Young people who once dared not to buy jewelry have become bolder in the live broadcast room

With the rise of live streaming e-commerce, the jewelry industry is undergoing a revolution. This article takes a deep dive into how jewelry live streaming is breaking the traditional sales model, attracting a new generation of consumers, and achieving significant growth on Douyin e-commerce. From jadeite to high-end custom jewelry, live streaming has become a new gathering place for jewelry lovers

Jadeite worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan is sold out in seconds once it is put on the shelves;

The anchor hasn't even put down the jewelry in her hand, but the audience is already urging her to "quickly update" the next piece of high-end jewelry...

Don't doubt it, this has become a daily routine in live broadcast rooms in the jewelry industry.

New content inspires new consumer interests, and content has become the best driver of business. Today, this trend has spread to the "jewelry" and "cultural relics" sectors.

During the jewelry and gold category day of the "Douyin Mall Double 11 Good Products Festival", the transaction volume of related products increased by 125% compared with the same period last year. As a popular track in Douyin e-commerce, jewelry has attracted the favor of many merchants and they have entered the market one after another.

It is not difficult to understand why super categories such as jewelry and cultural relics are so popular in live broadcast rooms.

Jewelry and collectibles are typical non-standard products and not high-frequency consumer goods. Most consumers emphasize "eye contact" when buying jewelry. By directly viewing jewelry products in the live broadcast room and learning the cultural stories behind them through the host's introduction, the probability of finding jewelry that "appears in your eye" is greatly increased.

As a typical "content-driven" business, this issue of Microscope Story will delve into the jewelry industry and explore how this millennium-old category "grows against the wind" on Douyin e-commerce.

Here are some real stories about this industry:

1. A new generation of jewelry consumers fall in love with shopping in live broadcast rooms

42.56 million in 3 days, with the highest daily GMV exceeding 22.83 million. This is the report card that "Xiaobao Jewelry" handed in during the Douyin e-commerce Double 11 preemptive week.

This move breaks the public's stereotype that "the economy is bad and non-essential consumption such as jewelry should be weak."

It is no secret that the new generation of jewelry consumers love to buy jewelry in live broadcast rooms.

Data from Douyin e-commerce shows that during the "Douyin Mall Double 11 Shopping Festival" from October 24 to 26 this year, the transaction volume of jewelry and gold categories increased by 125% compared with the same period last year, and the number of live broadcasts with transaction volumes exceeding 10 million yuan increased by 188% year-on-year.

In addition to loving to buy jewelry in live broadcast rooms, this generation of jewelry consumers also has many differences when choosing jewelry.

Their consumption is obviously driven by content, and "content value" has become an important decision-making factor. "In our live broadcast room, what people like to listen to most is content about Chinese style dressing, and they are willing to pay for this content," said Chen Weidan, the brand manager of "Shanmuji" (hereinafter referred to as "Sister"), "Sister".

Picture | "Sister" the manager of "Shanmuji"

When the "Shanmuji" brand was founded on Douyin e-commerce in 2022, the "Sister" live broadcast room was still mainly based on the "cost-effective" route. However, as time went on, consumers were no longer satisfied with the products themselves, but began to explore the "design concept" and "Chinese culture" behind the products. "This year we clearly feel that users are willing to pay for the designer's design concept and the cultural value and aesthetics behind the products."

Xiaobao, the manager of "Xiaobao Jewelry", also has a deep understanding of this.

Photo | Xiaobao, the owner of "Xiaobao Jewelry"

In 2019, Xiaobao started to join Douyin e-commerce and was one of the first anchors to sell jewelry through live broadcasts. Xiaobao recalled the initial live broadcast format, saying that "it was enough to take everyone to trace the source of the goods and get a quote." However, in recent years, the number of jewelry merchants on Douyin e-commerce has greatly increased. As the range of choices faced by users has greatly increased, they are no longer limited to the "product" itself, but have turned their attention to product structure, craftsmanship, aesthetics and other content.

In order to meet the changing needs of consumers, jewelry anchors such as "Meimei" and Xiaobao began to study the contents related to dressing, culture and jewelry, and the focus of live broadcasts also expanded from talking about products to "matching" and "aesthetics" which consumers pay more attention to. "Content value" is also reflected in consumers' active demands.

