"Gaotu Jiapin" stopped broadcasting? It gained 1.86 million fans in 7 days, and the "overwhelming wealth" cannot be retained

In the wave of live streaming sales, "Gaotu Jiapin" once took its first steps quickly by "picking up bargains", but suffered repeated failures on the road of imitation and finally had to press the pause button.

Nine months ago, "picking up a bargain and getting rich" gained 1.86 million followers in seven days. Nine months later, "Gaotu Jiapin" pressed the brake button and announced the suspension of live broadcasting.

Opening the live broadcast room of "Gaotu Jiapin" it is not difficult to find that it is surprisingly similar to "Dongfang Zhenxuan", from every detail of the layout of the live broadcast room, to the presentation style of the anchors, to the list of products in the window, the two are almost identical. If you don't pay special attention to the name of the live broadcast room in the upper left corner, it is difficult for viewers to distinguish the two.

It even has its own "Gaotu version of Dong Yuhui" in its live broadcast room. The host Haotian quotes classics and recites poems and songs in the room. With a live broadcast style similar to Dong Yuhui, Haotian once won the title of "second son-in-law".

From its establishment to the announcement of its suspension, "Gaotu Jiapin" has always been following "Dongfang Zhenxuan" and it seems particularly obsessed with imitation. Even though Dong Yuhui has gone solo and become the boss of "Yuhui Xingxing", "Gaotu Jiapin" is still obsessed with copying and creating the "Gaotu version of Dong Yuhui".

But Haotian is not Dong Yuhui, and "Gaotu Jiapin" is not "Dongfang Zhenxuan". It has been copying and failing all the way, and this follower has not yet been able to find its own way of live streaming sales.

For these education companies, if the live streaming business, which they once explored as a "sideline", has not taken off, will the companies still be willing to spend time and invest more resources? Or will they return to their comfort zone and seize the visible market in the more familiar education field?

01 When the tide receded, Gaotu failed to retain its “huge wealth”

“Gaotu Jiapin” first came into the public eye due to an unexpected “bargain”.

Last December, the editor of "Dongfang Zhenxuan" publicly challenged Dong Yuhui over who wrote the "small essay". To express their dissatisfaction, Dong Yuhui's fans flocked to the live broadcast rooms of competitors. For a time, the number of viewers in the live broadcast room of "Gaotu Jiapin" rose sharply, from about 20,000 people on a daily basis to more than 600,000 people.

This traffic dividend was also converted into real GMV. The daily sales, which originally hovered between 10,000 and 25,000 yuan, jumped to about 10 million to 25 million yuan in just a few days.

With this momentum, the number of followers of the Gaotu Jiapin account has also increased dramatically, increasing by 1.86 million in just one week, and the total number is close to 2.56 million. Another beneficiary is the Xueersi Youpin account, which gained nearly 440,000 followers in seven days.

However, as the "Small Composition" incident subsided, the short-lived popularity it brought to the "Gaotu Jiapin" live broadcast room quickly dissipated, the number of viewers returned to daily levels, and most of the time remained below 10,000 people, and the performance of bringing goods showed a significant decline.

According to Chanmama data, in the past 30 days (August 12 to September 13), the "Gaotu Jiapin" live broadcast room has launched 30 live broadcasts, with average daily sales maintained in the range of 100,000 to 250,000 yuan, a decline of nearly 100 times compared with the peak sales performance. More significantly, the number of fans has decreased by 120,000 compared with the peak period.

After experiencing a sudden surge in traffic, although Gaotu Jiapin attracted a lot of attention for a short time, it failed to successfully convert the traffic into lasting commercial value, leading to its final decision to stop broadcasting. This is not only a strategic adjustment, but also a helpless move.

As early as a month ago, attentive consumers had already noticed that many familiar faces in the live broadcast room had disappeared. At that time, Rourou, a host under Gaotu Jiapin, said in a live broadcast: "They all became teachers, and they all shined in the positions they wanted to be in. Those who left Gaotu Jiapin can also have the jobs and lives they like."

It can be seen from this that the anchor team of "Gaotu Jiapin" has indeed undergone changes, with some anchors choosing to leave and some returning to their previous teaching profession.

Subsequently, the size of Gaotu Jiapin's live broadcast team continued to shrink. According to Rourou's recent disclosure in the live broadcast room, there are only two anchors left in the company and only one person in the business department.

At present, the latest live broadcast record of "Gaotu Jiapin" is the Mid-Autumn Festival special on September 4, and there are no products on the shelves in the live broadcast room and WeChat applet mall window. However, its account "Gaotu Jiapin Happy Growth" is still broadcasting, and there are still 742 products on sale in the window.

The anchor Rourou said in the live broadcast of the account that the company's live broadcast business has not been completely terminated, but the "Gaotu Jiapin" live broadcast room has been suspended. In the future, the account will be transformed into a platform for the group's brand promotion, and the function of live streaming with goods will be transferred to the "Gaotu Jiapin Happy Growth" account.

However, judging from the situation in the "Gaotu Jiapin Happy Growth" live broadcast room, the account is still a "newbie village", with only dozens of orders of most products in stock and only a few hundred people watching online. In the past 30 days, four live broadcasts have been launched, with an average daily sales of only 1,000 to 2,500 yuan.

Judging from the current situation, although Gaotu Jiapin has not completely given up its live e-commerce business, this business has gradually been marginalized in the company.

