Don’t expect to make money as a live streamer these days

In the boom of live streaming sales, many anchors have enjoyed the dividends of the industry, but with the changes in the market, the industry is facing unprecedented challenges. This article shows how anchors are struggling to survive in the context of declining income and frequent wage arrears, and shows the real dilemma of the live streaming sales industry.

“No matter how good a broadcaster is, it’s hard to find a job that pays 300 yuan an hour.”

Chen Ge (pseudonym) never expected that she would have to take a pay cut to earn some living expenses this year, even though she was still worried about working too much last year. Seeing that the live streaming sales market is getting worse day by day, she is so anxious that she suffers from neurasthenia. She dreams of competing with her peers for food. "It's difficult to beg for alms, but it's a blessing to be able to work like a cow or a horse."

What is even more frustrating is that you can’t get paid for your work. According to Chen Ge’s rough estimate, 70% of her income this year has not been paid. She has been asking for her salary almost every day in the past two months, but she has received nothing. Conscientious bosses will ask for a delay in payment. One company even sent a package of sample clothes to pay off the debt, so she “worked for half a month for nothing.”

In contrast to the dismal performance of mid- and low-tier anchors, the battle for top anchors is unprecedentedly fierce:

Simba confronted Brother Yang head-on, paying 100 million out of his own pocket to "help" the other party compensate consumers, which involved a series of gossips about Brother Yang selling counterfeit goods and cheating; the new top star Mr. K announced his withdrawal from the Internet when he was at the peak of his popularity, accusing capital of threats and suppression, and his cooperating merchants were reported and taken off the shelves; these people were on the hot searches one after another, and Han Anran, who just gave birth to her second child, was so anxious that she complained in the live broadcast room that "the audience has been sucked away by them" and "I would not have given birth at this time if I had known."

Chen Ge's biggest feeling after reading these news every day is that it is no longer possible to be a live streamer. "Stop bragging about professionalism. If you want to make money, you can only become an internet celebrity or an entertainer. Live streaming is just a way to make quick money. If I could wake up earlier, I wouldn't be out of work and money and begging everywhere."

Although he complained, Chen Ge did not stop the loss in time and kept struggling over whether to continue.

Confused, she threw the problem to the Internet's recent "metaphysical masterpiece" "The Book of Answers".

I turned the page devoutly and it said: It’s better to wait.

1. Lower the price

In 2023, a live broadcast team that Chen Ge had worked with was reported to have stopped working due to unpaid wages. She conceded that this was a normal adjustment within the industry. "Survival of the fittest is the norm in our industry, and I advise my colleagues not to worry about it. The ones that are eliminated are weak companies anyway, and people with strong business capabilities will be able to survive."

Unexpectedly, this cold wind swirled up from the bottom, sweeping to the waist and head at an increasingly faster speed, causing severe impact on more and more e-commerce companies and live broadcast teams. Even an industry top student like Chen Ge was not spared.

At first it was just a pay cut.

In 2017, Chen Ge entered the live streaming industry and her monthly salary reached 30,000 to 40,000 yuan soon after she started working. In winter, her salary could even double. After the industry took off in 2020, her value soared. During the big sales period, her hourly salary could easily reach several thousand yuan, and in the off-season, her hourly salary could reach 500 yuan.

However, this year, Chen Ge's average hourly wage barely reaches 300 yuan. "It's really a one-time hit, there is no room for buffer. The partners set their own prices to find anchors, if you don't do it, there are plenty of people who will do it anyway." She was of course very disappointed. In the past, even the smallest anchors dared to ask for 200 to 300 yuan per hour.

Some live broadcast companies have even adopted a new commission settlement model, where the income of anchors is closely tied to the performance of live broadcasts. It is no longer the case that the more you work, the more you get, but the more you earn, the more you get. According to Chen Ge, the current consumption situation of e-commerce users is not optimistic. It is rare for an ordinary live broadcast to achieve sales of hundreds of thousands. "After amortization, you work so hard for several hours and earn less than 1,000 yuan."

