Live e-commerce in 2022: End and rebirth

With the entry of more players, the story of the live e-commerce industry has never stopped. So in 2022, what new stories will be played out in this industry? What development directions may become future trends? This article lists several hot spots worth paying attention to in the live e-commerce industry in 2022. Are there any clips that impressed you? I hope these stories can inspire you who are interested in live e-commerce.

Stories often contain changes.

For the live e-commerce industry in 2022, stories are happening all the time.

Not only are new anchors emerging, there is also a strategic transformation of the platform, and the industry is quietly evolving. In 2022, new changes in the live e-commerce industry have brought more new gameplay and new ecology, and are also forming a new pattern.

According to the data from the "2022 Live Streaming E-Commerce White Paper" previously released by Taobao Live, it is estimated that the GMV (transaction volume) of live streaming e-commerce across the entire network in 2022 will be around 3.5 trillion yuan, accounting for about 23% of all e-commerce retail sales.

Live streaming e-commerce, which has passed its wild growth period, has reached an industry turning point in 2022.

In the past year, whether it is anchors, MCN agencies, or live e-commerce platforms, they have all been breaking boundaries.

The decentralization of live streaming e-commerce has been further expanded, and super anchors are no longer the only ones in the market; live streaming organizations have chosen to "walk on multiple legs", and full-platform layout has become the norm; e-commerce platforms have accelerated the integration of shelf e-commerce and content e-commerce models, and realized the full chain from content planting to transaction.

In the past few years, live streaming e-commerce has taken a roller coaster-like curve, and balance has become the keyword in 2022. Looking back on this year, as a major innovative form in the e-commerce field, what story does live streaming e-commerce tell?

1. Goodbye to the “Super Head Anchor”

The direction of live streaming e-commerce this year may have to start from the beginning of the year, or even further back to the end of 2021.

After that earthquake-level event, Qianxun, who lost Wei Ya, posted a message on the WeChat public account "Bee's Surprise Club" just after the Lunar New Year: "Hello everyone! We are back!"

We can no longer see Viya in the live broadcast room. Duoduo, Kaizi, Facai, Xiaohan and Haohao, who are among the anchors, were all permanent assistants and models in Viya’s live broadcast room in the past. However, this did not affect the Bee Surprise Club from ranking among the top 3 in the Taobao live broadcast rankings within three days of its launch.

Although there is still some distance from the glory days of Viya, it can still be seen that without Viya, users can quickly find new replacements.

The entire live streaming e-commerce industry has reached the stage of bidding farewell to the super-head era, and it has even become the main theme of this year.

At the Taobao Live Festival, Cheng Daofang, general manager of Taobao Live Business Group, mentioned that after the top anchors stopped broadcasting, Taobao Live users did not lose. About 30% of the users of the "top" live broadcast rooms moved to the merchants' own live broadcast rooms, about 20% and 10% of the users moved to the live broadcast rooms of the second-tier anchors and new anchors respectively, and the rest of the users returned to traditional shelf e-commerce.

Of course, Wei Ya was not idle either, as she appeared in both IPO companies. During the period when she was forced to hide behind the scenes, Qianxun Culture suddenly invested in Juzi Biotechnology, the "Moutai of the beauty industry", and held 0.86% of Juzi Biotechnology's equity before the global offering in the Pre IPO round. A few months later, the book profit of this transaction was nearly 100 million.

Perhaps, love flows to those who have no shortage of love, and money often flows to those who have no shortage of money.

When the "No. 1 Sister" came to an end and everyone was sighing that the "No. 1 Brother" knew how to judge the situation and pay taxes in time, no one could have imagined that one night a few months later, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room would suddenly stop broadcasting. He explained on Weibo that there was an internal equipment failure and he could not continue the live broadcast. He would bring everyone the products that have not yet been broadcast in future live broadcasts.

In the following days, there was no update on Li Jiaqi's Weibo. When searching for the keywords "Li Jiaqi" and "Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room" on Taobao, Li Jiaqi's name and any related products could no longer be found.

This wait lasted for three months. When he came back, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room had replaced the previous merchandise shelves with a solid-color background. The familiar "OMG" was no longer heard, and instead was replaced by the repeatedly mentioned slogan "rational consumption and happy shopping".

At the same time, Mei ONE is also accelerating its efforts to get rid of its dependence on Li Jiaqi, and has launched new live broadcast rooms such as "All Girls" and "All Girls' