Dianbo is a new flagship store for content e-commerce

As the growth of live e-commerce traffic enters a bottleneck period, store broadcasts are redefining the interaction model between merchants and consumers with their content attributes and transaction conversion capabilities. This article will explore in depth how store broadcasts have become a new flagship store for content e-commerce, analyze their role in brand building, long-term operations, and private domain traffic precipitation, and explore the impact of store broadcasts on the construction of content e-commerce platform shelves.

After e-commerce shifted from price involution to the pursuit of GMV growth, platforms are trying to compete for and sort out the supply structure, improve conversion efficiency and repeat purchases, and allow merchants to operate stably in the long term. Some basic new actions and manifestations will include: lowering the entry threshold for new merchants, paying attention to searches that indicate a clearer shopping mentality and higher conversion efficiency, and encouraging store broadcasts that can provide daily sales guide services rather than pursuing single-game explosive group purchase services.

Store broadcast is not a new form. Both content e-commerce platforms and shelf e-commerce platforms have started to develop store broadcast more than two years ago. However, before this, store broadcast played more of a role of after-sales and customer service. As the traffic growth of the entire live broadcast e-commerce industry has entered a bottleneck period, especially the growth of the top Dabo has peaked, store broadcast has not only shown a faster growth rate than Dabo in terms of strategy but also in practice, and even the transaction share has begun to catch up.

According to reports, in 2024, Douyin's e-commerce shelf scenes and store broadcasts will account for a combined total of more than 70% of the GMV, of which store broadcasts account for more than 30% and shelves account for more than 40%. This is also the second consecutive year that Douyin's e-commerce store live broadcast GMV share has exceeded that of Dabo.

Taobao also mentioned at Alimama's communication meeting earlier this month that Taobao's overall content traffic is still growing at a rate of more than 2 times, and Taobao store broadcasts have replaced Dabo to become the main force in the live broadcast track.

Store broadcasting is once again becoming a new force in live streaming e-commerce, or a new capability that the platform wants to emphasize.

According to 36Kr, Douyin e-commerce's GMV will reach 3.5 trillion in 2024, surpassing JD.com to become the third in the industry. Earlier this month, ByteDance CEO Liang Ruobo mentioned in a letter to all employees that Douyin e-commerce's three goals for 2025 are: to increase e-commerce user coverage, to increase the scale of advantageous live e-commerce, and to increase GMV generated by searches.

In terms of form, store broadcasting is a way to meet these three goals at the same time. It is related to whether the ceiling of live broadcast e-commerce can continue to be raised, and it is related to the necessity and boundary issues of content e-commerce to be a shelf.

The development of store broadcasting and its future possibilities are one of the factors that influence the growth of Douyin e-commerce. In the context of content e-commerce, Douyin e-commerce, which has more experience, is bound to provide a reference for new content e-commerce platforms such as Xiaohongshu through its exploration and development of store broadcasting.

Store broadcasting becomes the new main force of live e-commerce

Store broadcasting has become the new main force of live e-commerce not only for platforms, but also for more and more merchants.

Douyin e-commerce officials also stated at a recent event about store live streaming that in the past year, 69% of merchants who earned revenue through live streaming achieved product sales through store live streaming, and more than 1,000 merchants had store live streaming sales exceeding 100 million yuan.

Take Marius, a domestic clothing brand known as one of the four great kings in the e-commerce clothing industry, as an example. It started broadcasting on Douyin through the personal IP account @老马Marius and the store matrix account of its manager Lao Ma, achieving a 5-fold increase in brand account store broadcast sales in 2024.

Nongxin Nongyi is an agricultural product merchant with annual sales of more than 30 million. Most of their operations on Douyin are completed through self-broadcasting in the store. According to the seasonal characteristics of agricultural products, they follow the logic of single product explosive sales. Currently, they specialize in selling sweet potatoes (the sweet potato season is also coming to an end). There are only 3 products in the entire store, and the representative explosive product "Yanshu 25" has accumulated sales of nearly 2.8 million orders.

Nongshim Nongyi's Shandong Yanshu 25 has sold 2.79 million pieces

The live broadcast room of Nongxin Nongyi mainly presents real scenes. During the tobacco and potato picking season before the New Year, the live broadcast room will be placed in the fields, where people will pick and roast the fruits at the same time. In December when the picking is completed, the live broadcast room will be moved to the warehouse to broadcast the packaging scene. Now that the tobacco and potato 25 season has entered its final stage, the live broadcast room will be moved back to the office.

Its founder Ju Quanzhi told us that through three years of continuous store live broadcast operations, the sales of his brand’s Douyin store live broadcasts have accounted for 90%.

For content e-commerce, store broadcasting is a new type of flagship store

We believe that today’s store broadcasts are a new type of flagship store, which actually meets the different demands of different merchants for flagship stores.

During the period when Dabo was the mainstream form of live e-commerce, the role of Dianbo focused on after-sales and customer service. However, when Dabo itself became exhausted by the slowdown in traffic growth, increased uncertainty, and the susceptibility to low-price internal competition, the form of Dianbo began to seek changes.

