B station live streaming has not gone viral in this year

Bilibili has joined the live streaming sales front. Although both are content communities, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu have a different overall business scale. However, it is undeniable that live streaming sales are of great significance to Bilibili, but it is still difficult for the outside world to determine how determined Bilibili is to revitalize live streaming sales. Let's follow this article to learn about Bilibili's live streaming sales, which is recommended for Internet friends to read.

After the 618 shopping event ended this year, B Station and Xiaohongshu, both content communities, released their promotion reports one after another. The comparison of one set of data is intriguing: During the 618 shopping event, the number of UP hosts participating in selling goods on B Station increased by 143% year-on-year, and the number of UP hosts with GMV exceeding 10,000 increased by 236% year-on-year; the number of buyers on Xiaohongshu whose GMV increased by more than 100% increased by 2.8 times year-on-year, and the number of buyers with GMV exceeding 1 million per session was three times that of the same period last year.

The difference in scale reveals the gap in the overall business scale of the two parties. Although the gap is obvious compared to Xiaohongshu, for Bilibili, which is eager to make a profit, live streaming may be one of the few good cards at present.

Among the major businesses of Bilibili, games have become a thing of the past. According to the financial report, the revenue of Bilibili’s game business decreased by 40% year-on-year last year, and the revenue of mobile games decreased by 13% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year. The revenue of “Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World”, which Bilibili distributed recently, exceeded expectations, driving the stock price up by 18.96%, but the subsequent performance needs further observation.

It is hard to say whether "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" can wipe out the decline of B station games, but the data has proved the importance of live e-commerce to B station. In the first quarter of this year, B station's advertising revenue increased by 31% year-on-year. In addition to the improvement of advertising efficiency, the flow of UP hosts and merchants also contributed.

Since last year's 618 promotion of live streaming e-commerce benchmark cases such as "Bao Jian Sao" and the establishment of a first-level department - the Transaction Ecology Center, live streaming e-commerce has been regarded as a new driving force for B Station's commercialization.

Looking back one year later, Bilibili has achieved results in establishing a community consumption atmosphere and cultivating user consumption mindsets, and has also produced top anchors; but on the other hand, in terms of size, level of investment and the ability of top UP hosts to break through the circle, Bilibili still has a big gap compared to other content platforms in their initial stages.

To this day, it is still difficult for the outside world to determine how determined Bilibili is to revitalize live streaming e-commerce.

1. Although there are top anchors, Bilibili does not have its own "Li Jiaqi"

Last year, B Station COO Li Ni explained the original intention of the platform to do live streaming sales: to increase advertising revenue + to generate income for UP hosts. B Station has initially achieved the former. At the first quarter earnings conference this year, Li Ni revealed that the top three industries for B Station's advertising - games, digital home appliances, and platform e-commerce - have all achieved double-digit growth rates. In the e-commerce industry, in addition to JD.com, Taobao, Tmall, and Pinduoduo, B Station has also opened up open-loop sales cooperation with Vipshop, Dewu, and Xianyu. During this year's 618 period, the amount of advertising on e-commerce platforms was 14 times that of the same period last year. "Bilibili's budget and customer budget share in all e-commerce nodes has actually continued to increase, and its ranking is also at the forefront."

The release of user spending power is the direct reason why platform e-commerce companies have increased the amount of advertising on Bilibili. According to the data from the Spark Project, during the 618 shopping festival this year, Bilibili brought more than 50% new customers to all vertical industries, including more than 70% to maternal and child care and household daily necessities industries. Bilibili is becoming one of the largest sources of new customers for e-commerce companies.

This also shows that this year, Bilibili has achieved initial success in cultivating users' consumption mentality. In the first quarter of this year, the number of users watching transaction-related content (i.e., bringing goods) on Bilibili was 37.2 million, a year-on-year increase of more than 100%.

Compared with the significant growth in advertising, another original intention of B station to do live streaming sales - to generate income for UP hosts - has not yet been fully realized. After nearly two years of entering the live streaming sales market, B station now finally has its own benchmark case: the GMV of the home UP host "Mr. Digger" last year reached 3.3 billion yuan, which is close to one-third of B station's annual sales transaction volume last year; the GMV of the fashion UP host "Parrot Pear" in a single live broadcast reached more than 50 million.

▲ "Parrot Pear" live broadcast room

A comparative data is that the GMV of Zhang Xiaohui's first broadcast on Xiaohongshu just exceeded 50 million. Considering Zhang Xiaohui's socialite status and topic attribute have added to the effect of live broadcast sales, the debut performance of Parrot Pear is already quite impressive, but the problem is that, except for a few top ones such as "Mr. Digger" and "Parrot Pear", Bilibili has not cultivated many UP hosts who focus on bringing goods. Take "Sister Bao Jian" as an example. After the GMV of her first broadcast reached 28 million last year, she was considered to be the benchmark for bringing goods on Bilibili, but she has not started her second live broadcast so far. "Sister Bao Jian" has more than 4 million fans. Before and after the first broadcast, she received support from Bilibili in the form of App opening screen, Weibo hot search, information flow, etc., but she did not become Bilibili's own "Li Jiaqi", not to mention the mid-level UP hosts who lack traffic support.

