618 is still inseparable from Li Jiaqi

This year's 618 e-commerce promotion is not only a competition of discounts, but also a competition of innovative ways of playing in live e-commerce. This article deeply analyzes the influence of live e-commerce, especially how top anchors such as Li Jiaqi continue to attract consumers through innovation and optimized service experience, showing the important position and value of live e-commerce in modern marketing.

This year's 618 is coming to an end.

As a crucial promotional event for e-commerce platforms, what is the difference between this year's 618 and previous years?

The author observed the new "rules of play" of several e-commerce platforms and found that this year's 618 discounts are greater than in previous years. Major e-commerce platforms and brands have launched more promotional activities and discounts.

At the same time, the rules of play on each platform have been simplified, and they all began to emphasize spot sales.

In addition to the platform’s big promotional policies, expert anchors are also a crucial part of 618.

The author has observed that the influence of live streaming e-commerce is still expanding.

All platforms and businesses are increasing their investment in live broadcast resources to enhance interactivity and entertainment.

However, there have been recent claims that “the anchors can no longer sell products”. Is this really the case?

01 Putting "user experience" first, today's live broadcast rooms are more "fun"

In fact, this year's promotional methods are gradually returning to the essence of shopping. Taobao, JD.com and many other mainstream e-commerce platforms have collectively abandoned the pre-sale system and started to focus on "simplicity". The platforms have changed their strategies one after another, indicating that the old methods are no longer feasible.

The complex "rules of the game" have deterred many consumers, and the so-called single "low price" strategy has also been difficult to win the hearts of consumers. Especially in recent years, with the rapid development of live e-commerce, many consumers have begun to pay for their "emotions".

Consumers will choose which live broadcast room can provide a better shopping experience. But it is not easy to satisfy consumers. This requires a live broadcast room to not only have products that meet consumer needs, but also good content and services.

In other words, live streaming e-commerce can only enhance its ability to accumulate and retain users if it continues to focus on consumer needs, deepen content innovation, and optimize service experience. Li Jiaqi's live streaming room, one of the industry leaders, may be a good example to learn from. During this year's 618, after Taobao announced the cancellation of the pre-sale link, Li Jiaqi's live streaming room followed Taobao's rhythm and chose to retain one day of pre-sale.

In this regard, Li Jiaqi explained that this makes it easier for consumers to lock in their favorite items in advance, better match the platform's full-reduction policy, and buy products at the best price. In addition, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room continued to retain the "Big Promotion Small Classroom" session during this year's 618.

The live broadcast room not only explains the content to consumers through a small blackboard, but also adds physical shelf settings similar to offline supermarkets. The anchor stands in front of the product shelves and uses the most intuitive way to show consumers the most favorable way to assemble goods.

At the same time, the anchors in the live broadcast room also interact with users in real time, providing "one-on-one" shopping guidance for consumers of different ages, skin types, and skin care needs. It is worth mentioning that not only Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, but also another live broadcast room under Meiwan, "All Girls' Wardrobes", has opened a "6.18 Wardrobe News", which is divided according to the category and style of clothing, and provides "tailor-made" dressing references for consumers in different life scenarios.

During the 618 shopping event, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room fully demonstrated what "users first" means, providing consumers with a comprehensive shopping experience of "product power + price power + service power". So how is the effect? ​​The author checked the recent live broadcasts of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, and the number of viewers per day is over 10 million.

At the same time, many netizens still highly recognize Li Jiaqi.

Some netizens said: "I feel most at ease with the product selection of Li Jiaqi's team, they are all flagship stores." Some netizens also said that Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room selects products carefully and the discounts are guaranteed, so they like to buy from him.

Another netizen said that he saw him answering girls' questions in the live broadcast room a few days ago. He responded quickly and accurately, which was very exciting. However, there were too many girls in the live broadcast room, and many of the comments were posted too quickly, making it difficult for him to keep up with the replies.

It can be seen that Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room has not been neglected and remains stable. In the past few years, the various preferential rules and routines of various platforms have been dazzling, and many consumers don't know what to buy and how to buy. The live broadcast rooms of some expert anchors will provide consumers with reasonable suggestions, allowing them to choose the most suitable products for themselves.

For example, Dong Yuhui, after his bilingual live streaming became popular, once sent his Dongfang Zhenxuan live streaming room to the Douyin live streaming list with his unique live streaming style, and now his Yuhui Xingxing live streaming room has also been developing rapidly. The same is true for Li Jiaqi. As a Taobao expert anchor, he insists on explaining beauty and skin care knowledge and suggestions to users, and has repeatedly improved the content and services of his live streaming room.

There is also Luo Yonghao. Although he does not have much professional knowledge of some products, he is humorous and speaks directly without beating around the bush, which is also loved by the majority of users. Therefore, Lao Luo not only performed a "True Return Story" by live streaming, but also helped the "Make Friends" live streaming room to go public in Hong Kong through a backdoor listing.

JD.com has also been trying to promote live streaming, but it lacks big IPs like Dong Yuhui and Li Jiaqi. Therefore, Liu Qiangdong had to "personally take the lead" and launch a digital anchor with his image.

According to data released by JD.com, within less than an hour of Liu Qiangdong's first live broadcast, the live broadcast room had over 20 million viewers, and the total transaction volume of the entire live broadcast exceeded 50 million. This shows the importance of expert anchors to e-commerce platforms. Big sales still cannot be separated from anchors like Li Jiaqi.

02 Aren’t product influencers just online shopping guides? No! They also do many other things

There are also many people who sneer at this kind of live streaming sales by experts, thinking that they are just online shopping guides.

In fact, this is not the case, because many people only see the surface.

From the consumer's perspective, experts can use their professional knowledge to help users screen the most suitable products and match the most favorable consumption.