Dai Chuan, brand director of Jia Jia Jade, recalled that whenever some movie or game characters became popular, the company would also receive related customized orders, requesting customized related peripheral products.

At the same time, with the influx of a large number of merchants from industrial belts, consumers can purchase from the source, breaking down channel barriers and making consumers' shopping preferences more diversified.

The traditional jewelry industry model is "goods first, then business", and consumers' preferences and purchasing choices are determined by jewelers' inventory.

However, as more and more merchants from industrial belts enter Douyin e-commerce, jewelry and cultural relics with regional characteristics such as diamonds from Henan, Xiuyan jade from Yunnan, and Fushun amber from Liaoning have begun to enter the public eye, providing consumers with diversified choices.

On the other hand, high-end demand has increased significantly, and high-net-worth users have gathered.

The core business of the "Jia Jia Jade" brand is high-end jade customization. The brand's average customer unit price is 30,000 yuan, and it has sold items worth 2 million yuan in the live broadcast room.

Figure | "High-quality goods" in the "Jia Jia Jade" store

The experience of Jia Jia Jade is not an isolated case. According to its brand director Dai Chuan, "Many live broadcast rooms selling high-quality products should have such experiences."

In addition, immersive live broadcast, semi-DIY live broadcast... various new trends that cater to consumers' tastes have emerged one after another in the Douyin e-commerce live broadcast room. The traditional jewelry business is ushering in new business opportunities in the live broadcast room.

2. Let consumers go from "love to watch" to "dare to buy"

All things are difficult at the beginning. It is not easy to get consumers to dare to buy jewelry in the Douyin e-commerce live broadcast room.

Jewelry is a typical high-premium non-standardized product. There is a lack of trust in every link of its circulation, which makes it difficult for merchants to achieve large-scale operations.

Therefore, although jewelry and cultural relics are a "super category" with a long history, there are few "super brands" and the industry is mostly dominated by husband-and-wife stores and father-and-son teams.

The digital nature of e-commerce means that only businesses that are large enough can survive. To move the scattered jewelry and cultural relics businesses online, the first thing to solve is the trust issue in different links.

Before a piece of jewelry sold on Douyin e-commerce platform is completely purchased by consumers, it must go through three stages: pre-sales, sales, and after-sales.

"Pre-sales stage" refers to the preparations made before a product is sold, including product selection, quality inspection, shooting and display, and stocking.

Different jewelry merchants have different focuses at this stage, but the core is to ensure the "goods are good".

For "Xiaobao Jewelry", which focuses on traceability and sales, the source of goods mainly comes from merchants in the industrial belt. Due to the large volume of goods, under the traditional model, in order to save labor costs, merchants in the industrial belt usually do not classify these goods in detail, but sell them to downstream in a packaged form. Different merchants have different control over product quality, resulting in uneven quality within the same batch of goods.

Then, when the lights are turned on and filters are added, consumers can see the pros and cons more clearly.

These behaviors have deeply hurt consumers, making them afraid to buy jewelry easily for fear of being "scammed".

In order to let users "see is what they get" in the live broadcast room and to ensure the "quality" of the goods, "Xiaobao Jewelry" is extremely cautious in the product selection process - the company has formed an internal quality inspection team of more than 80 people to serve the anchors. When selecting products, each batch of goods will undergo multiple rounds of manual screening in advance, and then be locked into storage in advance before the broadcast.

After everything is “put in place”, the products will appear in the live broadcast room, eliminating the problem of “wrong goods” from the source. Taking this Double 11 as an example, in order to ensure product quality, “Xiaobao Jewelry” even pulled the products to the company’s “locked warehouse” 6 months in advance.

For businesses like "Shanmuji" that produce their own products, control of "raw materials" is particularly important.

"We mainly deal in wooden bracelets and other products. Wood is the key. The prices vary greatly depending on the type, origin and age of the wood," "Sister" explained. Taking sandalwood as an example, the price of sandalwood produced in India is more than 10 times that of domestic sandalwood, and the price difference between old and new materials is as high as thousands of yuan. However, it is difficult to detect the difference between many woods unless you are a veteran in the industry.

Figure | Some works from “Shanmuji”

Therefore, since its establishment in 2022, all the wood of "Shanmuji" has been controlled by my brother personally. "Shanmuji" is backed by Xianyou, Fujian. Xianyou is the largest wood furniture production base in China. Every household is involved in wood-related businesses. Before founding "Shanmuji", my brother had been in the red wood business for more than ten years. He knows all kinds of wood like the back of his hand. He can tell the key information and distinguish the good from the bad at a glance.

