The "waist protection artifact" with a monthly sales of more than 100 million yuan, the live broadcast room is wildly cut to workers

Source |Tech Planet

Text | Lin Jing

When the consumption of "poor ghosts" has become a new trend, the krypton gold threshold for young people for cervical and lumbar spine products is rising.

Since March this year, the sales of BKT waist cushions, which are aimed at office workers, have reached tens of millions of yuan on Douyin for many months, and they have broken through the 100 million yuan mark from July to August. In contrast, the two leading brands in the massager market, Bei Yi and SKG, started with cervical massage products, and they have been listed Bei Yi, and their sales in the first half of this year were only 600 million yuan.

Behind BKT's popularity, it has cooperated with nearly 2,000 talents to bring goods, and it has appeared intensively in the live broadcast rooms of many head anchors such as Dongfang Selection, Make a Friend, and Walk with Hui. But the other side of the coin is that the company has only been established for three and a half years, and Tianyancha shows that its 2023 annual report shows that the company has only 24 employees (social security contributors).

Not only new brands, but also the top TV shopping sales in the past have also become popular this year, achieving a sales volume of 100 million in 90 days, and the interesting thing is that the main buyers are still the post-80s and post-90s. The good back of the back, which used to prevent hunchback and correct sitting posture for teenagers, has now made a comeback, changing its strategy to target migrant workers, and has become their new corrective sitting posture waist protection artifact.

In the past, health supplements "harvested" the elderly in a fancy way. Nowadays, after the epidemic, young people who have awakened their health bloodlines are constantly picking up new profiteering businesses.

"Waist Protector Artifact", the live broadcast room brutally cut workers

As a member of the office sedentary family, Miao Yu has spent tens of thousands of yuan because of cervical and lumbar spine problems, not only tried to go to the traditional Chinese medicine hospital to "hang his neck", but also went to the massage room for help after work. Now, she's following the trend and buying a BKT lumbar cushion.

Like Miao Yu, many users said that they saw the overwhelming marketing propaganda and placed an order to buy. Miao Yu said that after she watched a video of the lumbar cushion, similar live broadcast rooms were frequently pushed to her eyes.

In the live broadcast room, the anchor talked about the product functions in a dazzling way, in addition to relieving backache and other functions, this waist cushion is also suitable for work, driving, fishing, camping, high-speed rail and other scenarios, the anchor is even more exaggerated, you can take this waist cushion around the world, to achieve anytime and anywhere "sit on the ground".

In contrast, the ergonomic office chair of 10,000 yuan at every turn has also been popular, and once became the standard for measuring the welfare of large factories, and now it is also under the "ergonomic" design concept of BKT waist cushion, only 168 yuan, through one-tenth of the price, covering a larger number of workers, on social networks, it is also known as the "poor version" ergonomic chair.

Behind the monthly sales of up to 100 million, it is also inseparable from money-throwing marketing. In the process of the rapid rise of the brand represented by Perfect Diary, the industry has summed up a set of popular formulas of "5000 Little Red Books + 2000 Zhihu Q&A + Wei Ya Li Jiaqi Bringing Goods", and now BKT is characterized by placing the main marketing position on Douyin, cooperating with many celebrities in batches for endorsement, and the storecast live broadcast room contributed to the main sales.

Taking July as an example, Cicada Mother data shows that from the perspective of sales methods, 81.7% of BKT waist cushions come from live broadcasts, and 97.16% from the perspective of delivery channels. Moreover, from the perspective of live broadcast traffic structure, BKT's recommended feed flow is much higher than the industry average, reaching 33.3%.

Feed stream, also known as information stream, refers to the direct presentation of the live broadcast room promoted by customers to users on the recommendation page of Douyin, so as to achieve a more obvious conversion effect.

BKT takes the route of large single products, and only sells one lumbar cushion product in the live broadcast room. Behind the high sales, it is also inseparable from the anchor's speech guidance, the anchor will frequently remind users that it is more cost-effective to buy two pieces, and you can return one more when you go back, and let users buy back for a free trial on the grounds of providing freight insurance.

Beibeijia, which also became popular this year, also placed the main position on Douyin, and the path is almost the same as BKT. It's just that, compared with BKT, aiming at the back of the worker, in addition to emphasizing the waist protection function, more to the "beauty artifact" to publicize, "the back is thin and really temperamental" once became the traffic password of the live broadcast room of the back of the best.

An e-commerce anchor told Tech Planet that in the live broadcast room, she will guide users to pay attention to the attributes of back and back shaping and improving temperament, and add points to appearance and temperament in scenes such as travel, shopping, dating, check-in, and taking pictures. In order to attract more groups to buy, she will say in the live broadcast room that before the age of 65, there are opportunities to improve her posture.

This is precisely to the needs of some groups. Xuanxuan, who bought the best back this year, told Tech Planet that she never thought of this product, which is known as a "childhood nightmare", and now she will take the initiative to buy it. Compared with the time and energy spent on exercise and fitness, the high cost of hiring a personal trainer, less than 200 yuan, gives her the illusion that she can improve her posture while working at a lower cost.

