Live streaming e-commerce is not just about low-price group buying

This 618, I can further feel that low-price group buying is no longer the only form of live streaming e-commerce. Live streaming e-commerce is entering a new stage and is more driven by content.

This 618, we can further feel that the extremely low-price group purchases represented by top anchors are no longer the only major form of live streaming e-commerce.

The transaction volume of the top anchors has decreased compared with previous years, and the anchors themselves have also significantly reduced their investment in 618. Li Jiaqi still supports the Tmall beauty market, but he also admitted that this year's 618 is "difficult" and he is about to record a variety show; Xiao Yangge will focus more on short dramas; Dong Yuhui only participated in seven or eight live broadcasts. The only one who is not much different from last year is Simba, with a first broadcast of 1.427 billion, slightly lower than the 1.6 billion of last year's 618 first broadcast, but before that, Simba was banned by the platform for 1 month for violating regulations. After returning, he said in the live broadcast room that he "can't broadcast anymore."

On the contrary, community platforms with stronger content have begun to become more active in the field of live streaming e-commerce, such as Xiaohongshu and Video Account.

Live streaming e-commerce is entering a new stage.

In the previous stage, which is the initial stage, the essence of live e-commerce is low-price large group purchases. The characteristics of this model are extreme efficiency and obvious head monopoly effect. But now, in terms of "efficiency + scale", live e-commerce has basically reached its extreme. In other words, in terms of low-price large group purchases, the efficiency of live e-commerce has reached its peak.

The reason for the turning point is that live streaming e-commerce is not the only way to achieve low-price large group purchases. The essence of the 10 billion yuan subsidy and JD.com's procurement and sales are all low-price hot-selling group purchases. It is indeed only after Pinduoduo's 10 billion yuan subsidy appeared and grew that the super-head effect of live streaming e-commerce began to disintegrate, and the view that the efficiency of live streaming e-commerce has declined has emerged.

Starting from Double 11 last year, JD.com’s procurement and sales platform used its strength to target Li Jiaqi, a super anchor channel, because the essence of both is "large group purchases at low prices."

The entire low-price battlefield has shifted to a comprehensive competition of low-price supply, traffic operation, price comparison tools, and organizational efficiency. Especially in the sales of standard products such as beauty, 3C, and daily necessities, shelf e-commerce such as Pinduoduo and Taobao, as well as Douyin e-commerce and Kuaishou e-commerce that are filling the shelf capacity, have more efficient operation tools and traffic entrances, including but not limited to the daily 10 billion subsidies, big brand subsidies, and managed operations.

For non-standard categories such as women's clothing, it is difficult to say that live streaming e-commerce is an efficient business model. The so-called "low-price group buying" has already raised the industry's return rate to 50% or even over 70%.

Live streaming e-commerce needs to find other differences beyond low-price large group purchases.

At present, it seems that this new difference should return to the content and interactivity of "live broadcast" itself. Based on this, a richer, more diverse, and even non-standard product supply can emerge through a more comprehensive product display form, a closer relationship between goods and consumers, a better shopping experience, and better pre-sales and after-sales services.

These characteristics, like the efficient traffic aggregation effect, are inherent characteristics of live streaming e-commerce. They have not been fully demonstrated and utilized in the early stages when efficiency is paramount.

It is also because of these characteristics that after the trend of "low-price large group buying" in live e-commerce has declined, community platforms, which are not generally known for their efficiency, have found a way to use live streaming to intervene in consumption and influence consumer decisions.

Even though these community platforms have tried to sell products through videos and pictures before, they are still far behind live streaming e-commerce in terms of content expression, product display richness based on content expression, user reach and transaction conversion efficiency. Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and Video Account all achieved significant breakthroughs in (closed or open-loop) e-commerce after building the foundation of live streaming.

Kuaishou, which started out as a livestreaming platform, has long ago proposed a similar statement: the livestreaming room is a commercial vehicle and a multifunctional gathering place where multiple interactive relationships can occur. But at the time, livestreaming e-commerce was in the stage of pursuing efficiency, and what livestreaming e-commerce is was not defined by Kuaishou. Kuaishou also did not have enough supply of goods, content, and people to realize the multifunctionality of the livestreaming room.

Gintoki, head of e-commerce operations at Xiaohongshu, also said at this week's e-commerce communication meeting: I don't think live streaming e-commerce has matured yet. Many good, comfortable and immersive experiences of offline shopping have not yet been moved online. What Xiaohongshu hopes to create is a more complete live streaming ecosystem that can provide similar experiences and include buyer live streaming and store live streaming.

As the efficiency of low-price group buying in live streaming e-commerce approaches its peak, more forms of low-price group buying are participating in the low-price competition, and live streaming e-commerce is beginning to develop towards multifunctional forms beyond low-price group buying - this is where community platforms that are richer in content creation and the relationship between content and people can play a role in live streaming e-commerce.

Entering the second half, which can be driven by community platforms and content, live streaming e-commerce can fully unleash its media advantages, linking short videos, pictures and text traffic fields such as pre-sales previews and after-sales slices, and unleashing its "consumption decision-making potential" in connecting diversified consumption and circle users.

However, content platforms must also accept that the efficiency of live streaming e-commerce, which is mainly driven by content, will be significantly lower than the previous era of low-price group buying, including the driving effect of live streaming on the entire e-commerce industry and the commercial revenue space it can bring.

The new stage of live streaming e-commerce advocating diversified consumption requires the diversity and professionalism of anchors, the richness, differentiation and even non-standardization of product supply. This determines that its scale and speed will not be too optimistic. At this time, the live streaming e-commerce led by the community is not just competing in efficiency, but in richness, and richness itself ultimately depends on the scale and diversity of the community.