Because of their sharp eyes and the high quality of the products they sell, Chen Weidan and his sister are affectionately called "brother" and "sister" in the "Shanmuji" live broadcast room. Many consumers joked, "Brother and sister, they won't cheat their own family, right?"

"After all, jewelry is not a necessity, and it is a non-standard product with a high unit price. No matter how consumers' shopping habits change, what they care about most is the quality of the goods. If the goods are not good, there can be no trust," said Xiaobao.

The sales link, as the name suggests, is about how to display the product during the sales process and how to make consumers willing to believe and pay.

"This is also an important reason why we chose Douyin e-commerce," said Dai Chuan, brand director of Jiajia Jade. Gao Jia, the founder of Jiajia Jade, was born in the 1980s and was also one of the earliest jewelry craftsmen to "go online."

However, in the era of traditional e-commerce, the creative process of craftsmen is invisible and opaque. The public does not trust the authenticity and uniqueness of the "craftsmen's" creations, believing that the works are products of industrial assembly lines and are unwilling to pay for their craftsmanship.

"So after we came to Douyin e-commerce, we adhered to the principle of 'transparency' and allowed consumers to see the creative process, the differences behind different skills, and the different jade cultures through short videos, live broadcasts and other content methods. Everyone is impressed by the content and will naturally place an order," said Dai Chuan.

Figure | "Jia Jia Jade" is committed to spreading the true artisan

In the eyes of "Sister", "content" is also the best bridge to communicate with consumers.

"The market is so competitive now. What good things have consumers not seen? Why should they choose you? Of course it is because you provide them with unique value, and content is the carrier of these values," said "Sister".

The after-sales system determines whether consumers are willing to "try it this time" and "come back next time."

The jewelry industry has a high knowledge threshold, and establishing a customer service team and actively responding have become basic standards for Douyin e-commerce merchants.

“But these efforts on the merchant side alone are not enough to bring about fundamental changes in the jewelry industry ecosystem,” said Zhao Meixi, public relations director of Yunshang Jewelry.

In order to eliminate consumers' doubts and provide them with protection, Douyin e-commerce officials are also constantly strengthening their services in the "after-sales" link, and are committed to creating standardized processes in the non-standard category of jewelry.

For example, a Douyin e-commerce base has been established in the industrial belt, and it has cooperated with a number of authoritative appraisal institutions to provide consumers with professional jewelry and jade appraisal services. All jewelry and cultural relics shipped will pass the third-party quality inspection of the Douyin e-commerce base, and will only be sent to consumers after obtaining authoritative appraisal certificates and traceability codes.

Consumers can scan the traceability code to query the detailed identification information of jewelry and jade, including but not limited to key indicators such as material, weight, color, clarity, etc. At the same time, the government also provides an "appreciation period" to ensure that consumers' rights and interests are protected.

The transition from “daring to buy in the live broadcast room” to “loving to buy in the Douyin live broadcast room” is also full of challenges.

Trends in the jewelry market change rapidly and consumers have different tastes. How to attract and retain consumers and continue to create value is a difficult problem that merchants must face.

Different brands have also come up with different methodologies.

For Jia Jia Jade, which specializes in craftsmanship, the biggest concern used to be how to convey the value of "craftsmanship" to consumers.

After solving this problem through short videos and content marketing, Jiajia Jade is faced with the challenge of how to achieve long-term development - the main consumer group of jade is people over 35 years old, while there are a large number of young users under 35 on the Douyin e-commerce platform. Although these young users are not the main purchasing group at present, they may become potential consumers in 10 years.

If you want to achieve long-term brand development, you need to establish connections with consumers in advance.

During this year's Double 11, Jia Jia Jade launched a series of affordable products priced around RMB 1,000 in order to attract and lock in future potential customers. "Once they have established a connection with us and a relationship, there must be a story and a future."

Xiaobao Jewelry, backed by Yunshang Jewelry, has multiple live streaming rooms and ships tens of thousands of orders every day. In order to accurately control consumption trends, they developed a "hot-selling prediction" system to predict hot-selling products and reduce product inventory.