White label siege, can it escape the fate of Internet celebrity products?

However, after a short period of scenery, BKT soon encountered "encirclement and suppression". From June to August this year, after the monthly sales of the BKT live broadcast room exceeded 100 million yuan, a group of imitators appeared intensively, and they sold at a lower price through the same live broadcast room design, anchor speech, and the same product appearance.

One is the brand represented by Benbo, the price is as low as 59 yuan, and on the upper side of the live broadcast room, the slogan "The unjust head is only 168 yuan to buy one" seems to be shouting to BKT in the air. The other type of live broadcast room is under the slogan of "source factory, refuse to be cut", and some live broadcast rooms only started live broadcast for the first time 3 months after BKT exploded, that is, in August this year.

At the same time, in BKT's official live broadcast room, users frequently questioned the price, and the anchor could only appease him on the grounds of looking for the official authentic product.

In the live broadcast room, scenes of copying BKT are constantly staged, and sales continue to rise. Taking the real-time sales data on the evening of September 19 as an example, BKT ranked first in the sales list of "Home Furnishing Japanese Products", while Benbo has ranked 11th.

This is almost a common problem that massager brands have encountered. The concept and marketing of black technology is almost the direct reason for the premium of these brands. In contrast, after experiencing the explosive sales of Internet celebrity products, the test of long-term development is still technological innovation, which requires enterprises to spend money on long-term R&D investment.

Otherwise, there is no core competitive barrier for massager products, and they will be imitated by other lower-priced white-label products, or even directly use the same OEM factory. In the cervical massager market, SKG and Bei Yi have fallen off the altar one after another, the former IPO was suspended, and the latter struggled to turn losses into profits in the first half of this year after reducing marketing spending. At the same time, a number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which mainly produce white-label products, are on the rise, eating into market share.

BKT, which uses live streaming rooms as its main sales channel, encountered similar challenges more quickly. In terms of technology, BKT's selling point lies in its ergonomic design and materials.

As can be seen from BKT's product manual, its brand positioning is the category pioneer of ergonomic lever lumbar chairs, and the confirmation of its market position comes from the market research of Sullivan, a third-party market research agency. The material of the product is PP synthetic resin, according to the anchor's introduction, it is a commonly used material comparable to baby bottles.

Compared with the "electric pulse technology" created by SKG and the technical concept of "ancient Chinese medicine massage", the field of human waist cushion where BKT is located is obviously easier to imitate.

Under the lower entry threshold, a number of factories began to expand the production line of lumbar cushions. A factory manager in Zhejiang told Tech Planet that the ex-factory price of its products is 32 yuan, and the material and design are consistent with BKT, which can reach 1,000 orders per day. Some factories said that they are researching new products of different materials for lumbar cushions to compete with BKT in a differentiated manner.

Young people's health anxiety, an endless stream of Internet celebrity products

From fascia guns, neck massagers, to lumbar cushions, there are endless Internet celebrity products, all of which are aimed at the health anxiety of migrant workers, but the actual effect of the products is difficult to solve their problems.

On major social platforms, there are constant complaints about lightning protection, IQ tax, and false propaganda. According to BKT's product introduction, its products combine the principle of ergonomics and the principle of lever design of the seated chair, compared with the general ergonomic sitting chair, the bottom of the product using the principle of lever is usually curved. But in essence, the so-called "ergonomic" design is difficult to apply to consumer groups of different heights and weights.

A user who bought BKT told Tech Planet that she felt that she had bought a "beautiful waste", and when she actually used it, she felt that the seat of the waist support was too far back, and she needed to lean back all the way to support it, and she had to stay alert to maintain its balance, and if she wanted to relax and exert force, it would eventually seem to be competing with the chair, rather than relaxing the lower back. In the process of using it, she felt that this product was useless and dispensable, and finally chose to return it.

Unlike other massager products, due to the large size of the lumbar cushion, the express cost of return is also high. The above-mentioned user said that although the product was sent from Jiangsu, the location where she wanted to return the goods in the end was Yanbian, Jilin, and the shipping cost alone was more than 50 yuan, reaching half of the product price. According to BKT regulations, this part of the cost will be fully borne by the brand, which means that under the high return rate of e-commerce today, the cost pressure of BKT is also increasing sharply.

In the previously hot massager market, it has been difficult to appear giant brands, and from the perspective of the category of lumbar cushions, it is also more difficult to build a brand. When more source factories and white-label products enter the game, the uneven product quality and after-sales service make users question constantly. Even many users have begun to call BKT an anti-human design, and Beibeijia has become a "beautiful torture tool".

Moreover, in the eyes of some users, these products are now selling anxiety through short videos, live broadcast rooms and other channels. One user said that the anchor will create a sense of urgency to buy, and they will say that "all posture problems really don't need to be delayed anymore, the more you delay, the more serious the problem, and the more difficult it is to adjust and improve later".

On the whole, young people's demand for health products is increasing day by day, but behind the myth of high sales of various Internet celebrity products, there is always "old wine in new bottles", and it is difficult to have new ideas.

(Note: All names have been changed.) ）