Three sheep sold fake Moutai, who was hurt by the Douyin leader

Why did the Three Sheep sell fake wine and shift the blame to the supplier? This article will show you the reasons behind the Three Sheep live broadcast selling fake wine. Of course, this article is recommended for companies or individual operators to read.

The three sheep, which are at the forefront of the trend, have once again been pushed to the forefront of public opinion because of the "selling of fake" Moutai. This time, the fake sales incident involving multiple parties has directly pointed the finger at the supply chain system of Douyin live streaming.

According to public media reports, Mr. Zhang (pseudonym) from Wuhan, Hubei, bought 24 bottles of Moutai Zodiac Wine from the Douyin store "Jiudaojia Liquor Store" recommended by Crazy Brother Xiao Yang's live broadcast room; and bought 8 bottles of Moutai Zodiac Wine from the "Zhongmaohui Liquor Store" recommended by the Douyin live broadcast room of China Post Guangdong Post Liquor. After testing by a third-party appraisal agency, 13 of the 32 bottles of Moutai Zodiac Wine were over-dipped, and 7 bottles were high-imitation wines with fake bottle caps and fake spray codes.

The incident then went through several rounds of reversals, and Mr. Zhang brought at least 20 bottles of Moutai Zodiac wine purchased in two live broadcast rooms to the local Moutai Anti-Counterfeiting Office for identification. In response, the Moutai Anti-Counterfeiting Office stated that there was no problem with the wine brought by the consumer.

The reporter who reported the incident also identified the "Year of the Rabbit Moutai Zodiac Wine" he assembled by himself as genuine after being identified by two Moutai official anti-counterfeiting office identification personnel. Once again raising doubts, Moutai said that after an internal investigation, the identification personnel were not meticulous and rigorous in their identification operations, which reflected the company's weak links in product identification process management.

As for the authenticity of the Moutai Zodiac Wine purchased by consumer Mr. Zhang, Moutai officials have not yet made any public response.

Buying suspected fake Moutai in the live broadcast room with the largest traffic and the most attention on the entire network has undoubtedly cast a shadow on the Douyin e-commerce, whose growth rate has begun to slow down. But what is even more terrifying is that in the entire supply chain system, there seems to be no absolutely reliable organization that can protect the interests of consumers. This has undoubtedly caused consumers to fall into a greater lack of credit.

However, according to public information, one day before the on-site appraisal coordinated by Three Sheep Network, Mr. Zhang received a full refund for the 24 bottles of wine recommended by Xiao Yangge's live broadcast room. The refund page stated that "the merchant violated the sales regulations." In response, the staff of Three Sheep Network said that the full refund had nothing to do with the authenticity of the wine, and the refund was mainly due to the problem of Moutai's authorized sales.

The series of actions by the three sheep made this Rashomon even more confusing. Since there was no counterfeiting, who did the three sheep pay for?

In fact, judging from the context of the incident, Sanzhiyang and Douyin are undoubtedly objects that need to be strengthened. According to reports, "Jiudaojia Liquor Store" also showed "being withdrawn from the store." Just one year later, the partner is no longer there, so why did it pass the Douyin review at the time of the original review?

At the same time, after the public opinion broke out, a staff member of Three Sheep responded to the media and said: When they cooperated with the "Jiu Daojia Liquor Store" that sold the batch of Moutai, they conducted a specific review of the merchant's qualifications and product procedures. However, because the goods were not shipped from their warehouse, they could not guarantee whether the merchant would "adulterate" the goods.

According to data, in the first quarter of 2021, the sales of liquor live streaming reached 3.18 billion yuan, accounting for 70.8% of the total liquor sales. There were 436 live streaming rooms with daily sales of one million yuan, and more than 1,000 short videos with sales exceeding 10,000. For liquor sales experts, liquor companies, and channel dealers, there is a consensus that live streaming e-commerce has become normalized and has become the "standard configuration" of every company.

Faced with such a rapidly growing channel, it seems difficult to fully cover the supervision, whether it is the top influencers or the platforms.

The "Moutai ecosystem" on Douyin is quite strange. On the one hand, Moutai continues to dominate Douyin's liquor sales rankings, and occupies 4 seats in the top five new liquor sales, with annual sales of more than one million units through live broadcasts alone. On the other hand, Moutai's brand popularity ranks only 9th on Douyin's liquor rankings, with a popularity value of 926,600, far from the "number one" Luzhou Laojiao's 2.5366 million.

Moutai plays a more important role for the live broadcast room. It is not only a commodity, but also a traffic-generating product. For this reason, the live broadcast room does not attach much importance to Moutai, a product that may not make money.

On the other hand, the sources of Douyin Moutai are unusually many. According to reports, Moutai officials do not supply a large number of Moutai to Douyin. More Moutai comes from distributors and some scattered merchants. For scattered merchants, it is difficult to fully cover the supervision.

Within Moutai, after a series of changes in leadership, the overall strategy began to lean towards direct sales and explore the development of younger marketing. Since 2016, the domestic liquor industry has entered a period of deep adjustment, but for Moutai, revenue has increased from 106.2 billion yuan in 2021 to 147.7 billion yuan in 2023, and net profit has also increased from 52.4 billion yuan to 74.7 billion yuan.

However, on the other hand, these strategies also produced side effects: they undermined distributors' confidence in cooperation, shook the originally solid pricing system, and caused the Moutai brand to partially lose its respect and scarcity.

The addition of direct sales and e-commerce channels has made the terminal channels of Moutai, which was originally scarce, become complicated and weak in control. This has also started to be repaired after the change of leadership in 2024. In June this year, Moutai Group suspended the "Enterprise Subscription 1,499 Yuan Feitian" policy in many places, which also indirectly expressed Moutai's return to traditional channels. It is not known whether Moutai will make greater moves on the e-commerce side. But facing the e-commerce market plagued by negative public opinion, Moutai's reform seems to have entered the final countdown.

In January this year, the Douyin platform increased the deposit for alcohol sales in Douyin stores from 20,000 yuan to 150,000 yuan, raising the entry threshold. At the same time, it focused on rectifying the yin-yang links, combined links, and irregular speech in live broadcast rooms. In fact, the stricter supervision shows the chaos of the ecosystem.

In summary, this incident involving Xiao Yangge Moutai has revealed the plight of high-value products in Douyin e-commerce from the perspective of the entire industry chain. It is almost impossible to fully guarantee the quality of products in live broadcast rooms with traffic. From public information, Xiao Yangge's live broadcast room has been plagued by problems since this year, from Moutai to Apple mobile phones, and then in January this year, professional counterfeiter Wang Hai reported that "Crazy Xiao Yangge" sold 900,000 fake Wuchang rice and the 315 named Caotou meat.

If this is the case for the top live broadcast rooms, then the problems in other live broadcast rooms can be imagined. At the same time, this Moutai incident also reminds the public to stay vigilant. Even the top anchors should try to remain rational and objective in the current environment.

Author: Ying Mu; Editor: Sai Ke;

Source: Science and Technology News (ID: 826794)