“The No. 1 on TikTok” joins Pinduoduo?

Pinduoduo is going to take the track of live streaming to sell goods, invite top live streamers to join, and develop its own live streaming representatives. It seems that it hit it off with Xiao Yangge's team and conduct multi-platform live streaming. This article describes the relevant content, I hope it will be helpful to you.

While "Make Friends" and Oriental Selection were looking for new growth outside of Douyin, another top Douyin anchor "Crazy Xiao Yangge" (hereinafter referred to as Xiao Yangge) was also suspected to have joined Pinduoduo.

Although we cannot see the release time of Xiao Yangge's first video, we can infer from the comment time that he opened an account on Pinduoduo at the end of August. He has accumulated more than 40,000 followers and updated more than 30 videos. Most of these videos are copied from Douyin, with slight modifications on the cover, but the effects are different. The same video on Douyin has more than 2 million likes, while on Duoduo Video it is only a few thousand.

On the left is Douyin, on the right is Pinduoduo

At the beginning of last year, when Duoduo Video was fully launched, Pinduoduo spent a lot of money to attract creators to join. Some fake accounts that copied videos were attracted by the news, and many of them copied Xiao Yangge’s content. So this time, “Is Xiao Yangge real?” became our first concern.

From the current situation, the account of Xiao Yangge on Pinduoduo has the "Red V" certification. The "Duoduo V Plan" is a support plan specifically designed to encourage high-quality creators and MCN organizations on major platforms to grow rapidly on Duoduo Video, which also means that the experts with Red V certification are most likely high-quality creators outside the site.

Duoduo V Plan and Certification Elements

Users applying for the "Duoduo V Plan" need to pass real-name and off-site account influence authentication. From this, it can be judged that the account of "Crazy Xiao Yangge" on Pinduoduo is very likely a new account opened by Xiao Yangge's team.

For the "top anchors" who started out on Douyin, "Make Friends" and Oriental Selection have already started to inhabit multiple platforms and layout in a matrix, and have run through the business model. However, Brother Yang is one of the few top anchors who is rooted in a single channel and has not yet found a suitable place other than Douyin. At this time, Pinduoduo, which focuses on the sinking market, also does not have its own live broadcast representative.

The two sides hit it off?

1. Live broadcast on multiple platforms, is it Brother Yang’s turn?

According to Huitun data, Xiao Yangge has 120 million followers on Douyin, making him the first Douyin influencer to have over 100 million followers. In comparison, the Douyin main account of "Make Friends" currently has 21.62 million followers, and Dongfang Zhenxuan has 30.619 million. Even Li Jiaqi has only 75.63 million followers on Taobao Live.

Xiao Yangge live broadcast room data

Generally speaking, once the content becomes popular, the account will quickly increase its followers, and then live streaming will start to sell goods, which is the conventional way for most Internet celebrities to realize their value. However, for most Internet celebrities, after a short period of popularity, the decline in popularity has become a normal phenomenon.

According to Huitun data, the sales of the Douyin live broadcast room of "Make Friends" dropped from 317 million yuan in July last year to 100 million to 250 million yuan in September last year.

A research report by Everbright Securities also shows that from May to July 2023, the average daily total GMV, average daily total number of viewers and comprehensive conversion rate of the Oriental Selection Douyin platform matrix live broadcast room declined month by month.

In July this year, the famous Hong Kong star Rosamund Kwan visited Xiao Yangge's live broadcast room, and the room's popularity peaked at 400,000, which is already a very high number for most anchors, but compared with Xiao Yangge's past popularity of 800,000 to 1 million, it has declined significantly.

The decline in data is not a problem of a single live broadcast room, but a challenge faced by the entire industry. After the extensive development of the live broadcast industry, it will inevitably usher in a stable period. For a long time in the past, Brother Yang has been attracting consumers to place impulse orders by creating an atmosphere. In fact, many things are not cheap. When the economy is down and consumers' wallets are not bulging, this method of attracting consumers to pay by shouting, creating gimmicks and plots is not as popular as before.

In the current environment of intensified competition in live e-commerce, major MCN companies are maximizing the use of existing traffic and choosing not to put all their eggs in one basket. Li Jiaqi has incubated multiple matrix accounts, "All Girls' Wardrobe" and "All Girls", Dongfang Zhenxuan and "Make Friends" have chosen multi-platform operations, and Xiao Yangge is no exception.