As for "Mr. Mideng" and "Parrot Pear", who have really come out, although their sales performance far exceeds that of "Sister Baojian", they have not yet truly led Bilibili's live streaming sales business to break out of the circle.

From Li Jiaqi to Dong Yuhui, Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, all have proven the strength of top anchors in directing traffic to the platform's e-commerce business, but this rule seems to have failed at Bilibili. During the 618 shopping festival this year, Bilibili's GMV for goods sold increased by 146% year-on-year, and the overall order volume increased by 154% year-on-year. Looking at Xiaohongshu, the number of live broadcast orders reached 5.4 times that of the same period last year.

▲Image source: Bilibili Business News

In other words, the benchmark case created by Bilibili with all its strength has not yet had a significant impact on its live streaming sales business. In terms of commercial monetization efficiency, the frequency of live streaming sales by Bilibili UP masters is also far lower than that of top anchors on other platforms. For example, in June, which covers the mid-year promotion, as of June 21, women's clothing UP master "Coco敲敲_" had two live broadcasts, "鳥兀梨" had three live broadcasts; only "Mr迷登" had a higher frequency of live broadcasts, reaching 18.

Industry observers close to Bilibili believe that the scale of Bilibili live streaming sales is too small, which also makes it impossible for most UP hosts to get a share of the pie. As a result, UP hosts are not very willing to start broadcasting, and the entire sales ecosystem is still in its early stages.

This in turn limits the growth rate and business scale of live streaming sales on Bilibili.

2. The advantages and shortcomings of live streaming sales on Bilibili are both "unique"

In the view of Chen Rui, chairman of Bilibili, the success of the UP host "Mr. Digger" proves Bilibili's unique advantage in live streaming. "He verified that the representative durable consumer goods category, such as home digital products, combined with Bilibili's longer video content expression method, including this in-depth evaluation model, is our unique advantage in bringing goods." Planting grass for users through long video content is a pre-stage of live streaming for many of Bilibili's top UP hosts. Take "Mr. Digger" as an example. In the video released on April 14, he invited 50 colleagues of different heights, weights and genders to test and evaluate 11 ergonomic chairs, so that users can quickly locate the products that suit them. The day after the video was released, Digger started a special live broadcast of ergonomic chairs, and all 11 chairs in the evaluation were put on the shelves during the live broadcast.

▲Multi-person evaluation video of ergonomic chair released by "Mr.Mideng"

"Mr.迷登" once said in an interview that Bilibili is a typical learning platform. Through the introduction and evaluation of durable consumer products by UP hosts, users can strengthen their trust in a certain product. "On Bilibili, the attributes of learning platform for durable consumer products and learning consumption can be fully superimposed and collided, and planting and conversion are in the same link." As long as the output content is vertical enough, even if it is not a top UP host, there is a chance to run a good GMV. UP host "Coco敲敲_" (hereinafter referred to as Coco) is mainly aimed at women with pear-shaped bodies born after 1995, meeting the clothing needs of this segment of people to modify wide hips and thick legs. Focusing on the keyword "pear-shaped body", she released a large number of dressing tutorials, which laid the foundation for subsequent live broadcasts. In the first live broadcast last year, 70% of the products selected came from previous video recommendations.

▲@Coco敲敲_Bilibili homepage

Precisely targeting user needs has enabled Coco, who has only 500,000 fans, to achieve a GMV of over 17 million in the third live broadcast. Ji Fangyuan, the founder of Qingteng Culture, the MCN agency signed by Coco, believes that the functionality of the account is greater than the fun of the content, which is the main reason why Coco can sell goods. It is worth mentioning that the return rate of women's clothing has been generally high for a long time, about 80%, but in Coco's live broadcast room, this figure is only 26%. Similar to this is the UP host "Wild Installation House". The account has 430,000 fans. A computer configuration recommendation video released during the 618 period this year led to a turnover of over 10 million; the 618 air conditioner purchase guide video released by "Senior Wilson" with more than 200,000 fans also brought nearly 8 million turnover to merchants.

B-station users who are attracted by vertical and in-depth content are more receptive to high-priced products. In a single live broadcast of "Parrot Pear", a skirt from House of CB, with a unit price of about 2,000 yuan, had a live broadcast GMV of over 5 million.

