I opened an AI online store and sold out my "one cent" business

AI service is an industry with creative rules, emotions, beauty and imagination. AI is bringing about an emotional feast.

Recently, a hot search has touched the hearts of many people - spend 10 yuan to use AI to "resurrect" your loved ones and "see them again". As soon as the topic came out, it was hotly discussed. Some people believed that virtual people created by AI could make up for the pain, while others said that the new technology of voice changing and face changing is very likely to cause new online scams.

Behind the controversy is a consumer revolution brought about by AI. Some people have seized the opportunity to see new tracks and new entrepreneurial opportunities.

Among them is Meng Xingyi, who opened an AI store on Taobao (TuringTalkAI) for the first time. Meng Xingyi was once a hardcore Coser in the COS circle (referring to the role-playing enthusiasts group) with hundreds of thousands of fans - Kappa; he also worked as a "screw" in a large company, leading an industry from 0 to 1... As one of the first representative merchants of Taobao's first-level artificial intelligence service category, TuringTalk opened the store for 3 months, and the sales of the hit single product "AI Hanfu Photo Service" exceeded 10,000 orders. The store's products as low as one cent have become a tool for attracting traffic, allowing countless first-time experiencers to go from not feeling AI to understanding AI and recognizing AI.

Like countless AI practitioners, Meng Xingyi is also an explorer in this field. He believes that AI services are an industry with creative rules, emotions, beauty and imagination. "Even if it is virtual, who dares to say that it is not worthy of becoming the next 100 billion market?"

1. From Coser to a "screw" in a big company

Turing said he grew up in Hangzhou and his company is located in the office building of Xixi Bafangcheng in Hangzhou, which is also ByteDance's Hangzhou base.

The brand’s founder, Meng Xing, was also born in the 1980s. His office is decorated with many of his “spiritual totems”, such as a replica of Curry’s jersey and a cute kappa carpet.

Through this Kappa carpet, a memory that was once so brilliant was unlocked.

This handsome man once had hundreds of thousands of fans in the COS circle. He would receive flowers and cakes on his birthday every year and was called the "Troubadur" in the COS circle. Compared with "Meng Xingyi", he has a more famous name - Kappa.

Meng Xingyi's relationship with Cosplay began with a stage play in a university club. Initially, he frequently came into contact with script writing, dubbing, and makeup. Later, he tried to COS anime characters for photos. He was discovered by "Manyou" magazine and signed a contract and published a book. His Weibo stopped updating in 2021, but under the annual Weibo birthday reminder, the comment area still gathers blessings from fans.

He has COSed many classic film and television characters, such as Kongji in "The King and the Clown", Kenshin Himura in "Rurouni Kenshin", and Seshomaru in "Inuyasha". In 2012, Meng Xing also COSed the image of Crown Prince Dongfan in "Phoenix in the Ninth Heaven" on the variety show "Day Day Up". The host Wang Han asked him if he could make money in this line of work? He replied: "Yes, but don't think about buying a house or a car. You can only make enough money to support the next work."

Kappa's COS works

Meng Xingyi, who is striving for his dream, has also thought about realizing it in another way: a few years later, he turned behind the scenes and started a two-dimensional e-commerce - a product that integrates the sales of two-dimensional products and community interaction, but ultimately failed to compete with large companies and capital and was constrained by traffic; he also tried to create a Hanfu brand - Meiji, which was unveiled on the stage of Taobao Maker Festival.

In 2016, Meng Xing also joined an Internet giant to lead the ACG industry. As one of the few performers, creators, and entrepreneurs in the industry, he understands the needs of practitioners better. During his six years in the big company, the most important thing he did was to build a platform that aggregates original film, television, animation, game IP and player resources. Through community interaction and communication between the two, users can customize and purchase related IP derivatives here.

2. I am doing AIGC 1.0 on Taobao

At the selection ceremony for the top ten Taobao shopkeepers in 2023, Meng Xing also endorsed TuringShuo for the first time. At that time, TuringShuo was only three months old.

In recent years, many new stars have emerged in the artificial intelligence circle. The most well-known is ChatGPT, a conversational robot brought by OpenAI. The epoch-making changes brought about by AIGC have caught the eyes of more entrepreneurs.

Meng Xingyi recalled that at the beginning of 2022, some image generation apps appeared on the market, and he chose one and bought a lifetime membership. At that time, Meng Xingyi was working on some design projects related to commercial brands and wanted to use AI to draw concept maps, but found that the early models of this app were uncontrollable and the finished products were far from expectations. "I lost more than 100 yuan in lifetime membership, which was a failed investment."

