had to call her non-stop outside."
Xu Xu recalled that in the first scene, more than a dozen people served an Arabic anchor, with technology and goods with the backstage, helping her make equipment adjustments and teaching her how to broadcast, but the anchor couldn't even brush the comments at the top of the comments, and he didn't let the supporting assistants broadcast, so it was particularly difficult to broadcast.
Not only is it not smooth inside the live broadcast room, but it is also completely different outside the live broadcast room.
"We spent a lot of money that day to push the anchor to the first place in the hourly list, so the online viewing was very high." Permission to speak. In the early days when there was no environment for bringing goods in the entire Middle East, the strategy adopted by the license was to copy the route of the big Douyin anchor Crazy Brother Yang: first entertain the live broadcast list, and then change the live broadcast content after being on the list, go and sell goods, and eat more than one fish.
But later it was found that this route is difficult to expand in the Middle East, and the general entertainment list is the business PK of the rich people in the Middle East. "The people who watch the live broadcast of entertainment are all local tyrants, and they all buy Rolex watches, and no one buys a bar of soap in the live broadcast room."
In the Middle East, there is a wall between live entertainment and live streaming with goods. The plan to replicate the "Middle East Brother Yang" failed.
Zhang Qian, another owner of a domestic MCN company, heard that there was a huge opportunity in the Middle East, and after five months of field trips to the Middle East in October last year, he decided to give up.
Zhang Qian said to the "self-quadrant": "Now TT's pallets are very small, MCN companies not only have to bring people, but also to bring supplies, but our domestic docking is talented, and we need to do a good job in localized selection, which is a high-investment expansion." ”
Zhang Qian said that in the case of insufficient manpower and financial resources in hand, blindly coming to the nuggets may lose a lot.
Xu Jin's company has also suffered losses in product selection.
Xu Jin found that Saudi Arabia has almost no factories, and everything from machinery and equipment to pots and pans need to rely on foreign imports. So they began to select products with reference to the domestic best-selling daily hundred products, the unit price is low, but the gross profit is also low, counting the logistics cost and commission, almost sell a single loss a single order.
After that, Xu Jin's team began to study the needs of the local consumer market.
"In Saudi Arabia, many women will wear headscarves, headscarves are an important display of their dress, Saudi women also like high-end silk and knitted products, we found a Chinese factory specializing in all kinds of headscarves, and the results were sold out."
Different from Ribai, the cost of the headscarf is lower but the gross profit is very high, and the freight is not so expensive, plus good packaging, it can be sold at a high premium, more than 3 times higher than the domestic silk scarf of the same material.
With the experience of the headscarf, the selection team began to expand the maternal and infant products. This has a lot to do with Saudi Arabia's policy, which encourages childbearing, implements polygamy, and eats, drinks, and lazars, medical insurance, and education from newborns to adulthood.
Children's toys, baby care and children's clothing, with female anchors are not only in line with cultural customs, but also consumables, and the repurchase rate is very high.
One of Xu Jin's talents, through mixing and editing, took the time to add his own original real shooting of the product videos on Douyin, and a single short video brought more than 7,000 orders.
"We will do as much as possible to shoot the product in the future, so that the talent can add their own creativity, and the video will be easier to get recommended within 20-30 seconds." Xu Jin said.
After experiencing the first half of 2024, many MCN companies have begun to find a way to break through the Middle East market, and the snowball has begun to roll.
Behind the MCN, TikTok manipulates the puppet line
The reason why at the beginning of the year, a large number of MCN companies began to go overseas to find increments, which is closely related to TikTok's vigorous development of e-commerce.
According to the "Self-Quadrant", under the high pressure of the United States, TikTok is expanding to the world. A leading merchant of health care products in the United States can make more than 20 million GMV a year. However, this year's annual plan in the United States cannot be completed according to the progress of the first half of the year.
The Anhui boss said to the "Self Quadrant": "Many American merchants Q3 and Q4 are already in the Middle East, and local stores in the Middle East will open in the next two quarters, and the platform controls where the water flows." ”
The launch of local stores means that brand merchants can start to settle in, and brand stores will greatly enrich categories and provide better services.
In order to expand the market, TikTok has launched a series of support policies in the Middle East, and it is revealed that TikTok is currently opening a coupon welfare model in order to seize Saudi users, and crazy subsidies, almost regardless of the cost.
TikTok is not only cultivating local MCN institutions, but also cooperating with some mature MCNs in China.
But for the Middle East market, TikTok needs to face competition from all sides.
The first is Amazon, the world's leading leader. With its global brand influence, mature logistics system Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), and a strong customer trust foundation, Amazon has built a solid competitive barrier in the Middle East market. Amazon's global supply chain integration capabilities allow it to offer a wide selection of products and fast shipping.
The second is local e-commerce platform Noon, which has a deep insight into the behavior and preferences of Middle Eastern consumers, and by providing localized payment solutions, language support and cultural adaptability, Noon's localization strategy may weaken TikTok Shop's market penetration, especially for those consumers who prefer to use local brands.
Finally, there is Temu, also from China. In terms of user volume, according to the latest data, Temu has rushed to the top of the App Store download, surpassing CapCut, which has always dominated the charts. At the same time, Temu is able to offer competitive prices through effective supply chain management and cost control, which is very attractive to price-sensitive Middle Eastern consumers.
Establishing or partnering with an efficient local logistics system, shortening delivery times, improving fulfillment efficiency, establishing logistics advantages, and being more local and low prices are all to-dos waiting for TikTok one by one.
The names of the interviewees have been changed
This article is from the WeChat public account: self quadrant (ID: zixiangxian), author: Cheng Xin
This content is the author's independent view and does not represent the position of Tiger Sniff. May not be reproduced without permission, please contact [email protected] for authorization
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