Live streaming e-commerce enters a shifting period: the top players are fading out, and new players are pouring in

This article deeply analyzes the latest trends in the live streaming e-commerce industry, in which the top anchors are gradually fading out, while the emergence of new anchors has injected new vitality into the industry. The article uses specific cases to show how buyers with low fan base can achieve high GMV, and explores the new cycle of live streaming e-commerce and the key role buyers play in it.

In the world of big sales, the most interesting things are always the super-headlines and gimmicks.

But this year, the top anchors seem to be seeking a transformation path beyond selling goods. Li Jiaqi is about to participate in the recording of "Brothers Who Overcome All Obstacles"; Xiao Yangge has turned to the vast ocean of short dramas; Dong Yuhui has intentionally or unintentionally reduced the length of time he spends selling goods after "going independent". After so many years of baptism of big promotions, the top anchors are a little tired.

On the other hand, the "True Story" of Zhong Xuegao and Lin Sheng selling sweet potatoes did not develop according to the preset script. The dramatic scenes could attract attention but it was difficult to generate conversions.

The difficulty of this year's 618 can be described as "the super head is not loud, and the gimmick is not effective." It is obvious that live streaming has reached a turning point.

For platforms and MCN agencies, it is not a bad thing to get rid of the "superhead addiction", so the rise of newcomers and the emergence of dark horses are welcomed by the industry. However, it is difficult to find comprehensive anchors like the first generation of anchors, and they are replaced by vertical and precise anchors.

Everyone knows that personal IP is one of the most valuable assets of this era. Whether it is a large company, an entrepreneur or an ordinary person, they all want to hold on to this straw. Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi bring traffic to the company and save countless advertising fees, which is the best proof of the power of personal IP.

More and more people are aware that individuals have the ability and energy to achieve "single-person influence". From today's perspective, some examples have emerged in Xiaohongshu e-commerce. In addition to "individual buyers" like Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui who stand at the top of the pyramid, there are many more low-level accounts with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of fans who can also achieve GMV of millions or even tens of millions in a single sale.

1. 100,000 “low-level fans” = 10 million GMV

What is the criterion for measuring the success of a live streamer? I am afraid that many people will answer that the most intuitive data is sales.

GMV is a natural golden signboard and a testament to the strength of the anchor. Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and of course the more the better. In this way, platforms and brands can send out overwhelming battle reports during the promotion period in order to grab more attention during the "every inch of land is worth money" 618, take the lead, and show off their muscles.

But the anchors themselves don’t think so, especially the mid-level anchors. I once heard an impressive answer - the higher and better goal is not pure sales and GMV, but a lower return rate in this live broadcast than in the previous one. The high return rate brought by the dumping live broadcast has also made people more and more tired.

A low return rate means that users buy products that they really like and are truly suitable for them. Only when the two-way match is successful can the value of this role to users and merchants be highlighted.

The answer comes from Xiaohongshu buyer "Hehe" who has been sharing good stuff for 8 years and is one of the earliest content creators to share videos on Xiaohongshu and Bilibili. In September 2023, Hehe moved the sharing of good stuff from videos to the live broadcast room and became a Xiaohongshu buyer.

At that time, she had just 100,000 fans, which was not a very high number on the Internet. By June this year, her fans had grown to 180,000, and her GMV had doubled from 2.6 million in the first show to 13 million.

Generally speaking, a Douyin account with 100,000 followers earns about 3,000 to 5,000 yuan a month. She herself did not expect that after six live broadcasts, she would become a "million-level buyer".

This result was far beyond He He's expectations, and even the "little incidents" in every live broadcast are still vivid in his mind.

In the first live broadcast, the rhythm was not well controlled and it was broadcast until 3 a.m., and fans woke up and asked, "Why is Teacher He still broadcasting?"; when the live broadcast was about to start, he suddenly found that the inventory of the merchant did not match; in April, when the live broadcast was in order to achieve a higher-definition visual effect, the audio and video were not synchronized after three hours of broadcasting, so he had to stop the broadcast urgently and re-record the explanations one by one... He He himself once joked: "This situation is like a summer homework that was finally finished and then lost."

Every amateur buyer who steps out of the "newbie village" will encounter various problems. The biggest difference between them and celebrities and top buyers is that they have no team. Whenever an emergency occurs, how to deal with the problem and who will bear the consequences of the decision are a comprehensive test of their "body and mind".

