Taobao cannot recruit anchors who can support their families

In the e-commerce live broadcast arena, Taobao Live once tried to fill the gap left by super anchors such as Wei Ya by recruiting external "supporter" anchors. However, the reality was not as smooth as expected. From Li Dan, Dongfang Zhenxuan to other well-known anchors, although their arrival once brought new vitality and attention to Taobao Live, they ultimately failed to maintain its popularity and fell into a vicious circle of "high opening and low closing".

Around 2018, Taobao Live had a "super IP" plan to find a new Wei Ya. Zhao Yuanyuan, who was the head of Taobao Live operations at the time, took a fancy to Li Jiaqi, who had not yet made a name for himself on Taobao Live. Zhao Yuanyuan suggested that Li Jiaqi go to Douyin to attract fans and divert traffic to the live broadcast room.

At that time, Douyin and Taobao were still in their honeymoon period, and Li Jiaqi attracted 30 million fans on Douyin in one year. Two years later, Li Jiaqi finally became the number one live-streaming anchor on Taobao, alongside Wei Ya, and Taobao Live also ushered in the era of duopoly anchors.

The logic of the story is: Taobao will give more traffic weight to any "Internet celebrity" who directs traffic to the live broadcast room from outside Taobao. This is also the reason behind Li Jiaqi's becoming the top anchor. Taobao has provided important help to Li Jiaqi's rise by leveraging off-site traffic. To put it simply, the core factor is that Taobao Live is "borrowing traffic."

Many years later, Taobao Live tried to replicate this logic of "borrowing traffic" and made more direct use of off-site traffic, trying to fill the gaps of super talents such as Wei Ya through "poaching". However, in the past few months, as many well-known anchors stopped broadcasting on Taobao, this effort did not achieve the expected ideal results.

One of the striking signs is that the anchors on Taobao often experience "high opening and low closing", and even Li Dan and Oriental Selection have not escaped this vicious circle.

The last time Li Dan became popular as a live broadcaster was on Double 12 in 2022. At that time, Li Dan switched from Douyin to Taobao Live. With less than 1 million fans, Li Dan attracted more than 11 million viewers in his first broadcast, created more than 32 million in sales, and became famous overnight.

However, Li Dan's last live broadcast on Taobao was on April 30 this year. If he had not become popular online as the top anchor of Xiaohongshu in August this year, Li Dan's identity as a live broadcaster would have been almost forgotten.

Image source: Li

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The last live broadcast of Oriental Selection on Taobao Live was on June 20 this year. Soon after, Yu Minhong, CEO of Oriental Selection, stated that the main live broadcast platform of Oriental Selection is Douyin, and the cooperation with Douyin will be closer in the future.

Before Li Dan and Oriental Selection were suspended, Cheng Daofang, who had been in charge of Taobao Live for a long time and was originally responsible for the "war to poach talent", announced his resignation.

As the head of Taobao Live and Content Division, Cheng Daofang transferred to work related to embodied intelligence in March this year. LatePost reported that Cheng Daofang's departure was related to the fact that Taobao's GMV (gross merchandise volume) did not break through. "Taobao's management believes that the content team spent a lot of money, but did not change the proportion of GMV and business efficiency."

According to a report by Siku Finance, the contribution rate of Taobao Live's GMV to Alibaba's e-commerce has remained at around 10% for many years, increasing from 6.7% in fiscal 2021 to 12.3% in fiscal 2024, with the contribution rate increasing by less than 6 percentage points in four years. Against the backdrop of a 35% growth rate in live e-commerce, this is clearly not enough.

Although the foreign anchors had their moments of glory, they were ultimately unable to help Taobao Live "support the family."

one,

Taobao Live began to spend a lot of money to poach talent in 2022. The year before, Taobao had just lost top anchors such as Viya and Xue Li.

According to a UBS report, the top 30 anchors on Taobao account for 29% of the total GMV, making it the live streaming e-commerce platform that relies most on top anchors. Taobao is in urgent need of someone who can replace Wei Ya.

Cheng Daofang once said at the quarterly meeting in April 2022, "Last quarter, it was the first time that we used real cash and traffic to help MCN introduce anchors to the platform and establish a clear path for the growth of anchors." Xu Luo, the head of Taobao Live's new ecological business line, also said in an interview, "We have basically talked about everything you can think of (all the short video or live broadcast experts on the entire network)."