Brother Xiao Yang’s personal profile under his Douyin account is: Founder of Three Sheep Group, which includes Hefei Three Sheep Venture Capital Co., Ltd., Hefei Three Sheep Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., Hefei Xiao Yang Selected Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd., Hefei Three Sheep Network Technology Co., Ltd., etc. Business operations cover live streaming with goods, internet celebrity incubation, slice authorization, self-built supply chain, self-operated shopping malls and other e-commerce live streaming business ecosystems.

In addition to e-commerce live streaming, "slice authorization" is one of the main sources of income for Xiao Yangge outside of e-commerce live streaming according to industry estimates. The so-called "slice" is to edit the live streaming video of goods into clips, configure the corresponding product links, and then realize product sales through short video dissemination.

Earlier media reports said that Xiao Yangge's revenue from live streaming slicing was about 16 million yuan per month. However, according to the official account of Three Sheep Network, Xiao Yangge has stopped authorizing slicing.

Sanzhiyang MCN is also incubating new internet celebrities, such as Sanjinbaobei and Qingcheng Mengmeng, who are known for their appearance. They are expanding their business and promoting the scale of their business through e-commerce and live streaming of shows.

The "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan" WeChat applet registered by Xiao Yang in June 2022 has now been upgraded to the "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan Official Mall". There are five entrances below the applet, and the "Zhenxuan Circle" is placed in the core position, including brand stories, assistant IP, user experience, money-saving benefits, membership rights, points mall, and lucky draws, a total of seven columns.

However, no substantial results have been achieved in incubating new accounts or building e-commerce mini-programs. This entry into Pinduoduo may be a new attempt by Xiao Yangge.
What can joining Pinduoduo bring to Brother Yang?

Thanks to live streaming, many of Xiao Yangge's fans have placed orders crazily in the live streaming room. But more and more people have chosen more affordable and low-priced shopping channels, such as Pinduoduo, which has been deeply cultivating the sinking market and focusing on low prices.

Behind Pinduoduo's low prices, its supply chain ecosystem is becoming more and more perfect. For Brother Yang, what he values ​​may be Pinduoduo's ability to control its products.

If big anchors seek further development, it is important to expand product categories and ensure product quality while ensuring low prices. Compared with Taobao and JD.com, Pinduoduo, which focuses on the sinking market, is also a more suitable choice for Xiao Yangge.

A third-party data platform shows that 67.57% of Xiao Yangge’s fans spend between 0 and 100 yuan, of which 35.6% spend on food and beverages.

2. Pinduoduo needs a “number one person”

In fact, Pinduoduo has been wanting to make a living from live streaming for a long time.

As early as 2019, Pinduoduo began to test the waters of live streaming and recruited talents and MCN organizations to join. At that time, Pinduoduo's founder Huang Zheng felt that live streaming was a "tool attribute" and Pinduoduo had never regarded live streaming as its key business. Generally speaking, live streaming attracts consumers to place orders through discounts, promotions, and lower prices, but Pinduoduo's product prices are already very low, and consumers are unlikely to have the motivation to squat in the live broadcast room.

But then, live streaming e-commerce developed rapidly. According to the 50th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet, as of June 2022, the number of live streaming e-commerce users in my country reached 469 million, accounting for 44.6% of the total number of netizens. At the same time, Douyin, Kuaishou, Taobao, JD.com, and Xiaohongshu all rushed to take the lead.

In 2022, Kuaishou’s financial report showed that its e-commerce sales increased by 32.5% year-on-year to 901.2 billion yuan; at the same time, there were reports that Douyin’s e-commerce sales increased by 76% year-on-year to 141 million yuan (although this was later denied by the official, the growth rate of Douyin’s e-commerce is obvious to all).

According to QuestMobile data from May 2023, the proportion of users watching live broadcasts on Taobao and JD APP reached 22.4% and 8.0%, respectively, up 1.3 percentage points and 0.6 percentage points from the same period last year. Even the popular platform Xiaohongshu has its own top anchors Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, with a single live broadcast bringing in more than 50 million yuan.

In the field of live streaming e-commerce, Pinduoduo urgently needs to catch up.

