Not all live broadcasts of debt repayment are called "real debt repayment"

Live streaming to pay off debts has become a choice for frustrated entrepreneurs, attracting traffic and converting IP through stories, but the effect varies from person to person and requires persistence and strategy. Read this article to learn more.

Restarting life in the live broadcast room seems to have become a common choice for "frustrated entrepreneurs".

During the 618 promotion, Lin Sheng, the founder of Zhong Xue Gao, appeared in Taobao live broadcast room. With the high popularity of live broadcast to repay debts, the first live broadcast attracted more than 840,000 viewers and sold 4,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes. Not long ago, the news that Lin Sheng was restricted from high consumption just came out. Facing doubts from the outside world, he posted on Weibo that "I have to sell sweet potatoes to repay my debts", and Taobao live broadcast gave him an opportunity.

Lin Sheng is not the first person to pay off debts through live streaming. Before him, there was Luo Yonghao, who sold 110 million yuan in his first live broadcast, directly boosting the brand awareness of the entire Douyin e-commerce; there was Tianya, a long-established community website that was forced to live stream due to debts and could not continue to operate, and HiPhi Auto, which was in a similar situation. There was even Jia Yueting, who officially announced that he would use personal IP to commercialize and make money, but has not yet implemented it.

Although Lin Sheng himself does not agree, live streaming to pay off debts is definitely a "good story" with content value in the live streaming e-commerce industry. It naturally has traffic, can create a large number of viewers, and can also transform the entrepreneur's personal IP. This is why entrepreneurs or companies in debt always use similar methods to regain their lives.

However, this "last chance" that seems to be able to help frustrated entrepreneurs turn things around may also be the "last choice" forever for entrepreneurs with aspirations.

1. Lin Sheng sells products based on persistence

On the first day of selling goods, Lin Sheng's live broadcast room was quite ceremonial. A huge number was printed on the background board: 729. This was the number of employees owed wages by Zhong Xue Gao. Above that, there were two lines of words: Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin, live broadcast selling sweet potatoes.

In fact, Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin’s live broadcast room does not only sell sweet potatoes. According to Taobao Live’s official news, nearly 20 products were launched in the live broadcast room that night, including Zhong Xue Gao’s own ice cream, cheese from Zhong Xue Gao’s supplier, and the most popular sweet potatoes.

The sweet potato joke comes from Lin Sheng's Weibo a few days ago: "Even if I sell sweet potatoes, I will pay off my debts." Since it is not the peak season for sweet potato sales, the live broadcast room specially selected a sweet potato variety from Hainan, priced at 42.9 yuan/5 catties. Due to the unity of content and product attributes, this product also successfully became a small hit that day, with a total of 4,000 catties sold.

On the evening of May 31, Lin Sheng started his second live broadcast to sell goods, and the number behind the live broadcast room changed from 729 to 726, that is, one live broadcast paid off the debts of about 3 employees. Lin Sheng's reputation has also improved slightly compared to before, and some netizens praised Lin Sheng in the comment area, saying that he is a "real man."

However, overall, Linsheng's sales data is not good. Since Taobao Live did not disclose Linsheng's specific sales GMV, it is estimated that the popular product sweet potato sold for about 34,320 yuan. Considering that the prices of the products sold in the live broadcast room are not high, even if each product sold a similar amount, the sales of the live broadcast room that night would hardly exceed 1 million yuan.

Judging by the basic profit-sharing rules in the industry, Lin Sheng could get about 100,000 to 200,000 yuan in commission, which is close to the amount he paid off the salaries of his three employees.

Although Lin Sheng himself believes that "repaying debts is not a good story at all", it is worth making a fuss about the live broadcast room. The 729 people behind the live broadcast room actually provide a potential progress bar. This provides a psychological hint to consumers who rush into the live broadcast room, that is, their shopping behavior is not a support for the Zhong Xue Gao brand, but a roundabout way to help those workers who are owed wages. This is obviously advantageous in the current public opinion environment.

Unlike Luo Yonghao, Lin Sheng did not have a strong personal IP as a foundation, nor did he have a popular online account with a large number of fans. In the three dimensions of people, goods and places, the "people" aspect did not have an advantage. In the public eye, the only things that left an impression on him were his "selling sweet potatoes to pay off debts" some time ago and his "buy if you like" even earlier.