For a while, the live broadcast circle set off a "tide of entering Taobao" and "tide of returning to Taobao". For example, the blogger "Yili Xiaoshazi", who became famous on Douyin with her "blue battle robe" and attracted millions of fans, entered Taobao for live broadcasting; Taobao anchor "Demi", who left Taobao to try Douyin for 4 months, decided to return to Taobao.

On November 11, 2022, Luo Yonghao, the former top influencer on Douyin, joined Taobao Live. At that time, Taobao Live gave great support. Huang He of Make Friends said, "Taobao gave us very strong traffic support, and even gave us opening screen ads. The publicity efforts were sufficient."

Luo Yonghao's first broadcast also generated sales of 210 million yuan, attracted more than 26 million viewers, and the number of fans increased by more than 10 million in one month.

Image source: Luo Yonghao's Taobao premiere

On the following Double 12, Li Dan, a talk show host who had promoted products on Douyin, also joined Taobao Live. The first broadcast attracted 11 million viewers and the total sales exceeded 32 million yuan.

At that time, Jiaogepengyou was full of confidence in Luo Yonghao and Li Dan's live broadcast on Taobao. "The live broadcast room will be broadcast daily, and Li Dan will participate in some important sessions according to his schedule." This was the tacit understanding formed between Taobao Live, Jiaogepengyou and Li Dan.

Cui Dongsheng, vice president of Jiaogepengyou, also said, "From the perspective of long-term value judgment, Taobao Live's next important strategy is content-based. We hope that influencers who join Taobao will do live broadcasts in a more content-based way. From this point of view, the platform's needs and Li Dan himself are highly matched."

Less than a year later, Douyin's new No. 1 live-streaming app Oriental Selection also chose to join Taobao at the end of August 2023. At that time, Yu Minhong appeared in the Taobao live broadcast room in a white chef's uniform. There was no intensive knowledge output, only a fast-paced live-streaming model. The ten-hour live broadcast created sales of more than 100 million yuan, which was almost 1/4 of Oriental Selection's monthly sales on Douyin.

One month before joining Taobao, Dongfang Zhenxuan’s live broadcast room was banned by Douyin for three days. Yu Minhong’s statement that he “never invests in traffic” also led to speculation from the outside world about how Dongfang Zhenxuan would handle its relationship with Douyin.

After Luo Yonghao, Li Dan and Dongfang Zhenxuan joined Taobao and achieved impressive first broadcast results, their subsequent performances were also highly anticipated by the outside world. However, the reality is that, except for Luo Yonghao, the performances of other big anchors were not satisfactory.

In the past two years, Li Dan has not established a long-term and stable live broadcast status, nor has he participated in major promotions. From March last year to now, Li Dan's Taobao account "来个彩旦" has broadcast 20 live broadcasts, and the number of times Li Dan appeared in live broadcasts is very few, and there are no live broadcast replays of major holiday promotions such as Double Eleven and 618.

On April 30 this year, Li Dan talked about products in Taobao live broadcast room for 4 hours, attracting more than 3 million viewers. This was Li Dan’s last live broadcast on Taobao. Now, Li Dan’s Taobao live broadcast room has been suspended for 4 months.

Image source: Li

Taobao's last live broadcast

At the same time, Li Dan reappeared in the public eye as the top influencer on Xiaohongshu, acting as an emotional expert while selling goods, with one live broadcast attracting millions of viewers. Although the broadcast data is not as good as Taobao Live, which has a larger pool, Li Dan has also attracted the attention and favor of many "sisters" on Xiaohongshu.

Image source: Li Dan’s live broadcast on Xiaohongshu

The trajectory of Oriental Selection on Taobao Live is similar to that of Li Dan. One month after entering Taobao, the number of viewers of Oriental Selection dropped from more than 10 million to more than 3 million. In the 2024 fiscal year financial report, Oriental Selection only mentioned the growth of the Douyin channel, and did not mention Taobao Live.

The last Taobao live broadcast of Oriental Selection was on June 20, and there has been no announcement of any plans for Taobao live broadcast since then. Yu Minhong, the CEO, even stated that the main live broadcast platform of Oriental Selection is Douyin, and the cooperation with Douyin will be closer in the future.