Since the beginning of this year, Pinduoduo has significantly accelerated its efforts in live streaming. At the beginning of the year, Duoduo Live launched the "New Super Star Plan" and "Hundred Production Plan" to recruit merchants and anchors to join Pinduoduo. Recently, the Pinduoduo APP has undergone adjustments, adding a live streaming column and search function to the "Duoduo Video" section at the bottom of the homepage.

But so far, Taobao has Li Jiaqi, Douyin has Xiao Yangge, Kuaishou has Simba, Xiaohongshu has Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, "Make Friends" and Oriental Selection have chosen to inhabit multiple platforms, while the position of "top anchor" of Pinduoduo is vacant.

At present, Pinduoduo needs to cultivate consumers' habit of watching live broadcasts on the platform through influential anchors and increase the retention time of users on the platform. Merchants also need to further open up sales through live broadcasts. For Pinduoduo at present, it may be a faster route to introduce mature anchors who already have accumulated fans, rather than spending a lot of effort to incubate new anchors from scratch.

On the one hand, Pinduoduo's live streaming is mainly store-based. In the environment of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, it is difficult for Pinduoduo to have the motivation to cultivate new anchors. On the other hand, in the past, Pinduoduo has always focused on high-quality agricultural products and promoted a low-price mentality. It is at a disadvantage in the accumulation of live streaming experience, and it is difficult to cultivate top anchors in a short period of time.

Xiao Yangge, who currently has "more than half of his fans spending between 0 and 100 yuan" and "has not yet joined other platforms", is obviously the best choice. For Pinduoduo, Xiao Yangge's entry is not only a supplement to the internal live broadcast content ecosystem, but also a benchmark case to attract other anchors to join.

3. Will “Brother Xiao Yang” be the catfish?

With the development of live streaming e-commerce today, the necessity of high-quality content is self-evident.

In the early days of live streaming e-commerce, it was still a supply era. Merchants or influencers used live streaming to accurately reach consumers. They only needed to vividly and intuitively display the characteristics and advantages of the products to take care of the experience and feelings of most consumers, meet the needs of consumers, and make a name for themselves in the field of live streaming.

But when live streaming e-commerce entered the second half, the traffic dividend disappeared. Live streaming e-commerce has transformed from the supply era to the demand era. Only better products, more exciting content and more affordable prices can meet the personalized needs of consumers.

Since the beginning of this year, Taobao has continuously introduced new anchors, such as TVB and Oriental Selection, but the traffic of the top anchors on Taobao has not been greatly affected. This shows that the relationship between the entire Taobao live broadcast room is not a stock game, but a common prosperity. The entry of super anchors can promote the prosperity of the entire live broadcast ecosystem.

This also means that if Pinduoduo wants to do live streaming well, it must also have creators who provide high-quality content to ensure the prosperity of the ecosystem and attract users. As the number of users grows, it will in turn attract more creators to join, forming a virtuous circle.

First, user mindset. On the demand side, high-quality content has become the main driving force for consumers to open short videos or live broadcasts. The popularity of Dongfang Zhenxuan and Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcast room is an obvious example. Live broadcasting itself is an optimization and upgrade of shopping efficiency and experience. As the track matures, live broadcasting has also returned to its essence from the initial "drama" plot, the lowest price on the entire network, and free draws. In the era of demand, consumers pay for content.

Secondly, top anchors. The driving effect of top anchors on GMV is self-evident. According to data from third-party platforms, the top 20 anchors of Douyin live streaming created a total GMV of 5.452 billion yuan in June this year. In addition, the top anchors' ability to bring goods and fan base can also bring a large amount of traffic and users to the platform.

Finally, the platform ecology. The top anchors are certainly important, but the power of small and medium anchors cannot be ignored. Just like a busy street, there are specialty stores, roadside stalls, and also juggling performances, so that the lively atmosphere can attract more people to stay. The same is true for the platform for bringing goods. The prosperity of the platform ecology is the key link in forming a virtuous circle between users and creators.

From the current perspective, with Xiao Yangge’s Red V account, Pinduoduo is focusing on short videos first, and the content is still from Douyin. It is still unknown whether it will open live streaming to sell goods in the future. Whether Xiao Yangge can become a catfish and stir up Pinduoduo’s live streaming market is still a question mark.

Author: Cheng Rumeng WeChat public account: E-commerce Online