"It can be said that after the rapid development in the past few years, the merchants who are now active on Douyin e-commerce all have their own core competitiveness," said "Sister".

3. Being a jeweller and a cultural inheritor

Consumers' love for jewelry and cultural relics in the live broadcast room has also overflowed beyond the screen, bringing about many changes.

With the love and support of the public, craftsmen have gained more dignity.

Dai Chuan introduced that jade lovers are called "Jade Friends". In the past, the communication between "Jade Friends" and carving craftsmen was one-way - craftsmen and artisans created according to their own inspirations, and then the Jade Friends purchased them. Since the craftsmen did not understand the preferences of "Jade Friends" and the communication conditions were limited, many masters did not understand the market and found it difficult to gain recognition, and naturally it was difficult to get equal returns.

Picture | Jade lovers love to listen to "Jia Jia Jade" share relevant knowledge

"Sister" still remembers that when she first went to Xianyou to look for sources of goods, many masters were unwilling to accept "e-commerce" orders, believing that "online consumers do not know the goods", and many master studios faced the dilemma of losing their skills.

"Even in our local area, parents feel that sending their children to learn a craft is hopeless and not decent enough," said the "sister." Even when she went to discuss cooperation, the old craftsmen were reluctant to accept "e-commerce orders," believing that "online consumers don't know the goods."

But when the craftsmen and jewelers were seen in the live broadcast room and gained recognition, "Sister" found that they were different.

When "Sister" returned to some studios, she found that the old masters over fifty years old were vying to show their skills in front of "Sister"'s camera; the young people who had returned home flocked to learn techniques, and the "popularity" in the studios returned.

As jewelry and craftsmen gain dignity, jewelry culture is also revitalized.

Once upon a time, Chinese jewelry culture had a long history. As early as in the Book of Songs, Wei Feng, Fen Ju Lu, there was a line that said "That girl is as beautiful as jade", using jade to describe a person's beauty and talent.

However, due to various reasons, there has been a "break" in Chinese jewelry culture, and the traditional culture and intangible heritage contained in Chinese jewelry are at risk of being lost.

The Douyin e-commerce platform, through its own influence, held a wood design competition and invited inheritors/masters of the intangible cultural heritage of agarwood to enter the live broadcast room, allowing the public to learn about these cultures and promoting the "rebirth" of traditional culture.

“It’s not that people don’t like it anymore, but that people don’t know about these things.

"This year, one of their products was recommended by Harper's Bazaar and was sold out by Chinese style enthusiasts. It also boosted the sales of other new Chinese style jewelry in the store. In the design competition held by Douyin e-commerce, a product called "Forbidden City" was a huge hit.

At the same time, industrial belts are more standardized and more possibilities emerge.

When Xiaobao first decided to sell jewelry through Douyin e-commerce live streaming, suppliers were unwilling to provide him with high-quality goods. Everyone did not believe from the bottom of their hearts that the e-commerce platform could subvert the traditional jewelry business. They thought it was just old wine in a new bottle and would eventually be tamed by the traditional "unwritten rules" of the industry.

But now, Xiaobao said: "I dare say that Douyin e-commerce is the safest platform for buying jewelry."

As a result, the problem of "it's difficult to build a brand" that has plagued the jewelry and cultural relics industries for thousands of years has also shown signs of loosening on Douyin e-commerce, and countless aspiring people are competing to invest in it.

The Yunshang Jewelry Group behind Xiaobao Jewelry has launched its own jewelry brand "Yunshangxu", planning to build a "chain store" in the jewelry field;

Jiajia Jade founder Gao Jia hopes to create an "aesthetic brand" that belongs to China;

The Douyin brand "Shanmuji", which has been displayed or recommended by CCTV, National Geographic, and Phoenix Weekly, and was once selected as the "Xianzuo Good Product Recommendation Officer" and "Xianzuo Promotion Demonstration Live Room", is striving to become a "time-honored brand".

“I hope that in a few years, when our descendants study our era, they can examine our aesthetics and feel our warmth through our jewelry designs,” said “Sister.”

Times change, but jewelry and culture will never end. Behind the curtain call of jewelry and cultural relics, platforms like Douyin e-commerce are needed to provide more opportunities.

After all, business is the best protection, and development is the golden key to solving all problems in the industry.

Text | Yang Jia Editor | Zhuoran