Some mid-level anchors with smaller scale entered Taobao with great fanfare, but their popularity gradually returned to normal and they were unable to make further progress. For example, Liu Genghong and his wife Wang Wanfei ViVi were poached from the Douyin platform. ViVi's last live broadcast was in November last year, and there is no content available to be replayed in Liu Genghong's live broadcast room. Anchors such as Ichiri Xiaoshazi, Li Guoqing, and Nian Gao Mama Li Danyang have long suspended Taobao live broadcasts, and the live broadcast content that can be replayed is a few months ago.

two,

According to Siku Finance, a person close to Ali Live said, "Ali has invested a lot of traffic and cash subsidies, but the return on investment of Ali Live is extremely low, which has caused the anger of Ali's senior management." With Cheng Daofang's resignation this year, the subsidies for top anchors have been stopped. "Ali's senior management believes that this is purely spending money to buy face and has no practical value."

When poaching talent, Taobao Live values ​​the traffic they bring in. According to Sina Technology, Taobao Live values ​​indicators such as the number of fans and sales when poaching vertical influencers, and will give priority to influencers with 1 million to 5 million fans on Douyin and Kuaishou, and more than 100,000 fans on Xiaohongshu.

Although Taobao Live usually provides a lot of traffic and cash support to anchors when they join Taobao, it will also make some choices based on their subsequent performance. Cheng Daofang once revealed that the principle of fund allocation is dynamic balance, "We pay for the increment, and whoever has the most increment in the end will win."

This means that if the subsequent anchors fail to bring in traffic, sell goods, and bring no growth to Taobao Live, then the support will be reduced. According to Times Finance, some store live streaming merchants said that the traffic support provided by Taobao Live is just a "help-up". At the beginning of live streaming, Taobao rewards traffic, but later they can only rely on themselves to gain a firm foothold.

On the other hand, although some anchors on Taobao have impressive live broadcast data, their ability to bring goods has not been truly tested. In the fiercely competitive Taobao live broadcast ecosystem, celebrities from other platforms often face "not adapting to the local environment".

An e-commerce live broadcaster analyzed that as live broadcasters who bring goods, many live broadcasters who enter Taobao have not completely gained credibility and appeal. One type is like Zhang Xiaohui, who is created by the platform, and the other type is like Zhang Lan, who quickly dies out. Taobao Live does not have a content base to create momentum for them and feed back to their live broadcast rooms.

A typical example is Zhang Xiaohui, for whom Taobao provided promotions on Weibo’s hot search rankings, pop-up ads on the homepage of Taobao Live, and red envelopes worth millions of yuan in the live broadcast room. On May 26, Zhang Xiaohui’s Taobao premiere created more than 10 million views, and sales were not announced, but only 2,000 units of the hit product were sold. A month later, the number of viewers in the live broadcast room dropped sharply; since August, it has remained below 100,000 most of the time.

Image source: Zhang Xiaohui's Taobao live broadcast

This is related to the growth path of anchors. The reason why many platform benchmark anchors have grown up is inseparable from the traffic support of the platform. Luo Yonghao, Dongfang Zhenxuan, Zhang Xiaohui and others are the products of the platform's accelerated e-commerce. In addition to contributing to the GMV of goods brought in, the greater significance lies in activating the entire live broadcast ecosystem and setting a template for mid-level talents to follow.

However, Taobao Live is not built on the basis of a content community. Its genes are the transactions of Taobao e-commerce, not the content of Douyin and Xiaohongshu. Consumers come to Taobao Live primarily to buy things, not to watch content. It is difficult for big anchors who migrated from content platforms to accumulate enough "tap water" in the transaction atmosphere of the entire platform just by relying on content, so they are more dependent on the platform to push traffic.

The problem is that Taobao Live cannot allocate traffic to anchors without limit. Although Taobao Live has a large amount of traffic and 10 billion cash subsidies, it cannot withstand the 500,000 new anchors to share equally. As of Double Eleven in 2022, Taobao has added more than 500,000 new anchors a year, and another 200,000 new anchors will be added in the future. According to this estimate, each anchor will get 2,000 yuan per person, not to mention that some of the top anchors will get the lion's share, while small and medium anchors will get the soup.

Another aspect that cannot be ignored is the host’s personal attitude and level of attention towards Taobao Live.

Jiaogepengyou is one of the few external anchors who persisted in Taobao live broadcast and achieved good results. To this end, Jiaogepengyou established a Taobao business department and held many eye-catching live broadcast activities on Taobao.

In the past two years, Luo Yonghao has sold satellites worth 1 million yuan, cruise ships worth 20 million yuan, air taxis worth 1.99 million yuan, etc. in Taobao live broadcast rooms. These activities have brought high attention to Jiaogepengyou, created memorable points and volume. Cui Dongsheng also bluntly said that "marketing is more meaningful than actual sales."

Luo Yonghao is also very adaptable to the rhythm of Taobao Live. During the first broadcast, he said, "The atmosphere here is right. I just like being a simple salesperson."