02 Gaotu’s live broadcast follows the model of Dongfangxuan

Gaotu Jiapin is a live streaming platform launched by Gaotu Group (hereinafter referred to as Gaotu). Its founder, Chen Xiangdong, was once the executive president of New Oriental. After leaving the company, he founded GSX, a K12 online education institution, in 2014, and competed with his former employer, New Oriental, for business.

In 2021, the market value of GSX reached 38 billion US dollars, surpassing New Oriental at one point. In the Hurun Global Rich List of that year, Chen Xiangdong's wealth reached 75 billion yuan, more than twice that of his former boss Yu Minhong. It was also the year that GSX was officially renamed Gaotu Group.

However, the "double reduction policy" in 2021 has put a number of educational institutions in a difficult situation. At that time, New Oriental entered the field of live e-commerce, showing educational institutions a possibility of transformation. Its performance in the live streaming e-commerce industry has given new hope to other institutions that are still exploring the direction of transformation.

Since then, many educational institutions have followed suit, such as Doushen Education launched "Doushen Selection", Sikao Le Education established "Sikao Le GO", and TAL launched "Xueersi Youpin" (later renamed "Xueersi Youxuan"), and Gaotu Group also launched "Gaotu Jiapin". These institutions have more or less borrowed from "Dongfang Selection" when entering the field of live streaming.

"Gaotu Jiapin" is the most attentive among many imitators. The layout and furnishings in its live broadcast room are almost completely copied from "Oriental Selection", and the host's live broadcast style is also positioned as "knowledge live broadcast". In the subsequent exploration process, "Gaotu Jiapin" further focused the product categories of its live broadcast room on fresh food, agricultural products, and snacks, while taking into account household cleaning, wine, fast food, health care and other categories, and constantly approaching "Oriental Selection".

Although the live broadcast room of "Gaotu Jiapin" is very similar to that of "Dongfang Zhenxuan", its imitation has not stopped. In early 2023, "Gaotu Jiapin" followed the footsteps of "Dongfang Zhenxuan"'s live broadcast of tracing the source of food in various provinces and launched a special outdoor live broadcast event with the theme of "Beautiful China, Finding Good Food".

In addition, Gaotujiapin also launched its own brand products and set up a special section in its mini program to display them. Although the product variety is not large, the frozen shrimp, durian and pork sausage included are all hot-selling items of Dongfangxuan.

Gaotu Jiapin has also tried to create a Gaotu version of Dong Yuhui. The anchor Haotian was once highly expected. He also has a teacher background. He quoted classics and poems in the live broadcast room, and once became the "second son-in-law" in the eyes of the audience.

However, Haotian ultimately failed to become Dong Yuhui, and he recently withdrew from the "Gaotu Jiapin" live broadcast room, which announced that "Gaotu Jiapin" had suffered a miserable failure in its attempt to replicate Dong Yuhui.

On the surface, the rise of "Oriental Selection" seems to be attributed to the key figure Dong Yuhui, but in fact, it reflects a strategy of differentiated competition.

In the live broadcast field full of monotonous calls of "3, 2, 1, link up", Dong Yuhui is unique, with his eloquent sales method, cleverly integrating poetry, songs and philosophical thinking, showing a unique live broadcast style. It is this "uniqueness" that makes "Eastern Selection" stand out among many homogeneous competitors.

From the establishment of "Gaotu Jiapin" to the announcement of its suspension, it has been replicating and failing all the way until the final suspension, and it has not been able to find its own way to sell goods through live streaming. Similarly, followers such as "Doushen Selection" and "Thinking Music GO" also suffered the fate of suspension earlier due to lack of differentiation.

03 Return to the core business: education business always plays a leading role

In the process of following "Oriental Selection" to explore the live streaming e-commerce business, Gaotu has been slow to improve. This is reflected not only in the data of the live streaming room, but also in the financial report.

In 2023, Gaotu suffered a net loss of 7.3 million yuan, while Gaotu Jiapin's loss in the same period was 9.165 million yuan. With Gaotu's overall financial situation under pressure, the live e-commerce business has become an additional burden.

In fact, Gaotu's core is still firmly in the field of education and training services, which is clearly reflected in its second quarter financial report for fiscal year 2024. The financial report shows that learning services account for about 95% of the company's revenue. In comparison, the income from live streaming cannot support the company's revenue.

Even for New Oriental, which was the first to enter the market, the proportion of its live e-commerce business in total revenue is relatively limited. According to New Oriental's interim report for fiscal year 2024, the "Oriental Selection" segment achieved a net profit of HK$274 million, which contributed less than 20% to New Oriental's overall net profit of HK$1.526 billion. In addition, the gross profit margin of "Oriental Selection" is also much lower than that of New Oriental's education and training business.

Given that the live streaming e-commerce business is unlikely to become a new growth point for the company and that there is a clear gap in profitability compared to the education and training industry, Gaotu's choice to return to and focus on its core business of education and training services is particularly reasonable and in line with market logic.

Before Gaotu Jiapin announced the suspension of its program, Gaotu had been in the red for four consecutive quarters, mainly due to the surge in costs caused by large-scale investment in the education sector. In particular, in the second quarter of this year, Gaotu's total operating expenses reached 1.16 billion yuan, an increase of 144% compared with the same period last year.

Gaotu has only been imitating live streaming e-commerce from the beginning to the end. In comparison, education and training are its strengths. For Gaotu, giving up the live streaming business and returning to its main battlefield of education and training, which it is good at, is a good choice.

Text｜Xu Kun Editor｜Wang Yaqi This article is written by the author of Operation Party [E-commerce Online], WeChat public account: [E-commerce Online], 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.