The price of durian is rising instead of falling, is it all because of Simba’s live broadcast of tracing the origin?

The article uses the topic of #Ximba ends Chinese people's freedom of durian with his own strength# as a guide to analyze and discuss the basic marketing ideas, market and future development prospects of transnational traceability live broadcast, and also analyzes the impact of Simba's traceability live broadcast on the durian market. If you are also interested in this topic, let's share it together.

"I sell my goods, you sell yours, I sell at whatever price I am willing to pay. I shipped three containers yesterday. Tell me how you monopolize the market. Are you using me to speculate on prices? Don't you claim to ship 500 to 600 containers across the country every day? Whose interests are affected by my transparent sale of durian?"

Recently, the topic #Ximba single-handedly ended the Chinese people’s durian freedom# has become a hot topic on the social platform.

A merchant from Guangzhou Jiangnan Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Market broke the news on a social platform that Simba sold durian at 32 yuan per kilogram in Thailand, and sold 1.62 million durians in a single session, with sales of nearly 300 million yuan, which directly led to the direct sealing of Guangzhou Jiangnan durian containers (durian is transported in containers, and sealing generally means that a container is taken away directly after it is opened to the market but has not been sold yet). Even though Simba responded in the live broadcast room that it was the low-priced durian merchants who were hyping up the market, there was still an endless stream of users accusing him of "excessive promotion of goods to monopolize resources and drive up the price of durian."

It can be learned from the official website of Guangzhou Jiangnan National Cuisine Wholesale Market that on May 4, before Simba’s live broadcast, the average price of imported durian from Thailand dropped to 40.79 yuan/kg, but after Simba’s live broadcast, the average price had risen to 45.29 yuan/catties.

Especially on social platforms, a large number of users feel that the price of durian around them has indeed increased. "The offline supermarket near me sells durian at 23.9 yuan per kilogram, and it has directly risen to 32.9 yuan in the past two days." They compared the prices of their respective fruit stores in the comment area. Even the Sam's Club in Shanghai has begun to announce the countdown to the removal of low-priced durian from the shelves, secretly pointing to Simba's recent public opinion.

Can Simba really boost the entire durian market on his own?

The reporter interviewed Aze, a live streamer who sells imported fruits at Guangzhou Jiangnan Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Market. She said that in the short term, the Jiangnan market is huge and Simba cannot be said to have a monopoly, but if the butterfly effect attracts more top live streamers to grab a piece of the pie, it will disrupt the market. Behind the durian incident, what really deserves attention is Simba's journey to trace the origin of durian in Thailand.

This year, there is a common phenomenon among the top anchors: they have all gone overseas to conduct special live broadcasts on the traceability of tourist destinations, brand origins, raw material production areas, back-end factories, etc. First, Douyin's Duoyu and Maomaojie went to Singapore, and Mr. Dong went to France to promote L'Oréal Paris. Later, Taobao anchors Lie'er Baby, Xianggu Lai Le, Chen Jie KIKI, and Xiaoxiao Yumi CORN went to Thailand to promote beauty products...

Why are all the anchors flocking to overseas to trace the source?

1. Simba’s live broadcast is not about lowering the price of durian, but about finding growth in Thailand

"Simba's live broadcast volume is very large. I used to supply avocados to Simba, but I sold too much and couldn't find any fruit at all." Aze told Duzhu that fresh produce is different from standard products. The supply is not elastic, and prices often change due to supply in a certain period of time, especially for fruits such as durian, cherries, and avocados that rely on the import market. If there is a short-term surge in orders, it will have a sudden impact on the market.

Simba has to collect a large amount of durians in the market to meet the demand for delivery to his family. In Simba's live broadcast room, the pre-sale period of durian is 70 days, which means that there is little durian in the Thai market. Simba's interception sales will lead to a short-term market vacuum, that is, low inventory and tight supply.

According to a merchant, Simba took about a dozen containers in a single day. Up to now, the durian inventory is only 20% of the previous amount. As a result, the market price of durian, which was originally falling in the production area, has risen sharply again. This has forced other vendors who also sell durian to raise prices as well, and individual small vendors have no goods to take.

Secondly, imported fruits are generally graded. Since durians vary in quality, offline stores will sell them in grades A, B, and C according to the different forms of the fruit. Simba’s live broadcast room is equivalent to selling "durian blind boxes", which is very prone to after-sales problems. The avocado live broadcast that Aze and Simba cooperated with was a mess after-sales service.

The third and most important point is that the Golden Pillow (a hot-selling durian variety) has just been launched on the market, and it basically comes from Chumphon in southern Thailand. The fruits in the east are not yet ripe. Why is Simba in such a hurry to sell durian through live streaming?

In fact, the owner of the Douzhu noticed that Simba was busy playing a big game to seize the "overseas supply chain". During the Thailand traceability trip, not only durian was sold, but also mangosteen, latex pillows, Thai beauty products, etc. were snapped up. The total sales of the goods exceeded 830 million, and the total order volume exceeded 6.78 million. "Including the apprentices I brought, the turnover of three days of live broadcast sales must reach 15 billion."

For this overseas live broadcast, Simba led his four senior disciples, including Dandan and Maomeimei, and posted a video at the airport on the way to Thailand, saying that they would clear out all the goods in Thailand within three days.

