180 million refunded in half a month, old stockholders "short" live broadcast room

Recently, a Douyin live broadcast room refunded 180 million in half a month, and the refund rate was as high as 99.95%. Let's take a look at what happened~

Not long ago, another "strange" thing happened in the Douyin live broadcast room.

Financial blogger @爱财务小羊 has sold over 100 million yuan worth of goods in a week with 500,000 fans. But there is a more shocking story than "low-fan account leverages large sales" yet to come. After each live broadcast, fans who placed orders choose to return the goods without prior agreement. According to the data released by the blogger himself, the total return amount of his live broadcast room exceeded 180 million yuan in half a month, and the return rate of some products was as high as 99.95%.

Why is the return rate in his live broadcast room so high? Faced with such a high risk of return, why do merchants still "keep coming"?

1. Old stockholders "short" Xiaoyang Live Room

@爱财务的小羊 was originally a financial blogger. Before becoming famous through live streaming, he had been diligently updating the rise and fall of his stock account on his Douyin account.

Due to the overall poor situation of the stock market in the past two years, Xiaoyang mainly buys semiconductor equipment, so he suffers losses of tens of thousands of yuan every day. This tragic situation allows his teammates who are ups and downs in the "stock market" to find some comfort. In addition, Xiaoyang's exaggerated expression and crazy mental state add a bit of extra humor to the video. Therefore, even if the works posted on the account are very simple, it has attracted a large number of accurate fans.

"As for stocks, if they fall, they will rise. If they only fall and never rise, they are funds."

"A bull market that only happens once every five years, 4,732 companies are waiting to rise!"

"If your skills are not good enough, don't blame the market. I invested 500,000 yuan in stocks and lost only 200,000 yuan. After learning from a master, I finally lost it all."

In the comment section of Xiaoyang, one can often see stock investors making fun of themselves for warmth, and @爱财务小羊 has gradually accumulated more than 500,000 fans.

When fans accumulate to a certain level, most influencers choose to monetize their products through live streaming, and @爱财务小羊 is no exception. Since July this year, Xiaoyang has started to try live streaming to sell goods, but his sales data is not optimistic. He often gets nothing after a live broadcast, and his sales have never exceeded 10,000 yuan at his highest.

The turning point occurred in October. After more than half a year of decline, the semiconductor market began to pick up, and the daily profit and loss of Xiaoyang's account finally began to show positive numbers, and the amount was even very high. Such a change made some fans who were still struggling in the stock market "unable to sit still."

"Brothers, give me a refund for what you bought."

"It hurts more to see you make money than to see me lose money."

"Hurry up and refund the money. You have to make money from the stock market and from selling goods. You can only make money from one of the two."

Observing the comment section of his account, Kas found that since October 24, many fans have been "calling" for refunds. Third-party data shows that although the sales of the live broadcast room did have an upward trend in those days, the amount was not large, and the space for fans to return the goods was also small. Xiaoyang himself did not take it seriously and even played tricks with fans in the comment section.

It was not until October 31 that the appearance of a chicken foot changed the fate of Xiaoyang’s live broadcast room.

Chicken feet were originally a very common product in the live broadcast room. Earlier that day, Xiaoyang posted a video showing his daily profit of 11,908 yuan. As the stock market fell overall that day, Xiaoyang's "show" made fans quite "angry."

After seeing Xiaoyang selling goods on live broadcast, many people said they also wanted to "dump the market". The specific operation of dumping the market is to first buy a large number of chicken feet and then quickly refund them.

The anger of the "stockholders" should not be underestimated. After the live broadcast at 5 o'clock that day, Xiaoyang posted a video in which he complained excitedly: I sold goods for an hour and a half, and the transaction volume was 60,000, but as soon as I went live, they dumped the market and refunded 58,000. The actual transaction volume was only 2,000 yuan, the commission was more than 150 yuan, and the Douyin currency was 90 yuan. The cost of the chicken feet was 40 yuan... In other words, brothers, after a live broadcast, I only earned 20 yuan.

This "defense-breaking" video has aroused more fans' interest in "going to the live broadcast room to dump stocks". Kas observed that at 11 o'clock that night, Xiaoyang conducted another live broadcast, and the transaction amount of this live broadcast reached 760,000, far exceeding his daily sales level, but the actual transaction amount was still not optimistic: according to the blogger's account, in less than 24 hours, the cumulative refund amount reached 770,000, and even "excess" 10,000 refunded.

Since then, @爱财务小羊's live broadcast room has entered a "return cycle": fans are placing orders and canceling them at the same time, and Xiaoyang is breaking down while broadcasting live.

As the story of "shorting chicken feet" spread, more fans and onlookers joined the "farce". Third-party data showed that in the half month from November 1 to 15, the average daily sales of @爱财务小羊 live broadcast room was over 10 million, with the highest sales in one day reaching 2500-5000W.

Along with the rising sales, the amount of returns in Xiaoyang's live studio has also increased. The blogger recorded the return data in his daily work, and the last updated number showed 180 million. However, someone left a message under the video, saying that the blogger's total transaction volume during this period should be around 250 million. After calculating this difference, "Yangdi" has still earned more than 2 million in commissions recently.

2. With a return rate of 99.95%, why are brands still flocking to it?

In fact, the popularity of Xiaoyang Live Room due to "returns" is inseparable from the "fueling" of merchants.

Faced with such an outrageous return rate, some brands not only do not want to stay away, but are eager to be the "suckers". Many brand accounts left messages under Xiaoyang's video wanting to "make friends".

