They do everything except selling goods, why did Brother Yang and Simba fade out of the live broadcast room?

Recently, more and more top anchors have faded out of the live broadcast room. What is the reason? Let us follow the author's analysis to find out~

Just a few days ago, Douyin's top influencer Crazy Xiao Yangge, who has more than 100 million fans, announced that he would withdraw from live streaming, which attracted a lot of attention. Simba, the top influencer on Kuaishou, also said recently that he would stop live streaming.

In people's impression, Xiao Yangge, Simba, Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya and other Internet celebrities have become popular in recent years by taking advantage of the trend of live streaming. They have not only gained tens of millions of fans and popularity on various short video platforms, but also earned hundreds of millions of real money.

Nowadays, the top anchors of the two major platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou, have all chosen to leave the front line of live streaming e-commerce, which makes people feel that there is some deep-seated trend change.

1. Super anchors who make music and learn AI but don’t sell goods

Although Xiao Yangge and Simba have both recently expressed their intention to step down from live streaming sales, their reasons are different.

The live streaming sales performance of Douyin anchor Xiao Yangge in February fell out of the top 20 of Douyin anchors' monthly sales ranking. A topic "Xiao Yangge fell out of the top 20 sales ranking" appeared online and received over 110 million views on Weibo. Therefore, in order to clarify this news, Xiao Yangge recently talked about this topic in a live broadcast, saying that he fell out of the list because of the decrease in the number of live broadcasts with sales.

In addition, Brother Xiao Yang also mentioned that this year he will continue to reduce live streaming with goods, and do more entertainment broadcasting and other work, such as electronic music festivals, music festivals, film and television projects, and even offline stores selected by Xiao Yang.

Take music festivals as an example. Last year, Xiao Yangge spent 30 million yuan to hold the "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan Concert", which eventually received over 400 million likes and over 4 million followers, bringing the influence of Xiao Yangge's IP to a new level. On this basis, Xiao Yangge has launched electronic music festivals, film and television projects, and physical stores this year. Faced with such a large-scale business landscape, Xiao Yangge's choice to reduce live streaming and shift the focus to the business level should be the result of a trade-off.

Simba, the top anchor of Kuaishou, expressed his reason for leaving the live streaming room more directly, "Xinxuan is not as profitable as everyone understands."

In a recent live broadcast, Simba talked about the live streaming of Xinxuan brand and disclosed some of Xinxuan's expenses. Simba said that he had to pay more than 1.1 billion yuan in wages to 4,860 employees, more than 200 million yuan in rent, utilities, and more than 2 billion yuan in profits for the platform every year. With these expenses added up, Simba said that "it's basically for nothing" after a year.

When talking about future plans, Simba said that there is nothing exciting in the live streaming sales track anymore, and he wants to stop live streaming and spend two years studying artificial intelligence. If he wants to do live streaming sales again in the future, he will choose a new track and start over.

Combining the two anchors’ attitudes towards live streaming sales, it can be clearly felt that for the top-level live streaming sales anchors, live streaming e-commerce is no longer their top priority, and shifting the focus to other tracks has become a new trend.

2. Why is the departure of super anchors a trend?

As for the reason why the top anchors switched tracks and left the live broadcast room, Simba said that it was because they could not make money. In fact, for the top anchors, the "unprofitable" live broadcast e-commerce track is still a rich traffic pool, and the industry is still releasing growth signals.

According to iResearch, the scale of China's live e-commerce market will reach 4.9 trillion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year growth rate of 35.2%. Although the growth rate has slowed down compared with the over 100% growth in previous years, it is still considerable. At the same time, the compound annual growth rate of the live e-commerce market is expected to be 18% in the next three years, showing a steady growth trend.

Combining the overall stable growth of the live e-commerce industry and the departure of top anchors, a very likely explanation is that live e-commerce is still a profitable industry, but for super anchors, the opportunities to make money or make a lot of money are decreasing.

In fact, in the past two years, there has been a constant discussion about whether the live broadcast e-commerce industry will "de-head". We cannot deny that the emergence of super anchors has played an irreplaceable role in promoting the rapid development of live broadcast e-commerce. Super anchors such as Li Jiaqi, Simba, Xiao Yangge, and Luo Yonghao can easily create hundreds of millions of GMV during a live broadcast, which not only attracted many people to enter the live broadcast e-commerce to pursue wealth, but also infiltrated this new form of live broadcast e-commerce into the lives of ordinary people, greatly expanding the boundaries and influence of the industry.