"NoNoise" made a judgment last year that due to the lack of a supply chain system, Station B insisted on a "big open loop" strategy in its e-commerce business and chose to cooperate with the leading e-commerce platforms to open up the product library, which means that there is not much price advantage in live streaming with goods on Station B. Now we can see that the strong fan stickiness and high conversion rate formed on the basis of deep content are allowing Station B to partially achieve the freedom of "not rolling prices". However, from the perspective of the in-site ecology, Station B's shortcomings are also "unique". Although Station B wants to promote the entire full-link process from planting grass to conversion, transaction, and consumption through its content advantages, UP hosts who are good at content may not be suitable for live streaming with goods, and the skill points required in these two fields are not consistent. This can also be seen from the frequency of live broadcasts by the top 100 UP hosts such as "Dao Yueshe" and "Bao Jiansao".

In the opinion of the aforementioned person, "In the entire ecosystem of Bilibili, even among the so-called top 100 UP hosts, very few are truly suitable for selling goods." In addition, top UP hosts often have more commercial options, such as accepting business orders and content payment.

Even if the UP host is well prepared, with B station's current infrastructure construction and support, it is still a question how many "MR Mad Men" and "Parrot Pears" can be produced in the future.

3. How determined is Bilibili?

At the fourth quarter earnings conference last year, Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Bilibili, issued a military order, "Bilibili is confident that it will achieve positive adjusted operating profit in the third quarter of 2024 and begin to make a profit." Chen Rui's statement was interpreted by many as "Bilibili is anxious." As mentioned earlier, live streaming may be one of the few good cards that Bilibili currently has, but Bilibili, which is "anxious," does not seem to be ready to go all in. "Mr.迷登" said in an interview last year, "Because the overall ecosystem has not yet taken off, Bilibili is still quite insufficient in terms of supply, service agencies, and the internal driving force of the UP host itself."

One year later, Bilibili is still relatively backward in infrastructure construction. In fact, the reason why "Mr.迷登" can become the top influencer on Bilibili is mainly due to his solid foundation. He is an offline retailer with a professional service team of more than 500 people, and he has established private channels early on. High sales in turn bring UP owners the right to speak and the degree of cooperation with brands.

These two points are difficult for most UP hosts to replicate, and it is currently difficult for the official B site to provide more support for UP hosts. According to previous media reports, on April 27 this year, during the live broadcast of the UP host "Well-known Crosstalk Actor BBBBB King", the hince blue air cushion coupons that were launched were found by fans to be usable in the official link, and an extra trial package would be added after using the official link. The Kiko double-headed lip glaze in the live broadcast room is more expensive than the official link. After being reminded by fans, the UP host released a response on his personal account, saying that he had engaged in a war of words with the brand and B site.

▲The response measures released by the "famous crosstalk actor BBBBB King"

In the comment section of "Coco敲敲_", some fans complained, "It's already live broadcasted for the first time, isn't it too outrageous that they don't have any stock?" "The overalls I bought during the live broadcast in May have not been shipped until mid-June." According to previous public information, whether it is the specific discount strength of the selected products or the after-sales service issues, the UP host and his team need to negotiate with the merchant on their own. This means that under the existing infrastructure construction of Bilibili, if you want to run a top anchor like "Mr迷登", it will be extremely challenging for the UP host's team configuration.

"The GMV of the first few live broadcasts by the top anchors of Bilibili was not small, but for long-term operation, they still have to compete with the capabilities that e-commerce platforms have to compete with - such as cost-effectiveness and infrastructure construction. They need to accumulate people and time to continuously hone these capabilities. Douyin's e-commerce system was not established in a day." The aforementioned industry observer believes that Bilibili's infrastructure is the most critical factor restricting the growth of its live streaming sales volume.

Perhaps for Bilibili, whether to continue to increase the live streaming sales business is also an unresolved issue. Last year, Bilibili announced the integration of multiple teams to form a new first-level department, the Transaction Ecology Center, which is directly responsible for the Vice Chairman and COO Li Ni. This decision was interpreted by the outside world as a further improvement in Bilibili's e-commerce status, but the contradiction is that since entering the live streaming sales business, Bilibili has not yet classified live streaming sales as a first-level traffic entrance.

The above-mentioned person judged that "only when Bilibili can write the revenue of its e-commerce business separately in its financial report like Kuaishou does, it means that the live streaming business is worth Bilibili's continued investment." Starting from Q4 2022, in the business review section of Kuaishou's financial report, "e-commerce" was separated from "other services" and began to be listed separately. That year, the total transaction volume of Kuaishou's e-commerce goods exceeded 900 billion. Obviously, with the 10 billion sales volume of Bilibili last year, if it wants to have more voice in the e-commerce business, it needs to continue to increase its investment.

Author: Huo Sijiu

Source: WeChat official account: "NoNoise (ID: forjingyijing)"