Originally thinking that the atmosphere in Beijing was not good, Chen Ge asked around and found that the market in cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen was not much better, "professional live broadcasters generally can't call for a high price." Hangzhou, the number one e-commerce city, can barely withstand the pressure, but salary cuts and layoffs are also a general trend. "It's hard to get into a good live broadcast company, and it's hard for individual anchors to get work. Few of the peers who ran away have settled down."

What is even worse is that the payment cycle has been extended infinitely, from daily payment to monthly payment, quarterly payment, and even half-year payment. Distrust is spreading in the industry. Chen Ge told Hard Candy that they used to pursue efficiency, and the cooperation was basically a verbal agreement, which made it difficult to prove the employment relationship between the two parties. Now they have also started to use contracts to facilitate debt collection and salary collection in the future.

Nowadays, even if you lower your price, you will definitely get work. During the 618 promotion last year, Chen Ge live-streamed nearly 30 shows, but this year he did less than half of that. "I've been doing this for 8 years, and this is the first time I've had no work for 4 or 5 days. It's outrageous."

The reason is that live streaming sales has entered a new reshuffle period. Many businesses and brands have found through actual experience that cutting off the live streaming sales business actually has little impact on overall development, so they choose to leave decisively. In addition, the settlement cycle of relevant live streaming platforms is as long as half a month, and small companies have to reduce costs and increase efficiency to deal with capital turnover issues.

The anchors are the first to be abandoned. "Now the partners don't care about the strength, as long as the cost performance is high enough. If you don't want to work because the money is too little, they will immediately shout in the circle of friends, and there will be a lot of anchors waiting in line to take your place." Chen Ge said helplessly.

2. Grab the life! Grab the life! Grab the life!

Even though they are deeply worried about salary cuts and wage arrears, most professional anchors are still trying to grab work and hold on. They firmly believe that as long as they can outlast a group of their peers, they will be able to recover.

This is also what Chen Ge is struggling with. "Some categories are still in demand, such as fast-moving consumer goods. As long as the partner doesn't go bankrupt, I can always get my money back bit by bit. I don't want to give up just like that. Besides, I don't know much, and it's hard to find other jobs."

The primary problem faced by the anchors who choose to stay is how to sell themselves in such a bleak market. This also makes Chen Ge feel exhausted. "Life was easy before, everyone either did it on their own or helped each other to make the pie bigger. Now with the current situation of life and death, everyone is afraid of being left behind, so they compete secretly, exclude newcomers, stab their peers in the back, and do all kinds of dirty things."

Of course, compared to playing the game of palace intrigue, most professional anchors still focus on self-transformation. The biggest change is that they used to have their main fields, but now they have started live broadcasting all categories, focusing on taking any job that comes their way. Chen Gepan is pretty and good at dressing up. She used to only do live broadcasts of clothing, beauty, and food, but now she has also begun to switch to pets, cultural relics, and trendy toys.

Another thing is to build the anchor's personality according to the user's aesthetic taste. Chen Ge told Hard Candy that in the past, when talking about anchors' professional abilities, they were probably all about adaptability and social skills, that is, whether they could answer audience questions in a timely manner, interact with them, and guide them to complete transactions. "Now, whether you go to interview a company or take a job as an individual, the partner will ask you if you have some personal skills, such as whether you can speak a minority language or have literary literacy."

In other words, live streaming has begun to capture the value of content, especially the "Book Fragrance School" live streaming popularized by Dong Yuhui. Chen Ge feels from the bottom of her heart that these fancy things are useless. But in order to avoid being left behind by her peers, she has to roll up her sleeves. "Before live streaming food, I read "Suiyuan Food List" and "Taste of the World", and even made excerpts of good words and sentences. I am not as serious as reading books."

While facing internal troubles, models and broadcasters who have turned into anchors have also brought a dimensionality reduction blow. Fashion and clothing categories prefer to cooperate with models. "Their image is there, and they don't need to say anything. They just need to be good clothes hangers. Some model anchors in Guangzhou can earn more than 2,000 yuan per hour." Chen Ge sighed.

Therefore, compared with self-improvement, the most practical thing is to improve cost-effectiveness. When many professional anchors first enter the industry, they will choose to sign contracts with companies and teams to get a fixed salary. Later, they found that they could earn more by working alone, so they started a plug-and-play USB-like workplace life and became individual anchors who only broadcast one show and got paid for it.