One day, a friend came to Meng Xingyi and wanted to use the original photo to generate a two-dimensional picture. This incident inspired him to think about whether it is possible to use AI to draw avatars and portraits of different styles, such as a three-dimensional girl, a made-up adult, an anime boy... In short, people can use AI to find "another self" in the world.

Meng Xingyi thought about countless possibilities for opening a store on Taobao to sell virtual products. "Text, audio and video products? Or blockchain?" Meng Xingyi, who had experience in e-commerce, was clearly aware that he had to focus in the early stages of his business, so he cut off all kinds of fantastic ideas and focused on pictures.

ID photos and Hanfu photos are Turing's best sellers. At first, they used the attractive price of 0.01 yuan to attract the first batch of users who came to try it out. Take AI Hanfu photos as an example. It contains three sets of templates. Turing said that it is packaged with the concept of blind boxes. Consumers only need to provide a frontal photo with clear facial features. Through the small program embedded in the backend link of Taobao, a set of Hanfu photos can be randomly generated in ten minutes. This allows many girls who have never experienced Hanfu to have their first experience. One user left a message saying: "It's so beautiful." This product is also Turing's best seller at present, with tens of thousands of orders sold.

In the image category, Turing said there are also AI-drawn Q-version avatars, ID photos and other products. At the same time, they are also working on AI voice customization. For example, they will train some voiceprint models. "For example, we used the voice of actress Yang Chaoyue to build her own AI digital person. Users can use Yang Chaoyue's voice to customize a morning ringtone and treat 'her' as your friend."

In addition to pictures and audio, Turing also provides services related to teaching how to use AI products. In Meng Xingyi's words, Turing provides basic AI services, but this is only their first step, "surviving is success." In addition to its own store, the team is also taking on some AI-related agency operations, such as operating Microsoft XiaoIce.

3. AIGC+E-commerce

During last year's Double 11, Taobao opened a new first-level category of "artificial intelligence services", and added new "artificial intelligence services" options to the product categories, including AI painting, AI photo generation, AI four-dimensional color ultrasound, AI voice packages, etc.

As one of the first AI merchants to try out Taobao, Turing said that he felt the market was "volleying up". "There are a lot of people doing ID photos and portraits, and they are all very good-looking. The next step is to compete on price." Entering into a price war is not the direction Meng Xingyi wants to go. Now, the store has taken down the basic ID photo and Hanfu photo business, and continues to run a link: connecting AI's B-end service companies and C-end consumers. According to reports, the backend applets of all Turing's products are provided by third parties, and these third-party companies' previous business was mainly B-end. Turing aims to accelerate the AI ​​service capabilities to the C-end, becoming a "BD" that connects the enterprise and consumer ends.

Next, Turing said that they would also launch Taobao entrepreneurship 2.0, which would combine virtual and physical objects.

Based on this, Turing's post-00 team has brought more imaginative ideas, such as combining AIGC with traditional categories. "When users take AI Hanfu photos, a link to the same Hanfu will be packaged, and they can 'try it on' through AI before buying." Prior to this, Turing said that they had tried and verified this model. Next, what they need to do is to expand it and combine it with more categories to break the circle.

"We will also open a Tmall store, put the products verified by the Taobao store into Tmall, and operate with more commercial traffic." Meng Xingyi said. The future is full of challenges and uncertainties, but Meng Xingyi is sure of two points: first, combining with the two-dimensional world, which is his best field; second, focusing on female consumers.

In addition to Turing, there are a large number of entrepreneurs who have tried AI. Previously, 36Kr opened an AI store called "LumiWink" on Taobao. With the help of AI tools, they completed the construction of the store and the listing of goods. In two months, they sold more than 600 T-shirts and successfully entered the TVB live broadcast room.

Many people believe that virtual products have high gross profit margins, and Meng Xing does not deny this. He believes that the industry is indeed in a period of dividends, with high profit margins and controllable costs, but he believes that at this stage, he still hopes to let more people experience the service and use the product. "Taobao has the largest number of existing users, and we hope to introduce more new customers. Gross profit margins, profit margins, and pricing multiples are means we can use to market, give benefits, and provide benefits to users, but for the industry, I think the value lies in letting users experience it."

In the opinion of Mei Zhuang, a waiter in the category of digital life artificial intelligence services of Taotian Group, "Any emerging industry and emerging business model will always be accompanied by doubts at the beginning of its birth." It is precisely because Turing said that such businesses are doing something that has no established answers and paths to follow that there is more hope for the future.

Author: Tianxia e-commerce

Source: Tianxiawangshang