Compared with shelf broadcasts, current store broadcasts have stronger content attributes, and are more inclined to product explanations and store image display; compared with Dabo, they have stronger transaction conversion and the attribute of user relationship sedimentation after conversion. In other words, current store broadcasts are like a new type of flagship store in the content field, which meets the demands of merchants in terms of image display and long-term operation in the form of long-term and stable broadcasts.

For some brand merchants, they can even achieve wide-scale brand exposure or ferment it into a brand marketing event by planning creative store broadcasts. For example, last year, Taobao and Douyin e-commerce were trying out brand show live broadcast rooms, and some outdoor brands moved their live broadcast rooms to outdoor real scenes and other store broadcasts, all of which have such functions.

For some differentiated niche brands, or brands in their rising stages, store broadcasting is a way to help them differentiate themselves and enhance their brand awareness, while also taking into account GMV conversion.

The clothing brand Marius's manager account on Douyin, @老马Marius, broadcasts every week. The manager Lao Ma will go to the live broadcast room to explain the style, material, and concept of new products, and share his own dressing ideas and personal aesthetics. Some customers have also formed a deterministic consumption habit of regularly coming to the live broadcast room to watch Lao Ma's sharing.

For Marius, store broadcasting is a way to enhance brand power. Brand power building is one of Marius's focuses this year. In May this year, their first offline store in Nanjing Deji Plaza will also open soon.

Searching for "老马Marius" on TikTok will automatically play the brand advertisement placed by the brand, and the store homepage is below. The overall presentation will also enhance the brand sense

For small and medium-sized businesses represented by Nongshim and Nongyi, store live streaming is a relatively stable business field.

The fresh food market that Nongxin Nongyi is in accounts for a large proportion of the Douyin e-commerce market, and its single product has strong explosiveness. However, due to the difficulty of storage and transportation, and the fact that many operators are farmers themselves and lack experience in e-commerce operations, it is easy to miss opportunities after orders explode, and instead be deducted money because of poor customer service, fulfillment and other services. The gross profit of fresh products is already low, and some merchants lose money instead of making profits after deductions. For store broadcasting, supply, anchors, discounts, and rhythm are all in their own hands. Merchants are clear about their supply and customer service, and will stop when the team members reach the critical load point.

At the same time, no matter what type of merchant, store broadcasting establishes a direct connection between merchants and consumers, which is easier to form private domains and repeat purchases, and improves the closeness between merchants and platforms. Ultimately, it accumulates the basic foundation of the platform's e-commerce business.

Douyin e-commerce has continued to expand its publicity and support efforts to attract merchants to open stores on Douyin since last year. A service provider told us that if you have recently registered for Douyin e-commerce, you will frequently receive push notifications from Douyin e-commerce looking for high-quality merchants, including: individuals can open 3 Douyin stores, corporate stores can open 20 Douyin stores, and the deposit for more than 90% of core categories has been reduced to 50%.

Ju Quanzhi told us that the current average commission for fresh food is around 2%, and part of the commission will be refunded if certain standards are reached.

However, the new store broadcast operation requires merchants to have new content operation ideas. It is not a stereotyped customer service, nor is it different from the more entertaining Dabo, but it must be able to promote conversion and suitable for the tone of their own products and brands/stores.

With the new store broadcast, are shelves still a must-answer issue for content e-commerce?

Attracting and screening new supplies, image display, and long-term operation are exactly what the content e-commerce platform has previously demanded and planned for shelf space.

In 2022, Douyin e-commerce proposed to increase the proportion of shelf GMV to 50%. If store broadcasting can become a new type of flagship store, is it still a must for content e-commerce to build a shelf field with a GMV penetration rate of 50%?

The outstanding advantages of shelf e-commerce platforms are search and repurchase, which are the precipitation of deterministic purchasing mentality. Content e-commerce is uncertain consumption generated by stimulation, and the peak and trough transaction characteristics will also bring great supply chain pressure to merchants. As the traffic growth space of content platforms is limited, the key to improving e-commerce GMV is not only to effectively stimulate, but also to take over the stimulated demand.

The essence of demand acceptance is to improve conversion efficiency (sufficient supply, accurate matching of people and goods), increase repeat purchases (good products, good services, good experience), and increase active searches (enhance the consumer mindset of the platform and enhance differentiated awareness of brands/merchants).

Building a shelf market is just one of the ways to undertake this. Perhaps most of the efforts made by content platforms in e-commerce will eventually be deposited in the shelf market, but the way to increase the penetration rate and ceiling of e-commerce does not necessarily rely entirely on directly building a shelf market. Continuing to stimulate global content, continuing to supplement supply through encouraging store broadcasts, providing more upward channels for supply, and providing merchants with more support in business policies and preferential marketing investment are all ways to achieve stable operations.

The role and function that store broadcast currently plays in Douyin e-commerce will also provide a reference for other content platforms doing e-commerce, such as Xiaohongshu e-commerce. The live broadcast of the host on Xiaohongshu is, to a certain extent, also a new type of store broadcast on Xiaohongshu. It is also a live broadcast format that is friendly to small and medium-sized businesses and differentiated long-tail supply.

In other words, if store broadcasting can become a new flagship store to solve problems such as brand display and daily sales and repeat purchases, the ceiling of content e-commerce will be raised again.

Author | Pang Mengyuan