However, thanks to the change in the number of people from "729 to 726", consumers do not actually need to empathize with this entrepreneur whom they did not like before, thus maximizing the "weak advantage" of Lin Sheng as a frustrated entrepreneur while avoiding negative public opinion about him.

At the same time, his previously weak "goods" were also backed by Taobao Live's "venue". In February this year, Taobao established a related live e-commerce company to provide a "full trusteeship" model for new players entering Taobao, providing product selection, supply chain and operation services that influencers may not be good at. Lin Shengze is also one of the beneficiaries.

Of course, compared with more successful cases, Lin Sheng’s story is not “sexy” enough, the data is not impressive enough, and it has not attracted wider attention. But Lin Sheng’s goal may not be that grand. For every employee who is owed wages, Lin Sheng’s insistence on live streaming every day has his irreplaceable value.

2. Live broadcast to pay off debts, the best character setting?

The earliest example of paying off debts through live streaming can be traced back to Luo Yonghao.

On April 1, 2020, Luo Yonghao completed his first live broadcast on Douyin and achieved sales of over 100 million yuan. In the eyes of industry insiders, this live broadcast actually played the role of a large-scale brand advertisement, allowing "shopping on short video platforms" to penetrate into the minds of every ordinary user and laid the foundation for the rapid rise of Douyin e-commerce.

Despite his special background, Luo Yonghao's success has indeed set a precedent for "live broadcast to repay debts". In Luo Yonghao's live broadcast history, "repaying debts" has always been a traffic keyword that cannot be stopped. At the talk show conference, Luo Yonghao said that he was performing a "real repayment story". The media also followed his footsteps and kept an eye on whether he had paid off his debts. Every time there was a related report, he would be sent to the hot search.

These enthusiastic attentions from the outside world, to a certain extent, provided Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room with a steady stream of topics and a large amount of free traffic, which also made Luo Yonghao's debt repayment career quite smooth. It can be said that the fact that Jiaogepengyou was able to become a leading institution in Douyin e-commerce later was inseparable from Luo Yonghao's dramatic life stage.

Where there are winners, there are also imitators, whether intentional or unintentional.

In March this year, HiPhi Auto was on the verge of collapse. Yang Yueqing, HiPhi Auto Engineering Project Director, appeared in the live broadcast room many times to respond to some doubts and comments in the market, which was quite popular. Later, HiPhi Auto's official live broadcast room struck while the iron was hot and allowed Yang Yueqing to continue to appear in the live broadcast room as a live broadcaster, and the income obtained was used to guarantee after-sales service.

The debut attracted more than 1.4 million viewers, but the final sales were only around 100,000 to 250,000. However, on March 27, HiPhi's live broadcast sales reached a small peak, with a single sales of about 500,000 to 750,000. Since then, the data has been declining, with a single live broadcast sales of between 25,000 and 100,000. From May to now, HiPhi has not continued live broadcasts. (Data source: Xindou)

Another live broadcast attempt to save itself came from the old BBS community Tianya. In order to raise 3 million yuan to pay off its debts, Tianya launched a live broadcast charity sale called "7 days and 7 nights, restart Tianya", but in the end only sold more than 300,000 yuan of goods, far from the goal.

The failure of Tianya and HiPhi may be inevitable. In Douyin, there have been similar cases of "consumers saving enterprises". Hongxing Erke and Huiyuan have both received huge wealth because of this. However, this case comes from the strong brand power built by the brand over many years. In comparison, HiPhi is still very young as a car brand, and Tianya is too old as an Internet product.

Even Lin Sheng, who is now paying off his debts through live streaming, can hardly be compared directly with Luo Yonghao. After all, Luo Yonghao has been popular for 20 years and still has a considerable number of die-hard fans and followers. Even if the Hammer phone failed, it still has many commendable successes. In comparison, Zhong Xuegao had already "broken drums and hammered thousands of people" before the capital chain had problems.