Now, they are eager to be closely tied to their partners and form a community of interests, so as to fundamentally reduce the risk of being eliminated. "I know a colleague who made a performance bet with a live broadcast agency. He promised a sales volume before the live broadcast, and would not stop the broadcast until it was achieved. One time, he broadcasted for nearly 10 hours in a row. It was too cruel."

Broadcasters with limited physical strength can choose to take on multiple roles, including operations, art design, and field control. After each live broadcast, Chen Ge will review the show for her partners and summarize some of her experience in account creation and product selection. But what makes her angry is that some broadcasters even bring their own lucky bags and give prizes to viewers in the live broadcast room to boost sales. "Although they are worthless little things, this trend is really bad!"

Continue to worry, continue to roll inward. Chen Ge persuaded herself during the day that this was just a cycle and she would be fine after getting through it. When she lay down at night and thought about it, she felt that it would not get better. "I have a strong ability to withstand pressure, but I am just mentally weak. Depression has become an infectious disease in our industry." She smiled bitterly.

3. Where to Go

After half a year of hard work, Chen Ge realized one thing: we must accept the fact that people are becoming less willing to consume, but this does not mean that no one will consume.

Luxury goods and personalized products are still selling well, and those dispensable categories can be abandoned. "My easiest and most profitable job now is to broadcast cultural relics. The profit of this thing is relatively high, and it is very cost-effective to settle it based on commission. The income from one broadcast may be equivalent to several clothing broadcasts."

However, these niche categories need to find core consumers and maintain close ties with them, and increase the repurchase rate in order to survive in the long run. "Many teams that make cultural relics only want to reap the benefits, grab a few big guys and try their best to make money, but they don't have the confidence to expand their business. This is too short-sighted. They should create accounts, maintain accounts, and promote products, and then make a cycle."

In Chen Ge's opinion, the root cause of this difference in business philosophy is: between e-commerce and entertainment, which way should live streaming take? Correspondingly, the anchor should be professional or entertaining.

In her opinion, for individual anchors, the success stories of Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, and Oriental Selection are of little reference value. "Either they caught up with the bonus window period, or they were backed by strong capital, and they are not replicable." However, Xiaoying and Mr. K, who became popular by chance this year, brought real inspiration - if anchors who sell goods want to survive and do well, they must put entertainment before professionalism.

“If you treat live streaming as an ordinary job, how can consumers develop feelings for an ordinary person? If you want to talk about stickiness, loyalty, and user sense of belonging, you can only go the entertainment route and work towards becoming an internet celebrity. We used to believe in so-called professionalism. We have been working honestly for all these years, relying purely on selling our time and energy for money. We are not as good as others who earn more in a few months. We have to become famous first before we are qualified to talk about other things.” Chen Ge felt that he had figured it out.

Many fans who place orders in the live broadcast rooms of K and Xiaoying do not care whether the potato chips and spicy strips are delicious or not. They just place orders to buy them instead of simply giving rewards to express their support for the anchors. This is the same as paying money to brand sponsors when chasing idols. These chosen saints have obvious advantages in traffic irrigation when they first become popular, and it is easy for them to play with small brands and small businesses. The key is how to find a sustainable development model in the later stage.

"In short, to make money, you have to be an informal live-streaming host." Chen Ge is trying to disassemble Xiaoying and Mr. K's live broadcasts to increase the entertainment value and contrast of his own personality. While completing the basic work, he is also trying to find some trigger points for himself.

Chen Ge was once glad that she had reaped the benefits of the industry and witnessed the golden age, and scoffed at the soul-searching question of "what will the anchor do when he gets old?" But now she also wants to ask: "It's better to wait a little longer, how long should it take?"

But life is a struggle. At least in the eyes of an outsider like Hard Candy, it may not be a bad thing that people can fight each other to keep warm during live streaming. When everyone gets cold for the first time, they always shout or kick others out of the only warm place left. When they are frozen to the point of not making a sound, that is the real winter.

Author | Liu Xiaotu Editor | Li Chunhui This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Entertainment Hard Candy], WeChat public account: [Entertainment Hard Candy], original/authorized to be published on Operation Party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.