Jewelry live streaming is hot: the profit margin is as low as 50%, but tricks are everywhere

With the support of live e-commerce, the jewelry market has developed rapidly, and many consumers are addicted to it. However, according to data and real cases, even if the platform imposes various restrictions, there are still many tricks for buying jewelry in live broadcast rooms. To create a healthy online shopping environment, it also requires the self-consciousness of merchants and the joint supervision of consumers. Interested students can read on.

"If you have red Nanhong in your family, your family will be prosperous for generations. Next, I will introduce you to this red Nanhong Jasper safety lock..."

Since ancient times, jewelry has symbolized peace, happiness, and auspiciousness. Now, with the support of live streaming e-commerce, the jewelry market is developing rapidly.

According to forward-looking data, the market size of China's jewelry industry will show an upward trend from 2022 to 2027, and by 2027, the market size of China's jewelry industry will exceed 450 billion yuan.

Other data show that the total retail sales of gold, silver and jewelry from January to November 2022 was 277 billion yuan, of which sales through e-commerce channels accounted for half of the total retail sales.

The main consumers of jewelry are women. "Jewelry is silent, but it can move a woman's heart more than any language." Women have a special liking for jewelry, which is proved by this famous quote from Shakespeare.

On Xiaohongshu, many consumers share their obsession with jewelry live streaming.

When sharing his “trophies”, a consumer said, “I can’t watch it anymore. I’ve been addicted to live streaming in less than a month and spent 30,000 yuan.” He also warned himself: “Today is the last time.”

Another user said, "I bought a lot of agate and jade in the past two months," but at the same time he was also grateful that although the quantity was large, the unit price was not expensive, and he only spent a few thousand.

Many people spend hundreds of thousands of yuan a year because they are addicted to jewelry live streaming. One user shared that he bought more than 200,000 yuan worth of gold in a year by watching live streaming. "I fell into the trap of gold and wanted to buy jewelry every day," the user said.

With the help of many female consumers, the performance of the jewelry category on the live streaming platform is also particularly eye-catching.

In the Douyin TOP20 sales list released by Bianyushi on the 24th, jewelry alone occupied 7 positions, accounting for 35%. On the 26th, the jewelry category continued to rise to the top of the list. Yunshang Jewelry topped the sales list with sales of 23.9404 million, surpassing Liu Yuanyuan, Dongfang Zhenxuan and others.

1. Ubiquitous routines

However, in jewelry live streaming that attracts consumers to place orders frequently, tricks are everywhere.

A person working in the live broadcast supply chain told Bianyushi that the average customer price of jewelry is high, and the profit can reach at least 50%, but there are not many people doing this kind of business, because it is easy to be blocked and it is difficult to create an account in the early stage. Therefore, if you want to really do it, it is very important to establish trust in the early stage. "Strengthening the personality and building trust is a common trick in jewelry live broadcasts."

In order to gain trust, many jewelry live broadcasts are also designing the live broadcast format and language.

For example, in order to create a sense of presence and reality, many jewelry live broadcasts adopt the form of walking broadcasts, that is, broadcasting while walking. The live broadcast venues are mostly various jewelry markets. During the live broadcast, the anchor will bargain with the jewelry owners on the spot. In terms of speech, the anchor often does not emphasize getting fans to place orders at the beginning, but takes netizens on a tour from the perspective of a tour guide.

Regarding this seemingly real market bargaining, industry insiders revealed that it is often designed in advance, "including bargaining with merchants, and the product pictures on the shelves are all prepared in advance."

Of course, it is not a bad thing for businesses to innovate in the format of live streaming in order to increase sales, but the fact is that the price that the anchor has negotiated with the merchant after much effort is not the "lowest price" as he claims.

Taking a certain jewelry live broadcast room as an example, Sanyancha shows that the best-selling Hetian jade bracelet in the room is priced at 49.5 yuan, and the current sales volume is over 10,000.

"Most new players don't understand Hetian jade and are easily cheated," an old player said bluntly, "the selling price and wholesale price of some products can differ by 10 times."

In this regard, Bianniushi also consulted a jade lover who has been engaged in the business of cultural relics. He took a look at the popular Hetian jade bracelets and gave the answer: "This kind of bracelets are usually purchased in large quantities in Nanyang, and they cost more than ten yuan. They usually string 100 at a time with a rope and sell them together." He also said, "This is not the jasper bracelet produced in Xinjiang Hetian in our narrow sense. It is made of Russian material, which is called Russian material in the industry."