For example, when recommending products, Li Jiaqi not only introduces the features and usage of the products, but also provides consumers with professional purchasing advice based on his own experience and expertise, allowing consumers to make more informed decisions.

From the brand's perspective, influencers can connect with consumers in a more intimate identity and maximize the effectiveness of brand promotion.

At the "Confident China" 2024 Consumer Promotion Forum in May this year, Li Jiaqi said that live streaming e-commerce, as an emerging channel, has the unique advantage of achieving product and effect integration. The anchor not only needs to display excellent products to consumers intuitively, but also needs to give professional explanations and promotions on the brand, and convey the brand's concepts and values ​​to the audience.

Li Jiaqi also said that in recent years, Meiwan’s live broadcast rooms have fully utilized the medium advantages of live broadcasts, and changed the original logic of consumers’ exposure to new products through various forms such as live broadcast scene innovation and product effect visualization experiments, helping a number of new consumer brands to seize the minds of users and quickly find target groups and seed users.

Among them, there are many domestic brands.

The rise of these domestic brands is also inseparable from the help of expert anchors.

For example, Quadi entered Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room for the first time in 2020. In just seven or eight months, Quadi's sales surpassed many first-line brands.

During the Double 11 promotion in 2021, more than 1,300 domestic products were put on the shelves in Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room, accounting for nearly 50%.

During this year's 618 pre-sale event, domestic beauty brands performed very well in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, and many PROYA products were quickly sold out.

In addition, domestic cosmetics brands such as Little Autine, Perfect Diary, and March Rabbit, as well as domestic skin care brands such as Ushiyan, Daisy Sky, OSM, and Yunifang are also available in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room.

Not only that, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room also spares no effort in promoting traditional culture. He often puts some products with national characteristics on the shelves, allowing consumers to feel the charm of traditional culture while shopping.

In addition to supporting domestic brands and traditional culture, Li Jiaqi is also keen on charity. He once publicly stated: "The times have made me what I am, and I should give back to society."

It is reported that in the past few years, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room has held dozens of charity live broadcasts, not only promoting poverty alleviation and agricultural products for free, but also providing ideas for industrial upgrading for agricultural products in many regions, turning charity into an important part of the live broadcast room.

In addition to charity live broadcasts, Li Jiaqi's charity work has also gone offline, such as building Hope Primary Schools for children in poor areas and donating to the "Mother's Health Express" to help poor women and children's health projects. In 2023, Li Jiaqi's charity work has also made many donations for emergency rescue in flood-stricken areas such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Gansu and Qinghai.

Li Jiaqi believes that charity is not something that happens on a whim, but something that requires long-term persistence and dedication. He hopes to devote more time and energy to charity in the future and provide help and support to those who really need it.

03 Live streaming has become an important marketing tool, with both expert live streaming and brand store live streaming having their own strengths

Many people also believe that now that many brands have opened their own store accounts and started live streaming with brand store accounts, the significance of expert anchors is no longer as great as before.

In fact, this view is also one-sided.

The reason why live streaming e-commerce can develop rapidly is that it can meet the needs of consumers and brands. Different forms of live streaming have different meanings.

Most expert anchors have accumulated a lot of professional knowledge in a certain field. Their live broadcast rooms have their own traffic, a rich variety of products, and they can interact deeply with consumers in real time, giving consumers a strong sense of participation.

The purpose of brand store broadcasts is to increase brand exposure, promote products or services, and establish closer connections with the audience. Brand self-broadcasts emphasize brand image and product promotion, with the focus on conveying the brand's value and advantages to the audience.

Even mid-level anchors who are slightly inferior in terms of traffic have played an important role.

Although top anchors have a huge fan base and extremely high popularity, their fame and influence can radiate to a wider range of people, which greatly promotes brand promotion, and users have a high degree of trust in them.

However, compared with top anchors, mid-level anchors have lower cooperation costs and larger numbers, and can reach more market segments and different types of consumers; brands are relatively more flexible in cooperation with mid-level anchors, etc.

Regardless of which method you choose, live streaming has become an important tool in modern marketing, effectively attracting the audience's attention and increasing brand awareness and sales.

But live streaming cannot remain unchanged. As a bridge between consumers and brands, expert anchors should also continue to improve their content and brand quality.

And Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room has never slacked off.

During this 618 event, Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room innovated the gameplay to enhance the user shopping experience. The effect is quite good so far.

As of May 20, the cumulative GMV of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room during the 618 period has exceeded that of the same period last year.

Earlier, at the 2024 Taobao Content E-commerce Festival on March 28, Li Jiaqi said that only a live broadcast room with high-quality content can have long-term appeal and continue to create value. For the live broadcast e-commerce industry, high-quality content can help the high-quality and high-level development of live broadcast e-commerce. It plays a very critical role in user retention and attracting new users.

In May, at the ONE 618 media conference in the United States, Li Jiaqi gave a speech saying, "We are welcoming this year's 618 promotion. Is it difficult? I think it is difficult, but I like to find breakthroughs in the difficulties, push myself in the difficulties, and then see what we can bring to users."

In fact, as Li Jiaqi said, a live broadcast room with high-quality content will have long-lasting appeal and can continue to create value.

A good live broadcast room can not only expand new consumer groups and create new consumption scenarios, but also explore new demands through expert hosts and promote consumption of new categories.

According to data from research firm iResearch Consulting, the scale of China's live streaming e-commerce market reached 4.92 trillion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 35.2%; it is estimated that the scale of China's live streaming e-commerce market may increase from 5.86 trillion yuan to 8.16 trillion yuan from 2024 to 2026.

Live streaming e-commerce has become an important part of people’s lives, and its positive influence on both brands and consumers continues to play a role.