As for Jia Yueting, who still hopes to make money from short videos by commercializing IP, he has made a lot of efforts in the stock market. However, can Jia Yueting, who has maintained the image of a "deadbeat" for many years and is always abroad while saying "I will return to China next week", really convince a wider range of C-end consumers to pay for him? We remain skeptical.

Live-streaming to pay off debts is definitely a good story, but not everyone can use it. Just like the peerless martial arts in martial arts novels can definitely kill everyone, but not everyone can learn it.

3. Live streaming sales: the last choice for entrepreneurs

However, the above logic will also lead to a paradox: a charismatic entrepreneur will most likely not resort to live streaming to sell goods, and if an entrepreneur has fallen to the point where he needs to use live streaming to make a comeback, he probably doesn’t have much mass appeal. In this logic, Luo Yonghao’s success seems like a special case that is difficult to replicate. After all, no one is like Luo Yonghao, an “early internet celebrity” who was the first to try it.

Lin Sheng certainly cannot copy Luo Yonghao, he can only "work for the platform". In fact, most of the entrepreneurs who enter the live broadcast room to sell goods have some reasons to do so and will not really stay in the live broadcast room for a long time.

During the three years when the tourism industry was stagnant, Liang Jianzhang, the founder of Ctrip, was ordered to come to the live broadcast room. He put aside his status and cosplayed various characters. In the first hour of his debut, he sold 10 million hotel packages for Ctrip. Ctrip also successfully turned losses into profits in the third quarter of that year. Almost at the same time, Dong Mingzhu, the chairman of Gree, also entered the live broadcast room to save Gree, which suffered heavy losses in offline stores due to the epidemic. At the same time, she also hopes to establish an online channel and get rid of the dependence on a single offline channel.

As for Dongfang Zhenxuan, which later became the top e-commerce MCN of Douyin, its establishment also came from a "black swan event". The K12 education and training industry almost disappeared overnight. Yu Minhong then planned to enter the live broadcast e-commerce industry. Gaotu's Chen Xiangdong, who followed him into the live broadcast room, also had the same reason.

It can be seen that for these entrepreneurs, live e-commerce is a "last choice" that they have to make. It is impossible to become a "lifelong career". Live broadcasting to pay off debts gives the public a good story to pay for the live broadcast room, but if entrepreneurs really become anchors, it would be a bit embarrassing. Even a successful person like Luo Yonghao retired after paying off his debts and once again invested in a new round of entrepreneurial wave.

On this point, the well-known internet celebrity Mr. Li Guoqing made a very brilliant comment:

"If an entrepreneur runs his own media, earns advertising fees or promotes products, I think it's ridiculous." At that time, Luo Yonghao made his first live broadcast on Douyin. He responded: "My fan appeal is no less than Luo Yonghao's, but I can't promote products."

Just two months later, Li Guoqing made a decision that went against his ancestors. He first joined Taobao Live and started his "absurd" career, achieving a sales volume of 200,000, which was "not inferior" to Luo Yonghao. Soon after joining Douyin, he proudly became "Qingzi", one of the four major anchors of wine. Until April 4 this year, he still completed a live broadcast with sales exceeding 1 million.

Another exception is Zhang Lan, the founder of South Beauty, who is very close to the entertainment industry. Zhang Lan, who is nearly 60 years old, seems to have endless energy. She has appeared on Douyin live broadcast room on time for the past three years, bringing goods while providing endless gossip for the audience. Her business of bringing goods is booming, and she has achieved a single-day sales of 25 million, and has also made Ma Liuji hot and sour noodles popular.

In this regard, Li Guoqing also made a wonderful comment:

"Zhang Lan lost her career, Wang Xiaofei lost his marriage, I have both, why don't I gain millions of fans every day?"

It can be seen that for entrepreneurs, selling goods through live streaming, especially those with their own traffic, is a good choice to get out of their predicament. When the shortcut to wealth is right there, not everyone can abandon it and choose the "difficult but correct" path. Mr. Jia Yueting, who is thousands of miles away overseas, also operates an account in China to post videos. Isn't he also eager for this seemingly easy-to-earn "quick money"?

Of course, whether they can be considered as entrepreneurs with real aspirations, I believe everyone has a scale in their heart.

Author: Chen Shoucheng Editor: Director

WeChat public account: Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe)