6 times premium, a loss of millions, who is getting rich through jewelry live streaming?

Nowadays, jade, jade and cultural relics are not only favored by the middle-aged and elderly people who are "rich and free", but more young people are flocking to live broadcasts to buy them. However, the particularity of the jewelry and jade industry makes this way of buying through live broadcasts very uncertain.

"I can't stop, I can't stop at all," said Liu Jing, who recently got into jewelry live streaming and bought 10 crystal necklaces in half a month. In particular, the instant-grabbing products in the live streaming are like a "catch doll" game, which stimulates her competitive spirit, and the colorful jewelry attracts her to place orders continuously.

Jewelry live streaming has become a hot topic on all major platforms. Take Douyin as an example. Tech Planet saw on the live streaming rankings on the afternoon of August 15 that a jewelry live streaming room with only over a million fans had real-time sales that exceeded that of Dongfang Selection, which has tens of millions of fans. The live streaming room ranked first in the jewelry category had a turnover of nearly 8 million yuan in sales within an hour.

This is not a coincidence. Previously, the Douyin anchor sales list released by Xindou Data showed that the top three anchors in terms of total sales in July were all jewelry live broadcasts. Jade, cultural relics, etc. are also important categories on major platforms. The jewelry live broadcast bases of Taobao, Douyin, Kuaishou and other leading platforms have successively settled in Shuibei, a large jewelry wholesale market in Shenzhen. With the development of e-commerce business on platforms such as Video Number and Xiaohongshu, many jewelry merchants have begun to settle in to compete for dividends.

The jewelry category itself has a relatively high average customer price, and the non-standard products have caused the industry to be opaque. Jewelry live broadcasts have also become one of the categories with the most "routines". The anchors cut down the price of jadeite worth tens of thousands of yuan to cabbage prices, stimulating users to buy, and a series of wealth-making stories unfold in the live broadcast room. But on the other side of the coin, the high return rate has become the life and death line of some jewelry live broadcast rooms.

However, the lucrative business of jewelry live streaming is a market where all parties are competing. Platforms, merchants, and anchors don’t want to miss out.

1. Wild growth: jewelry anchors sell nearly 8 million products in one hour

Nowadays, many top anchors will bargain with stall owners at the finished jade source markets in Guangzhou, Jieyang, Sihui, Pingzhou, etc. A silver-inlaid Hetian jade leaf pendant was bargained down from 1,000 yuan to 650 yuan by the anchor, and a Hetian jade bead string was bargained down from 4,800 yuan to 2,880 yuan. In the end, the merchants reluctantly gave up, and users placed orders in seconds in the live broadcast room. This is a standard scene in many jewelry live broadcast rooms.

The form of walking broadcast increases the shopping immersion and gives users a feeling of "making money as soon as you buy". However, industry insiders revealed to Tech Planet that the so-called walking broadcast is basically the anchor's agreement with the stall owner in advance and the show is performed on the spot. It not only increases entertainment and attracts users to watch, but also increases real-time transaction volume. Under the traffic mechanism of some short video platforms, the live broadcast room can get more public domain traffic.

The live streaming market for jewelry and jade is divided into two categories: standard products and non-standard products. Standard products refer to jewelry that can be mass-produced, such as gold and diamonds, while non-standard products refer to naturally formed jade products such as jadeite, Hetian jade, beeswax, and turquoise.

The prices of gold and diamonds have unified standards, and as the price of gold fluctuates, merchants will have obvious off-seasons and peak seasons. A gold anchor in Shuibei, Shenzhen, told Tech Planet that the price of gold has been high recently, with daily sales up to 100 grams, while during peak sales periods such as the National Day holiday and the Spring Festival, up to 5 kilograms of gold can be sold a day.

In comparison, non-standard jewelry and jade have always given users a feeling of "deep waters" and there is no unified pricing standard. Wei Li, a jade practitioner, told Tech Planet that because it is a non-essential product, in the past on traditional e-commerce platforms, merchants had to sell jade with a customer unit price of 100 yuan for at least 1,000 yuan, which means a tenfold increase to make a profit, while live broadcast rooms can sell in large quantities and at least 600 yuan.

Wei Li said that the quality of jade is generally judged by several standards, such as water quality, base color, craftsmanship, and flaws. Water quality can be simply understood as the degree of light transmittance of jade. In terms of pricing, such products will not be clearly marked by weight or other forms. Consumers need to use professional knowledge and experience to judge whether it is worth the money. However, many of the live broadcast rooms are actually beginners, and it is difficult for them to have professional appreciation ability.

Therefore, in the past few years, fake certificates and mismatched goods have been common in jewelry live broadcasts. A merchant told Tech Planet that on the Douyin platform, goods must pass through the platform's quality inspection logistics center, and merchants must ship goods to the platform's quality inspection center, and then the platform will ship them. For merchants, the quality inspection fee for a jewelry product is about 10 yuan, the freight is 22 yuan, the return freight insurance is 9 yuan, and there are packaging costs for products of different grades. The cost of a product is more than 40 yuan. In addition, the platform deduction and platform investment fees must be added. The price of the products in the live broadcast room must take these costs into account and will not be very low.

Some platforms let merchants conduct quality inspections themselves. Liu Jing told Tech Planet that the crystal products she bought from a live broadcast room with a unit price of dozens of yuan did not have free shipping insurance. In addition, some live broadcast rooms said that each crystal bracelet came with an appraisal certificate, but there was a QR code on the appraisal certificate, which she could not scan at all. "I feel that a crystal bracelet worth dozens of yuan is not worth the merchant to send for inspection. The certificate is likely to be fake. There is an industrial chain for certification, and you can buy one for 2 yuan."

2. Return rate becomes life and death line, some merchants lose millions in half a year and quit the market

In the field of jewelry live streaming, high transaction volume is accompanied by a high return rate. Tech Planet consulted with merchants on multiple platforms, and they all mentioned that the return rate is at least 60%.

The reasons for returns they reviewed were: first, consumers were not satisfied with the products. The lighting in the live broadcast room would enhance the display of jade. After consumers received the products, the color, size and specifications did not meet their expectations. In addition, there were various craftsmanship defects, such as cracks, black spots, etc.; second, many consumers actually do not have the ability to appreciate jade, and everyone has different aesthetic tastes for jade. Sometimes, what merchants see in the background is that the returned products are good products, but the poor quality products are not returned; third, impulse buying, they want to return the products after receiving them.

A senior jade buyer told Tech Planet that she had never bought a satisfactory jade in the live broadcast room. She has now accepted the fact that there is always a certain gap between the jade she actually received and the static pictures she saw and the products displayed in the live broadcast room. Later, she lowered her psychological expectations.

For merchants, the return rate means inventory backlogs, financial pressure, and even life and death. Tang Xin is a high-end colored stone jewelry merchant, with a customer unit price starting from 10,000 yuan.

She told Tech Planet that many live broadcast rooms now basically use the borrowing model, that is, borrowing a batch of goods from the stall owner, and finally giving the sold goods to the owner for settlement, and the return of goods is also received and processed by the owner. Merchants like her who use their own sources of goods will be in danger once the return rate reaches between 20% and 30%.

Tang Xin started broadcasting in October last year. When the GMV of her live broadcast reached 1 million, she felt obvious pressure. Because according to the 60% return rate, she needs to prepare 1.6 million goods, plus other expenses, she needs to have at least 2 million in capital expenditure. "We are caught in a vicious circle. We have a good GMV, but the return rate is also high. In fact, we don't make any money because the platform's commission is also very high."

Later, she cancelled the freight insurance to save some costs. She used to try every means to get consumers to place orders in the live broadcast room, but now she has begun to remind users to consume rationally and be cautious in placing orders. After half a year, Tang Xin roughly estimated that she had lost more than 1.5 million yuan and decided to suspend live broadcasting to stop losses.

Tang Xin is not an isolated case. A jewelry merchant on an e-commerce platform told Tech Planet that, except for a very small number of top live broadcast rooms, many jewelry live broadcast rooms are in a "dying struggle" state, and many merchants have been shuffled out in the past two years. If you don't spend money on traffic, it is very difficult to start an account. The return rate is the "last straw" that crushes many merchants. When the actual transaction volume cannot cover the cost of live broadcast, it will definitely not be able to bear it. Although many top live broadcast rooms may have a high return rate now, if a live broadcast reaches tens of millions of GMV, the actual transaction volume can also cover the cost, and sustainable operation can be guaranteed.

But in fact, the return rate also troubles the current top anchors. Tech Planet saw from the live broadcast room that, unlike products with a customer unit price of a few hundred yuan, which encourage users to quickly participate in the flash sale, when the top anchors sell products with a customer unit price of about 40,000 yuan, they will remind users to place orders rationally based on their own budget. Regarding returns, another top anchor on a short video platform even ridiculed the user's appreciation ability in the live broadcast room, "If he sells a real product for 9.9 yuan, he may return it, but if he sells a fake product for 999 yuan, he will not return it."

3. Low-priced jewelry begins to attract young people

The live streaming industry has expanded the consumer scale and purchase frequency of jewelry products. Nowadays, jade, jade and cultural relics are not only the favorite categories of the middle-aged and elderly groups who are "rich and free", but more young people are beginning to flock to live streaming rooms to buy.

Liu Jing said that compared with traditional graphic forms, in the live broadcast room, she can see a full range of crystal bracelets, including the hand-held effect, whether there are flaws, glossiness, transparency, color, etc. Because of natural crystals, the quality of each batch of raw materials is different, and the bracelets made are also different. If you don't buy them, they will be gone. In addition, the second-hand auction needs to be grabbed, which stimulates her to continue to place orders.

It is not just a simple flash sale. Wang Qian, who often buys products in jewelry live broadcast rooms, said that the atmosphere of snatching on some platforms makes users subconsciously impulse to buy. Good jade products are hard to come by. For example, a merchant posted a bracelet and claimed that "the price can buy a house in Hegang". Originally, 40 people wanted it, but many users would pay others to grab it in order to increase the chance of winning. In the end, thousands of people scrambled for a bracelet in one night.

In order to attract young people to buy, merchants will also design and name products in line with young people's preferences. A jewelry merchant told Tech Planet that the two best-selling products in his store are a peach-colored bracelet, which symbolizes love luck, and a jade bracelet, which symbolizes career luck. The average customer price of both products is between 200 and 300 yuan.

Wang Qian introduced that nowadays young girls like shiny jadeite. In fact, many merchants use scraps to make beads. Because the final product is very transparent, the price will be hyped up. Some flaws of jadeite will be exaggerated by some merchants who are good at marketing into a nice name, and the price will go up.

Some users buy too many products and resell them, Wang Qian said. For example, if a product with a unit price of 200 yuan is sent back to the original live broadcast room, in addition to the shipping cost, it usually costs 80 yuan "handling fee", which is the agency fee for the platform to help sell it. Moreover, the pricing of each live broadcast room is different, and they sometimes sell it to a live broadcast room with a higher price and make a profit from the difference.

A jewelry merchant on an e-commerce platform said that for some merchants who use the loan model, if the return rate is very high and the stall owner is unwilling to supply goods, then the products sent back by users in the live broadcast room will become their source of goods. And when selling second-hand products, users will feel that they can get a bargain at a low price, and the sales volume is also good. This is a new model for the development of jewelry live broadcasts.

Although live broadcasts have brought jade and jadeite into the homes of ordinary people, there are still many mixed bags. A jewelry anchor said that there must be merchants who are really serious about their business, but consumers need to spend some time to find them.

(Note: Liu Jing, Wei Li, Wang Qian and Tang Xin are pseudonyms in this article.)

Author: Lin Jing

Source public account: Tech Planet (ID: tech618); focusing on cutting-edge Internet technology and new business.