Luo Yonghao shares his work experience and gossips on Douyin, and sells goods on Taobao Live. These two strategies make Luo Yonghao very comfortable on Douyin and Taobao Live. Cui Dongsheng revealed that after one year of "entering Taobao", the total sales of Jiaogepengyou exceeded 1.5 billion yuan. During the 618 period this year, the sales of Jiaogepengyou's Taobao live broadcast room increased by 120% year-on-year, and the GMV exceeded 850 million.

In contrast, except for Yu Minhong’s appearance in the first broadcast of Oriental Selection, he has only appeared in a few live broadcasts since then. Before leaving, Dong Yuhui had never appeared in the Taobao live broadcast room of Oriental Selection.

three,

The war to poach talent was defined as a failure within Alibaba, which meant that Taobao Live lost three important years. Behind this was the indecision in its content strategy.

In August 2020, Yu Feng, the second head of Taobao Live, was asked how he viewed the relationship between Taobao and Douyin and Kuaishou. He said, "In the field of live e-commerce, traffic is the least important factor. Live e-commerce is not a traffic business."

Shortly thereafter, Douyin's live broadcast room completely cut off third-party sourced goods, including Taobao Live. It was also the year that Taobao Live lost its top spot as an e-commerce platform. In 2020, Taobao Live's transaction volume was 400 billion yuan. According to data from LatePost, the transaction volume of Douyin's e-commerce in 2020 exceeded 500 billion yuan.

Yu Feng believes that the content of Taobao Live is only centered around business and products. In 2022, Yang Guang, president of Alibaba Taobao Tmall Industry Development and Operation Center, said in an interview, "Taobao chooses to produce consumer decision-making content in the live broadcast market...so Taobao does not produce purely entertainment content, this is our positioning."

It was not until 2023 that Taobao Live began to focus on "content" as an important direction. Dai Shan, then CEO of Taobao Tian Group, said that Taobao would promote full content with far more investment than before, and Taobao would be positioned as a bustling, rich and interesting neighborhood. During the 618 shopping festival of that year, Taobao data showed that among the newly added live broadcast rooms of experts, pure content anchors without selling goods accounted for 24%.

However, Taobao Live has missed the best time to build content. In recent years, Douyin has seen an endless stream of internet celebrities and dark horses that bring goods, greatly enriching the ecosystem of anchors and content. On the other hand, Taobao Live has seen the poached anchors either stop broadcasting or have poor results, and there has been no significant change in the pattern of local top anchors.

Image source: Taobao Live

On March 28 this year, Taobao Live once again stepped up its content construction efforts. Cheng Daofang said, "In 2024, Taobao Live will add tens of billions of cash investments and hundreds of billions of traffic, and will increase investment in content e-commerce with real money." He also set the KPI for the new fiscal year 2025 and discussed strategies on how to achieve super-high growth targets.

Soon after, Cheng Daofang announced his departure, and his duties were taken over by Wu Jia, head of the Taobao User Platform Division and Alimama Division. On July 12, it was reported that Jia Luo, head of Tmall, would concurrently serve as head of Taobao Live and content.

According to LatePost, in July this year, at a meeting of Alibaba's core executives attended by many partners, Alibaba's management team reached a consensus, "We must have business awareness, focus on strategy, have determination, and know our strengths and weaknesses." Many Alibaba people interpreted this as meaning Alibaba must squeeze out a lot of false prosperity in its business, make business choices in line with the overall environment, and invest in more refined management.

Today, after the change of leadership, Taobao Live still faces the challenge of how to narrow the gap with Douyin. After the introduction of external big anchors proved to be difficult, Taobao Live still needs to tap its internal potential and return to the path of cultivating more Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya.

References:

"The Boiling New Decade: Brave Travelers in the Mobile Internet Jungle" by Lin Jun, Hu Zhe

"Ali requires each business to have "business awareness" and further clarify investment priorities" LatePost

"Taobao Live 8 years: 3 changes in head coaches, from a leader to a follower" Time Weekly

Taobao Live changes its leader: GMV accounts for around 10%, with an increase of less than 6 percentage points in four years.

"Taobao undergoes major adjustments, with short videos and live streaming becoming the top priority" E-Commerce News

"Behind Luo Yonghao's "escape": the battle between Taobao and Douyin live broadcasts" 21st Century Business Herald

Taobao Live sets "radical" goal: 10 billion yuan in new cash investment, 80% increase in total transaction volume China Business News