Fortunately, as the live broadcast progressed and he became familiar with the process, He He's mentality became calmer - after the explosion and shattering, even if he started broadcasting again, he would tell his fans about the product in a down-to-earth manner.

I asked He He, what is your secret to becoming a multi-millionaire buyer in a short period of time?

Her answer to me: "You must keep the heart of why you started live streaming in the first place, and just stick to it. Sharing the product sincerely with users is the most important thing."

It sounds like a polite remark, but she quickly added: "I don't want to limit myself to commercial data, and I don't want to take my results too seriously."

Initially, the products selected by "Hehe" were all brands that I had worn or bought before. At first, I shared my experiences as a teacher, which attracted a group of similar fans. In addition to practicality and simplicity, "Hehe" also considers details such as whether it is convenient for office workers to raise their hands when taking the subway, whether the products can be worn for a long time, and how to match them in different ways.

It's very strange, I seem to see a kind of "craftsman" ingenuity in the buyers of Xiaohongshu. They don't think about the data and results after the live broadcast, and all their attention is focused on preparing the products and how to explain them.

When "bringing goods" is no longer the only appeal, live streaming becomes a way to share good things, convey product and brand value, and use aesthetics and taste to drive transactions rather than relying on live streaming routines of dumping, which in turn makes sales grow higher and higher.

2. Find a group of people through one person

I am not sure whether He He's mentality is really replicable and feasible for the development of buyers' careers, but what is certain is that buyers have indeed used their own power to change the "life trajectory" of certain products or brands.

"Sugar Triangle" is another name for a women's leather bag. It was purchased by He He for personal use before he became a buyer. The brand Fooooobag once wanted to give up this bag. After He He showed the practicality and matching of the Sugar Triangle through live broadcast, more users and buyers began to notice the beauty of the "Sugar Triangle". The response has been very good, and it is natural that he has become a frequent visitor to the live broadcast room.

Sometimes, being chosen by a tasteful buyer may save a product from the brink of obsolescence and, to a certain extent, reverse the brand's inherent sales trend.

The brand’s recognition and support of the commercial value of buyers is also very direct. First, it gives you the best price; second, it gives you all the inventory.

The clothing brand made of sense has a pair of shorts. Brown is not as popular as white all year round. Many people think that brown is not as easy to match as white. However, He He made brown look more eye-catching and tasteful in the live broadcast room. When she contacted the brand to purchase the goods, the brand reminded her, "White has always sold better than brown."

However, after some clever matching, the sales of brown shorts really increased compared to before, which not only changed the previous sales trend, but also brought a fresh sample for the brand's subsequent publicity. The sales of this pair of pants reached 700,000 in a single sale.

Although buyers don’t have many fans, their power should not be underestimated. There are many buyers like Hehe who have low fans but high conversion rates on Xiaohongshu.

"ChloMato, a buyer of maternal and infant products, only had 50,000 fans when she first started broadcasting. Before the broadcast, she predicted that "I would be thankful if the sales could exceed 100,000."

ChloMato has shared a lot of good maternal and child products in the community, and has gained the trust of fans through long-term promotion. The first broadcast was sold to millions. One of the overseas safety seat brands was sold as a hot product, contributing 300,000 yuan in sales to the brand. Now, ChloMato has become a buyer with tens of millions of fans, and the number of fans has nearly tripled.

The success of Hehetuan and canned tomatoes is not just due to luck, but rather a certain universality.

In the consumer goods industry, scale and profit are often two business models that cannot be achieved at the same time. In the current Internet environment, traffic will only become more and more expensive, and the cost of acquiring user attention will also rise.

To put it bluntly, when the cost of acquiring customers is getting higher and higher, the risk factor of volume scale and sales volume is higher, and it is more inclined to capital games. However, the profit model is different. Holding on to the core customer base, accurately radiating their pain points and needs, and only selling to specific and precise groups of people is the way to run a small and beautiful business for a long time.

Buyers are precisely the media that accurately match specific groups of people with brands, helping brands acquire customers and helping users find the products that best suit them.

At this level, buyers often create surprises and change the "life trajectory" of products. Perhaps they save products that are "on the verge of being delisted," or they work with brands to create new products that meet user needs and buyer aesthetics.