To make it easier to understand, he further explained, "Not all Hetian jade is expensive. Currently, only seed material is expensive. The high-value Hetian jade we often hear about is Hetian white jade seed material, but this kind of green jade basically has no seed material, all are mountain materials, and the price is relatively inexpensive."

Not only that, in order to create the illusion of great value for money, some anchors are deliberately vague when introducing products.

Recently, consumer An An was almost fooled when watching a gold live broadcast: "The host clearly said that he would give everyone beads, and on the surface, people would think they were gold beads, but on the purchase interface, they were actually 925 silver beads, but his words in the live broadcast room made you think they were gold." After realizing that he was deceived, An An returned several products he ordered.

On social platforms, many netizens have also been deeply affected. Some netizens said that because of the host's inflammatory remarks and their own mentality of taking advantage, they bought products priced at 99, 299, and 399 yuan in the live broadcast room. After checking each piece, they found that the 99 yuan one was not the pure gold as the host said, but 925 silver; the gold beads priced at 299 and 399 yuan only contained 0.03g of gold.

In addition, some netizens said that the price of a 999 pure gold Pixiu they bought was 259 yuan, but a careful check of its product parameters showed that the nominal gold weight was about 0.22g. Even if calculated according to the current highest price of gold, the profit of this product is as high as more than 130 yuan, with a profit margin of more than 50%.

Bianniu.com also found that a very popular golden necklace with the word "Fu" on the live broadcast platform was priced at 69.9 yuan, and 10,000 pieces have been sold so far, but its product parameters stated that it was made of 2 grams of 925 silver.

In this regard, an industry insider did the math for Bianniu: 1 gram of silver is only five or six yuan, including processing fees of 2-3 yuan, packaging of 1 yuan, express delivery of 2 yuan, box of 1-3 yuan, and certificate of 20 cents, the profit for each piece can be at least 50 yuan.

Last year, the 315 Gala exposed some chaos in jewelry live streaming, including theatrical selling of jadeite in live streaming rooms and targeted invitations to fans to watch "smuggling and sneaking" plots. Although the exaggerated plots have been restrained, various routines are still emerging at present.

If you enter the keywords "jewelry live broadcast" and "jade live broadcast" on Heimao Complaints, there are still thousands of complaint messages.

2. When will the routine end?

In fact, since the average order value of jewelry is high and it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity, the platform has also taken a number of measures to allow consumers to place orders with confidence.

For example, merchants who want to enter the platform must be screened in the early stage. On Douyin, jewelry merchants who want to enter the platform must have jewelry appraisal certificates for the goods they sell, and the goods must meet the quality requirements of laws and industry standards.

In addition, Douyin has established 25 jewelry bases across the country. If jewelry merchants want to live broadcast and sell goods normally, they need to open it through the regular Douyin live broadcast base whitelist channel, otherwise they will not be able to start broadcasting.

In order to ensure the quality and authenticity of jewelry, Kuaishou also requires that all products sold in Kuaishou stores must be declared before they can be sold normally.

The platform also imposed corresponding penalties on non-standard jewelry merchants.

As early as 2021, Douyin launched a special campaign to combat irregular promotions of jewelry and jadeite products, and found that some merchants and creators engaged in false, untrue and other irregular promotions in the process of promoting jewelry and jadeite products through live broadcasts and videos. For example, "imitation green pine" was promoted as "turquoise" and "ordinary agate" was promoted as "southern red agate", maliciously misleading consumers.

In February this year, Douyin e-commerce once again issued a special announcement on the management of "fake gold" and other material products in the jewelry industry. The announcement clearly requires that metal products imitating gold shall not be released under the fashion jewelry category, specifically silver products or alloy products with a golden surface, similar to the appearance of gold (gold plating, gold wrapping, etc.) or gold craftsmanship (carving, sandblasting, brushing, filigree, etc.).

Unfortunately, even though the platform has imposed various restrictions, various tricks still exist and consumers still feel cheated.

It seems that the power of the platform alone is not enough to eliminate the routines of jewelry live streaming. If we want to create a healthy online shopping environment, we also need the self-awareness of merchants and the joint supervision of consumers.

Author: Lin Xiaobai

Source: Bianews (ID: bianews8); accurate, fast and in-depth technology media