Bao Jiansao's first show brought 28 million yuan of goods, but it couldn't cover up the e-commerce problems of Bilibili

1. Live e-commerce on Bilibili, following the lead of top UP hosts

Whether in terms of fan size or account positioning, it is not surprising that @宝剑嫂 has become a benchmark for B station's live e-commerce.

In 2017, @宝剑嫂 started to update videos on Bilibili. In the early stage, the account was positioned for outfits, beauty reviews, etc., and later it added outfit sharing, couple Vlogs and other content. The videos spanned fashion and life. From 2019 to 2021, @宝剑嫂 was rated as one of the top 100 UP hosts for three consecutive years. After six years of operation on Bilibili, Baojian Sao has become well-known enough and has become more and more closely tied to the platform.

In terms of commercialization, the fashion area is close enough to consumption, and @宝剑嫂's performance can be called excellent. At the 2022 Top 100 Awards Ceremony, @宝剑嫂 won the "Annual Trend Influence Award". At the AD TALK at the end of December last year, she introduced herself as "posting nearly 500 videos on Bilibili in six years, including hundreds of advertising collaborations, covering brands in fashion, life, electronics, etc."

In the first show warm-up video, @宝剑嫂 mentioned that she was determined to start live streaming because " it is difficult to negotiate a good price with the mechanism of video, but in fact, with the current volume, we can negotiate a good price with the form of live streaming."

This was undoubtedly a carefully choreographed live broadcast. In the early preparation, Bao Jian's wife and Yu Ge specially built a live broadcast room full of B station elements and signed a six-month lease. The top UP hosts of each section of the platform, such as @羊料理, @花少北, @某幻君, and @中国Boy, appeared in their pre-launch videos and promised to consume and support the live broadcast room.

As the platform, Bilibili also gave enough "prestige" to this live broadcast. Not only did it put "Sister Bao Jian's Live Broadcast Sales" on the hot search list that night, but it also had traffic support such as opening screen push and information flow recommendation. Users can jump to the live broadcast room by clicking.

In terms of pallet configuration, @宝剑嫂's product selection intentionally fits the preferences of Bilibili users and her own professional field . The 62 items launched during the live broadcast cover multiple fields such as beauty, home furnishings, clothing and accessories, food and beverages, etc.

Among them, beauty products include "luxury products" such as Mao Geping Caviar Air Cushion and Lancome Absolue Cream, as well as affordable Kelaqi Lip Mud and Boruimei Setting Spray; products related to the characteristics of B Station include B Station membership and Hogwarts Lego blocks. That night, Sanya 5-day and 4-night tours, Miguang beauty devices, and Lego blocks all created sales of millions.

The debut performance of 28 million is impressive, but considering the massive publicity and fan spending, this number seems a bit dim. Putting aside the problem of lack of experience, this live broadcast still has many aspects that have been criticized by the audience.

First of all, the price is not competitive. Although in the pre-launch video, Bao Jian's wife mentioned many times that "there is a very good pricing mechanism this time" and "we talked a lot with the brand", in the actual shopping process, users found that the discounts on the products in the live broadcast room were not very large, and were even more expensive than the previous purchase links.

Some users compared the prices of the official flagship store of Kelaqi Lip Mud with those of Bao Jiansao's live broadcast room and found that the official flagship price was cheaper. On Xiaohongshu, some users complained that for the same product, the ordinary coupons were even three yuan more than the Bao Jiansao special chain discounts. This kind of situation also occurred in many single products such as Yilian spray, kissme eyeliner, and Want Want food, making many fans feel that they were "cutting leeks."

As the top UP hosts with over 4 million fans on the site, they do not have enough bargaining power to get good discount mechanisms, which undoubtedly reduces the e-commerce competitiveness of Bilibili.

At the same time, although much thought has been put into product selection, similar to the end of last year, most of the products shown in Bao Jiansao’s live broadcast are from Taobao and JD’s Selected Alliance. Consumers need to make a second jump through external links to complete the ordering process, and the purchasing experience is not good.

In addition, the main consumers of this live broadcast are still fans.

Fans pay for the anchor out of trust, but if they cannot attract more passers-by, how many "Bao Jian Sao" can be supported by fans alone?

2. Bilibili’s e-commerce problems remain unresolved

Bao Jiansao’s live broadcast can also be seen as another test of Bilibili in e-commerce.

Before this live broadcast, the benchmark account for live e-commerce on Bilibili was @Mr迷登. On the opening day of Double Eleven last year, the GMV of @Mr迷登's first live broadcast in the home furnishing track exceeded 130 million, which can be said to be a breakthrough; this year on June 18, @Mr迷登 started the "618 Home Decoration Festival" live broadcast, and the GMV of the first live broadcast reached 260 million yuan.

For a long time, @Mr迷登 has been the spokesperson for live streaming sales on Bilibili. This has certainly broken the stereotype that Bilibili users have insufficient spending power to a certain extent, but relying solely on 迷登 is not enough to support the popularity of Bilibili's e-commerce. Bilibili needs more live streaming sales UP hosts who can bring out the best.

