Has the core competitiveness of live streaming e-commerce shifted from “price” to “personality”?

As consumer shopping habits evolve, livestreaming sales are shifting from price competition to a competition of personality and creative content. Today, let’s focus on those livestreaming sales phenomena that have humor, sincerity, creative interaction, and emotional connection as their core competitiveness, and explore how they are shaping new consumer trends.

Price wars have always been the main strategy of major live streaming platforms. However, as user consumption habits change, live streaming has gradually shifted from focusing on products and prices to focusing on the anchor. Crawley found that in this process of change, a group of new creative and distinctive live streaming platforms have gradually emerged:

Mr. K has become a breath of fresh air in the live streaming sales industry with his humorous and sincere interactive style;

Li Dan's store, which talks about "gossip" instead of products, achieves "lying flat style sales";

"Qin Hailu vs. the Evil Silver Gradient" opens a new model of live streaming of cute pets...

How did they open up a new track for live streaming? Can live streaming with products centered on personality and creativity become the mainstream direction of the industry in the future?

1. Don’t engage in price wars, but stand out with humor and sincerity

In the field of live streaming, price wars were once the focus of competition among major live streaming studios. However, as the market matures and consumer demand diversifies, it can be found that it is becoming increasingly difficult to be in the live streaming business.

However, recently, several unique live streaming rooms for selling goods have emerged. They do not win by traditional price wars, but instead open up new tracks for selling goods by relying on their own advantages.

For example, Mr. K, who has recently become famous for his humor, speaks Mandarin with a slight Guangxi accent in the live broadcast room. He frequently makes golden sentences, which makes the live broadcast room full of laughter, attracts the attention of a large number of viewers, and also makes Mr. K's name quickly popular in the field of live streaming e-commerce.

"The rich pay to support the party, the poor steal and rob"

"There are no preservatives. You can add your own if you want."

He uses light-hearted and humorous language to transform complex product information into easy-to-understand and interesting jokes, and calmly responds to some tricky questions from netizens, creating many famous scenes, allowing the audience to understand the products in laughter and generate a desire to buy.

These funny scenes not only retained many live viewers, but also led to a large number of live broadcast clips appearing on the Internet, which quickly broke out of the circle and fed back to the live broadcast room. The number of online people in the live broadcast room gradually grew from a few thousand to three or four hundred thousand.

According to the data from Crawley, K’s total number of fans has increased by more than 7 million in the past 30 days, and the total number of fans has exceeded 16 million.

Image source: TikTok

If Mr. K's humor and personal charm are the traffic code that attracts netizens to watch his live broadcast room, then sincerity is the killer skill that netizens are willing to pay for.

In the live streaming stage, sincerity is the most valuable emotional bond between the anchor and the fans. Mr. K always puts the fans first and wins their trust with a sincere attitude and actions.

Not only does he patiently answer fans' questions and concerns, he also speaks out the truth without exaggeration or boasting, such as "the packaging is a bit ugly" and "it's nothing wrong except it's expensive" and "it tastes terrible".

Mr. K, who does not charge for the slot, has also opened up a new model of selling goods + entertainment broadcasting, directly leading major brands to compete, resulting in a rare scene in which the top ten gift lists are not made up of fans but all merchants.

This sincere interaction method and program effect made netizens spontaneously purchase related products to show their support. Not only did the sales of major brands soar, but they also increased their own popularity through gifts.

As consumers' requirements for shopping experience continue to increase, the traditional price war model can no longer meet market demand, and the number of netizens willing to pay for it is much less than before. The emergence of Mr. K is in line with this trend. Without relying on price wars, he has reshaped the new experience of live streaming with his personal charm.

2. Creative live streaming of goods becomes a new choice for netizens

In fact, in addition to Mr. K, there have been many live broadcast rooms that have not engaged in price wars and have created their own unique styles.

For example, Li Dan’s store became popular with its “lying flat style” of selling goods. In the live broadcast room, he did not explain the products, but shared letters from readers, leading netizens to chat about “gossip”, and sharply interpreted them from another perspective. He was even jokingly called “electronic male bestie” by netizens.

It can be said that his live broadcast room is not only a sales platform, but also a space for emotional communication. Li Dan allows the audience to confide their emotional confusion and share life stories, thus establishing a deep emotional bond. Based on this emotional resonance, the products recommended by Li Dan can often trigger the audience's desire to buy.

Image source: WeChat official account

Dong Jie, who launched her first live streaming sales show on Xiaohongshu in 2023, also has a unique live streaming style. There is no high-decibel shouting, price wars, or fast-paced product introductions. Instead, she communicates with the audience in a gentle and sincere way as a friend and shares good things.

The products sold in Dong Jie's live broadcast room are generally priced higher, such as a 5,000 yuan cardigan and a 4,000 yuan ballet shoe. However, based on her own understanding of aesthetics, Dong Jie will slow down her speech during the live broadcast to explain the matching logic to users and teach users how to improve their temperament and aesthetics.

Dong Jie not only sells products, but also expresses her opinions. Users can truly feel her attitude towards life and her perception of beauty in Dong Jie's live broadcast room.

Image source: Live screenshot

In fact, in addition to live broadcasts like Dong Jie's, which share their own dressing experience and opinions, there is another more creative and "alternative" live broadcast of goods:

The account "Fen'ertou is a cat, not a pig" has started the pet sales mode. The cat named Fen'ertou and her mother, who looks like Qin Hailu, seem to be a pair of bickering lovers. The scene of Fen'ertou cooperating with the business of freeze-dried cat food has attracted the attention of many netizens, and the related entry "Qin Hailu fights against the evil silver gradient" has also been on the hot list.

When facing Fener, his expression changes instantly when he eats snacks, and he often shows a mysterious smile like a human. Netizens commented jokingly: "As long as the salary and bonus are increased, his expression will change in an instant, and he will work hard, just like Fener."

Image source: TikTok

With the explosion of live streaming, both the number of fans and sales of products brought by live streaming of "Fenertou" have seen an overall increase, becoming a phenomenal topic in the field of pet live streaming.

From August 25 to September 25, the number of followers of the account "Fen'er's head is a cat, not a pig" increased by 1.54 million, and the estimated cumulative sales of live broadcasts were between 5 million and 7.5 million yuan. Among them, the live broadcast on September 6 alone had 3.92 million viewers and sales of live broadcasts between 750,000 and 1 million yuan.

3. New trends in live streaming sales: from price wars to content creativity and emotional connection

As consumers' requirements for shopping experience continue to improve, the traditional sales model can no longer meet market demand. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of live broadcast rooms like the above that do not engage in price wars and open up unique sales models? Can they continue to be replicated?

First of all, this new model is very beneficial to enhancing audience stickiness. The personalized sales model provides unique and interesting content and establishes emotional resonance with the audience, thereby enhancing audience stickiness.

It can be seen that whether it is Li Dan or Mr. K’s live broadcast room, they rely on their personal charm and interaction, and finally form a close and strong connection with the audience in the live broadcast room, combining product promotion with content marketing and emotional connection to create a new shopping experience.

Viewers are also more willing to continue following the host’s live broadcast because they like the host’s style, content or interactive method, which increases the possibility of purchase.

In addition, since the anchors have established a close relationship with the audience, the audience tends to trust the anchors' recommendations more, which increases the conversion rate of products in the live broadcast room and brings higher sales to the merchants.

The relaxed atmosphere of the live broadcast room also makes shopping no longer just a transaction, but a process of enjoyment. This transformation not only improves the audience's shopping experience but also enhances their recognition and loyalty to the brand and product.

The live streaming format similar to Mr. K’s sales + entertainment can also broaden the audience and tap potential users. Many groups who are interested in entertainment but do not often consume in the live streaming room are attracted by Mr. K, thus opening up groups that may have been difficult to reach in other traditional sales channels.

At the same time, we should also see that the highly personal and personalized sales model requires high personal charm from the anchor and makes content creation difficult. Anchors who lack the ability to create content may face difficulties in content creation.

Personalized live streaming models often involve more entertainment and interactive elements, which means that anchors need to pay attention to more regulations when live streaming, strengthen supervision and self-discipline, grasp the boundaries between live streaming and entertainment, and ensure that their live streaming content is legal and compliant.

Would you pay for this kind of live broadcast room? Welcome to discuss in the comment section~