Of course, being in-depth in product research and development is different from being a buyer or a blogger. It requires stepping out of your comfort zone and has higher requirements for comprehensive abilities.

Xiaohongshu's beauty buyer "Ali Beibei" and the beauty brand Hua Zhixiao have jointly developed a brightening concealer that is more suitable for the physique of Chinese babies.

In order to meet the concealer needs of different groups of people, he made a very detailed combination formula that took into account almost all scenarios and different skin colors. He communicated with the brand for more than three months and debugged dozens of models before finalizing the formula.

In the end, this product lived up to expectations. Hua Zhixiao used the Ali Bei Cup live broadcast room as an exclusive new product sales channel. That night, the "Midsummer Night Series Brightening Concealer" sold more than 40,000 units, and the Ali Bei Cup also won the top single-game sales among the buyers that Hua Zhixiao had cooperated with on the entire network. In this way, "buyers" can become a massive touchpoint for brand seeding and customer acquisition, which is richer, more real, and more imaginative than the crowd portrait matched by the marketing data model.

3. Buyers, chasing the new cycle of e-commerce

The 618 promotion in 2024 seems to have started earlier than in the past. The time is getting earlier and earlier, and the battle line is getting longer and longer, but the war has not escalated, and there are no new stories. For a while, the super-head anchors seemed to have become "passers-by" of 618.

Whether it is returning to the basics or discarding the false and retaining the true, consumers are becoming more and more rational in their shopping decisions, because it is very difficult for every user to find a product that suits them. Experience is always expensive, and the pitfalls and tears shed through physical testing are even more priceless.

If there is a buyer with the same body shape and similar aesthetic style as yourself, it will save countless time, money and emotions. From this perspective, we need buyers of various styles, types and aesthetics to fight against the increasingly similar live broadcast rooms and products.

When all live broadcast rooms sell the same product, all anchors sell the same product, short videos are streaming crazily, and social media is full of positive reviews, the only thing echoing in users' minds is "buy it". At this time, the world does not seem to give users more choices. At the same time, merchants and brands are also paying increasing slot fees and marketing costs year by year.

But buyers are different. They use their personalized aesthetics and needs to vote for those brands that focus more on products than marketing, are unique enough, and are valuable. They screen out good products and brands in their minds, and then spread them to a wider audience through live broadcasts.

Most buyers have stepped into the shift in the live-streaming crowd. They are no longer buying fast with slogans or shouting, but are shopping more rationally and simply after weighing whether it is suitable and understanding the value behind the price.

From the platform's external information, we can also see that more and more buyers with sales of tens of millions of yuan are emerging. For example, the reporter transformed into a furniture buyer. During the Double Eleven last year, a KK sold over 100 million yuan. Now, it can sell 30 million GMV in a single sale. Fashion buyer @绒耳儿 has tripled his GMV in three months, with sales of 24 million in a single sale.

The continuous emergence of tens of millions of buyers on a large scale is due to the fact that more bloggers regard "buying" as a personal career rather than just a way to make money. This also enables Xiaohongshu's e-commerce to continue to operate with the positive feedback from buyers, users and brands.

The theme of the current e-commerce industry in 2024 is to return to user value and use low prices as a weapon. Under such circumstances, the role of buyers supported by Xiaohongshu is somewhat counter-trend in the entire industry, serving vertical and more precise groups of people.

But this also faces a problem. Xiaohongshu needs enough buyers, and the buyers need to have "stability" and the ability to continue to grow.

The role of "buyer" is not unique to Xiaohongshu. It is no different from the buyer collection stores that once existed in the most fashionable shopping malls.

At the intersection of Jianguomenwai Street and Xiushui East Street in Beijing, there is a group of buyer collection stores that are extremely famous in the history of Chinese commerce - Xiushui Street Commercial Buildings. They were once the first stop for many foreign friends traveling to China, just like the "Yellow River Road" in Shanghai.

The boss puts the good things he collected from all over the world in the store. If they know how to use Xiaohongshu, they will definitely want to open their own buyer's store here.

Now is a good time for anchors to enter the live streaming e-commerce market as anchors are entering a gear-shifting period. The first wave of top anchors may not be interested in this or may return to the countryside, and buyers may become "table-turners" to catch the last bonus period.