Official data shows that compared with last year's 618, the number of UP hosts who brought goods on Bilibili this year has increased by more than 3 times year-on-year. This includes many top UP hosts: at the end of May this year, @雨说体育徐静雨 launched a live broadcast promotion, and his partner was @百视tv张月. The products selected included affordable daily necessities, snacks and drinks, as well as jerseys, sneakers, and 4090 graphics cards that were related to the UP host's field and had higher customer unit prices.

The @大物是也 team in the medical field started live streaming earlier, and there were many special sessions during the 618 period. A live streaming on June 17 received reservations from 10,000 people.

Although Bilibili has been trying hard to help the top UP hosts cross the river, in fact, since the platform launched a new shopping section and announced its entry into live streaming e-commerce, the e-commerce problems facing Bilibili are still unresolved.

On the one hand, a year later, Bilibili still has not built its own e-commerce closed loop . In the Q1 earnings conference call, COO Li Ni said that the purpose of building an e-commerce open loop is to "connect the potential of Bilibili's ecosystem to all e-commerce platforms, in order to establish the user's mindset of consuming in the Bilibili community and to improve the middle-end capabilities of transactions on Bilibili."

Kas believes that in the short term, relying on products from Taobao and JD.com can make up for Bilibili's shortcomings in terms of goods, but problems such as lack of product differentiation, insufficient price competitiveness, and mismatch between product selection and UP host positioning all mean that this is not a suitable long-term plan.

Regarding live streaming sales, @Mr迷蹬 once shared his views in a video: "The decentralization of the B-station live streaming ecosystem and the lack of traffic concentration have resulted in the doom of low-priced fast-moving consumer goods. Either the sales volume is not enough or the frequency is not enough. Under the current environment, it is impossible for B-station to make breakthrough progress in the field, so it can only work hard on the average customer price and conversion rate."

His point of view is confirmed by @大祥哥来了. In a live broadcast, Daxiang was mocked because the products he promoted were too cheap, which was inconsistent with his personality. This means that on Bilibili, the path of "small profits but quick turnover" is difficult to follow. The direction of Bilibili's live broadcast is for vertical UP hosts to promote vertical categories and promote differentiated product selection .

On the other hand, in terms of the live streaming atmosphere, Bilibili has also failed to establish a consumer mindset among users .

As we enter 2023, the relationship between the platform, users, and UP hosts has become more complicated. After the brand investment was greatly reduced, the contradiction between Bilibili and UP hosts over revenue intensified, which was reflected in the "stop updating trend" that became a hot topic in public opinion. On the surface, several top UP hosts "stopped updating", but in fact, it exposed the UP hosts' anxiety about revenue.

At the same time, the disappearance of native UP hosts has made the relationship between the platform and UP hosts more loose . A former employee of Bilibili once told the media that "it is difficult for Bilibili to mobilize UP hosts."

Bilibili hopes to open up live streaming with goods as another channel for monetization, but the problem is that not all top UP hosts are willing to step into an unfamiliar track. For them, content is their comfort zone, and live streaming with goods is more like a "big gamble" at the expense of reputation. Compared with the top hosts, Bilibili actually needs a set of tactics that are suitable for the platform's tone and can be replicated, so as to run a more universal live streaming with goods model and ensure the revenue of mid-level UP hosts.

Not only is there a conflict between UP hosts and platforms, but the relationship between users and UP hosts is no longer a simple relationship between content producers and consumers, but is mixed with fan filters and full of scrutiny .

As content consumers, users of Bilibili are very strict about the content produced by UP hosts. Not long ago, @子时当归 (now known as “是当归哦”), a million-dollar UP host who specializes in exquisite lifestyle Vlogs, released a new video. Because the state presented in the work was completely different from the petty-bourgeois lifestyle that he had previously featured, users questioned his “personality collapse” and subsequently unfollowed him.

This strictness naturally extends to the commercial content level. The commercial environment of Bilibili seems to have taken a wave line. The barrage of users has changed from "eating rotten rice" to "let him eat", and in 2023 it has evolved into "element detection" and "the front is treasonous". For the oral part of the advertisement, many users choose to pull the progress bar to skip it, which is not friendly to brand owners.

Too much advertising is also one of the current users' dissatisfaction with Bilibili. Before the live streaming, Bao Jiansao's videos were also complained by fans for carrying too many products. During the live streaming, Bao Jiansao also mentioned that an important reason for doing live streaming to carry products is that fans do not want to see advertisements in the videos.

On Zhihu, some users also said that the tendency of users on Bilibili to be "anti-capital" is very serious. For example, if an UP host chooses to promote Yili and Mengniu products, they will be accused by fans of making dirty money, and their reputation will inevitably collapse. Therefore, most UP hosts will be very cautious in accepting advertisements and selecting products, which also limits their business opportunities.

In the "Deconstructing Bilibili" series, finance UP host @老蒋巨靠谱 mentioned that "the anti-commercial, anti-consumption and anti-marketing tendency of Bilibili users is a bigger and more fundamental problem. This is very harsh on commercial organizations and brands, and the consumer atmosphere is very weak. It is a huge negative for the commercialization of UP hosts. Whether it is bringing goods or attracting party A investment, it will be affected to a certain extent."

In general, for Bilibili, taking the path of "setting a benchmark" may be feasible, but whether it is the user mentality and consumption atmosphere within the site, or the construction of the "people, goods and place" for live broadcasts, all kinds of difficulties need to be resolved by Bilibili.