However, while the super anchors supported by hundreds of millions of fans continue to break through the sky-high transaction volume and remuneration, they also expose the problem of the live broadcast e-commerce industry being too dependent on the top. Whether it is using their own voice to put pressure on brands to get the "lowest price on the entire network", or the selection of products in the live broadcast room being cracked down on and quality problems repeatedly exposed, the live broadcast e-commerce industry has never lacked public opinion and criticism caused by super anchors.

In Morketing's view, as the live streaming e-commerce market continues to grow and develop, the industry itself will inevitably undergo many new changes. From this perspective, the practice of super anchors such as Xiao Yangge and Simba fading from the front line of selling goods and actively cooperating with the "de-heading" approach may be regarded as a conspiracy among the industry, platforms and anchors themselves. The reason is:

1. The rewards and risks of frontline salespeople are gradually becoming unbalanced

The rewards that super anchors can get from selling goods include overwhelming traffic and huge GMV, as well as real money. Although the authenticity of the list of online anchors' income that circulates on the Internet every year cannot be verified, the figures in the hundreds of millions of yuan are very consistent with the public's imagination of anchors. After all, netizens have seen too many wealth myths born in live broadcast rooms.

At the same time, the anchors' every word and action will be viewed through a magnifying glass by consumers. From Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya, Luo Yonghao, to Simba, Xiao Yangge, and Dong Yuhui, the top anchors are not short of public opinion. As long as there is a problem, such as Xiao Yangge's sale of Wuchang rice being exposed as fake, Simba's endorsement of De Rucci mattresses, and Dong Yuhui's essay incident, it is possible to ferment into a topic that will be on the hot search list for several days, thus damaging the influence of the anchor itself.

Perhaps it is because, as Simba said recently in a live broadcast, after a year, "it's basically a waste of time." For those top super anchors, while they can't make a lot of money from live streaming, they also have to bear many risks from all sides. This is why they vote with their feet and choose to leave the front line of live streaming.

2. Cultivating and strengthening small and medium-sized anchors has become a consensus among platforms and brands

The Matthew effect that exists in all walks of life is particularly evident in the live streaming e-commerce industry. According to data from iiMedia Research, 2.16% of the top anchors account for nearly 90% of the market turnover, which means that the traffic of multiple platforms is concentrated in the top 2% of live streaming rooms.

In today's era, traffic means voice. When brands try their best to get their products into the top live broadcast rooms, they often severely reduce profits, or even make the brand lose money to gain publicity. For example, Li Jiaqi's "lowest price on the entire network" with international beauty brands and Simba's promotion of Mousse mattresses that broke the brand's reserve price are all the effects of the anchor's voice.

However, the model where only a small number of top anchors occupy the majority of traffic and profits is doomed to be unsustainable. Whether it is that various brands have strengthened their own live broadcast capabilities, or that platforms have tilted more traffic to small and medium-sized anchors and store broadcasts, the goal is to gradually break the monopoly of top anchors and allow more small and medium-sized anchors to form a healthy and sustainable track ecology.

3. Impact of AI digital anchors

The benefits of AI digital human live broadcasts are obvious. In addition to being able to work around the clock and interact with consumers, it can also bring further cost reduction. According to the sharing of Shang Zhihu, general manager of Yili Group's Digital Technology Center at the Morketing event last year, compared with spending a lot of pit fees on top anchors or brand self-broadcasting, Yili's virtual digital human live broadcast costs are about 15% of real-person self-broadcasting.

More importantly, when the leaders of various fields and Internet giants with technology and strength have begun to focus on digital human live broadcast, AI digital human live broadcast can easily become a popular trend in the current environment where AI is always mentioned, and its low cost and easy-to-use characteristics are more suitable for the needs of small and medium-sized brands. With the advancement of artificial intelligence technology, I believe that the proportion of AI digital human live broadcast will increase significantly.

From the perspective of marketing costs, the shift of platforms and brands from top anchors to small and medium anchors and the promotion and application of AI digital anchors will lead to cost reduction. However, when cost reduction spreads to the entire live broadcast track, it is not good news for top anchors. Since 2.16% of the top anchors account for nearly 90% of the market turnover, correspondingly, when the industry as a whole reduces marketing costs, the top anchors will feel the chill particularly clearly.

3. Conclusion

Although many super anchors have faded out of the front line of selling goods recently, this does not mean that live e-commerce is no longer a good business. On the contrary, the departure of top anchors will actually allow brands to allocate budgets to more small and medium anchors, forming a more sustainable market ecology. After all, a vibrant forest can only develop without the obstruction of giant trees.

Author: Lumens WeChat public account: Morketing