In addition, according to Kas’s observation, Xiaoyang’s short videos recently have more content “shouting” to brands: he will directly say what he lacks or likes recently, and it would be great if the corresponding merchants could send samples. Most of the “shouting” products will later appear in Xiaoyang’s videos and live broadcasts, including “big items” such as cars.

Why do brands favor Xiaoyang so much? This brings us to the story of the gaming chair brand Aofeng and Xiaoyang’s live broadcast room.

On November 9, Xiaoyang promoted Aofeng gaming chairs for the first time in his live broadcast room. The prices were 899 yuan and 2699 yuan, which were not low. For this reason, the brand sponsored 13 products for lucky draw in the live broadcast room to give benefits to Xiaoyang's fans. After the live broadcast, Xiaoyang also specially posted a video to thank Aofeng and the "godfathers" who placed orders in the live broadcast room for support.

Unfortunately, Aofeng gaming chairs also did not escape the fate of being "shorted". The next day, the blogger posted a new video, saying that it was fine if people wanted to return the products, but why did someone ask for a refund for the 13 gaming chairs that were given away yesterday? By this calculation, the overall refund rate may exceed 100%.

After that, Xiaoyang's live broadcast room had another "short target" besides chicken feet - gaming chairs. A fan posted an order of more than 30 chairs in one live broadcast, with a total value of nearly 70,000 yuan, but the caption was: I will take back everything that Da A lost.

The final data collected by the brand showed that the cumulative sales in @爱财务小羊直播室 were about 22.72 million, the refund amount was about 22.71 million, and the actual transaction amount was only 12,341 yuan, with a refund rate of 99.95%. Taking into account the gifts given to fans and the operating costs of the gifts and streaming of the 小羊直播室, from the perspective of influencers alone, the Aofeng brand lost all its money this time.

However, for Aofeng, entering the live broadcast room of @爱财务小羊 has a meaningful publicity and promotion effect.

According to Kas's observation, in addition to appearing many times in Xiaoyang's live broadcast room when it was "popular" and gaining a lot of exposure, the various "grievances" it suffered from Xiaoyang's fans, such as "I didn't buy it but I still want to return it" and "Why can't I just get a refund", were filmed by bloggers and made into a series of jokes, which further increased the brand's exposure.

Some fans said that although they knew about Xiaoyang’s live broadcast room because of Ji Zhua, they actually didn’t know what brand he was promoting. Instead, now when they mention gaming chairs, they only think of Aofeng.

In addition to the lure of traffic, Xiaoyang’s core fan base is also the reason why many businesses are “stubborn”. Data shows that 90% of Xiaoyang’s live broadcast room users are male. Combined with the content posted by the account in the past, we can define this group of people more specifically: men who love and have the ability to trade stocks.

The consumption capacity of this group can be said to be unquestionable. After all, they previously spent more than 70,000 yuan on gaming chairs and boxes of Moutai in Xiaoyang's live broadcast room. For any brand, if they can attract this part of users, it will be a valuable asset.

3. How many live broadcast rooms have been harmed by the high return rate?

Although @爱财务小羊直播室 has become popular due to its extremely high return rate, for the vast majority of e-commerce live broadcast rooms, a high return rate is definitely not good news.

Not long ago, #TikTokjewelersreturnrate90%becameahotsearchonSina Weibo,afterwhichaninsidebytedidrespondthat"thisisacommonprobleminthejewelryindustry";lookingbackwards,EbrunalsoreportedthatthereturnrateofYixingzishateapotsinTikTok'slivestreamingroomshassoaredfrom30%-40%intheprevioustwoyearstomorethan70%thisyear,bringingtremendousstockpressure.Manybusinessesthatfollowedthetrendsufferheavylossasa result,someevensaidthatthey"hadtoescapefromTikTok."

According to media reports, after interviewing many merchants operating on Douyin, it was found that the return rate is closely related to the product category: on the Douyin platform, the return rate of food and department stores is at a normal level in the industry, but the return rate of women's clothing, accessories and other categories is significantly higher than that of traditional e-commerce platforms.

The high return rate of live e-commerce is partly due to the immediacy and impulsiveness of consumption in the live broadcast room. In order to speed up the pace of the live broadcast room, many anchors are happy to exaggerate an anxious and hurried shopping atmosphere, and then use gimmicks such as "discounted prices" and "lowest prices" to lure fans to place orders quickly, leaving many users with no time to think rationally.

After leaving the live broadcast room, users return to rationality, think more, and are more likely to return goods. The "2020 China Live E-commerce Industry Research Report" mentioned that the average return rate of live e-commerce is 30%-50%, higher than the 10%-15% return rate of traditional e-commerce. Other third-party data shows that among the interviewed users of live e-commerce, only 27% of them rarely cancel orders or return goods.

On the other hand, many "livestreaming experts" are content creators, not professional in e-commerce, and lack the ability to select products. For example, many fans of @爱财务小羊's chicken feet complained that the taste was bad and the ingredients were not fresh. They joked that they should not have been "trapped" because of their soft-heartedness, and they would not trust the recommendations of "羊弟" anymore.

According to Kass’s observation, after the popularity, the performance of @爱财务小羊 live broadcast room has been in a straight decline. Data shows that the average sales of the live broadcast room in the past 7 days was 100,000-250,000 yuan, and the GMV of the live broadcast yesterday was only 25,000-50,000 yuan. Judging from the trend, it may gradually fall back to the level before the popularity in the future.

Obviously, in the face of an increasingly differentiated and rational consumer market, if influencers still want to realize their dreams of wealth through live streaming, they must "grasp both" professional capabilities and product quality. Not only must they create good content, but they must also control quality, so that they can get a share of the fiercely competitive live streaming e-commerce track.

Author: Jiangbei WeChat public account: Kas Data