According to media reports, the Thai side received Simba in a very high-standard manner. Not only did they pay to post Simba's posters all over the streets, but they also asked the first princess of Thailand to welcome Simba Group and let Simba stay in a villa specially designed for receiving distinguished guests. In order to let Chinese netizens experience the Thai style, Simba moved his live broadcast room to the world's largest outdoor cultural heritage museum-Ancient Siam, and filled the scene with a street full of durian, mangosteen, fragrant rice and other Thai specialties, and invited Thai beauties to appear in the show.

It is not difficult to see that the strong demand in the overseas market makes it difficult for Simba to satisfy his own small business in China. As early as 2019, Simba conducted many live broadcasts in Thailand, South Korea, Europe and the United States. Among them, the Thailand station had a sales volume of 180 million in 6 hours, and the total sales volume reached 2.04 million orders. At the same time, the decline in Xinxuan's live broadcast performance did not allow them to stick to the domestic market.

Last year, Xinxuan Group's annual GMV exceeded 60 billion yuan, second only to the 65 billion yuan of Mei ONE behind Li Jiaqi, but its live broadcast share on the Kuaishou platform has dropped from 25% in 2019 to below 10% in 2022.

It is understood that Simba will also launch special live broadcasts in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and other places this year. With the resources accumulated from several previous overseas live broadcasts, Xinxuan is trying to gradually turn cross-border traceability live broadcasts into the group's second long-term line.

2. Why are the top anchors on various platforms doing cross-border traceability live broadcasts?

The reason why Simba is so anxious is that he is not the only one eyeing the "fat meat" of cross-border traceability live broadcast.

Last year, MCN and anchor groups called the domestic e-commerce growth ceiling, and they all cross-platform live broadcasts. Now, in 2023, overseas markets have become the focus of exploration. After the epidemic is over, more and more anchors are going overseas to trace the source of goods.

In fact, live streaming to sell products through traceability is not a new method. It started to take off in 2019, when Taobao Live and Mogujie launched live streaming to trace the source of products overseas. At that time, Wei Ya went to New Zealand to live stream milk powder traceability, with a GMV of 134 million yuan. However, after the outbreak of the epidemic, the live streaming of the anchors’ traceability was interrupted. The live streaming of traceability overseas has become a mode where anchors at home and abroad broadcast live in bonded warehouses, or switch the scene to Hainan Duty Free City.

Last year, Sun Yang of Yaowang promoted beauty products at the Sanya Duty Free City, creating a new live broadcasting scene for bonded beauty products. During the pandemic, the overseas shopping market was active, but counterfeit goods were rampant. Without the real scene endorsement of the traceability, consumers have always been skeptical about the authenticity of overseas shopping products in the live broadcasting room.

For anchors, the authenticity of traceability live broadcasts can directly reflect the professionalism of product selection and product quality assurance. On the other hand, it directly breaks the form of anchors sitting in the live broadcast room and simply bringing goods, and directly rolls the live broadcast scene and content overseas. Traceability marketing has also become the first choice for overseas brands to tell brand stories this year. They are faced with problems such as how to translate the brand to Chinese consumers at a low cost and correctly digest consumer demands.

The traceability live broadcast can directly go to the brand headquarters or the origin of the product raw materials, from brand concept to R&D experiments to production and production, so that consumers can immerse themselves in the deep planting of grass at the first time. For new overseas brands or white-label brands, through traceability activities, they can exchange resources with the anchor's price-breaking support. Subsequent brands will have more exposure and live broadcast time in the anchor's live broadcast room, and it will be difficult to intervene in the same product. Compared with the previous overseas shopping model, the cross-border traceability activities organized by the platform have more obvious advantages.

At present, the traceability live broadcasts on platforms such as Douyin and Taobao focus on large vertical categories such as beauty, maternal and child care, fruits, clothing, and health products. On Douyin, there are marketing IPs such as Super Brand Day and New Product Day that can cooperate with brands. For example, Mistine, a national beauty brand in Thailand, cooperated with Douyin e-commerce Super Brand Day to tell the traceability story of "Tropical Research" in the form of Douyin. It will also create "Tracing Season" activities for vertical categories such as beauty, maternal and child care, and organize anchors to go to Japan and Thailand for traceability live broadcasts.

Taobao started by building an ecosystem for overseas anchors. In Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States, it worked with local celebrity live broadcasting organizations to expand the scale of outstanding overseas anchors, recruit anchors worldwide, and provide comprehensive incubation and support policies for overseas anchors. On Black Friday last year, the sales of overseas health products sold by Taobao live broadcaster Canadian Bei Bei Ma doubled.

Whether it is the anchor or the platform, the layout of overseas traceability live broadcast in 2023 has become a new direction that everyone has agreed on, especially in the era of looking for new growth and new content live broadcast formats. Obviously, this outlet will become the main battlefield for competition among major anchors and MCNs, just like the Thai durian ushered in Simba's traceability live broadcast. In the future, it is not ruled out that Crazy Xiao Yangge, Dongfang Zhenxuan and other imported fruit verticals such as cherries, prunes, and winter dates will enter the market to seize the market.

Author: 24

Source: WeChat public account "Doujiao TMT (ID: ylwanjia)"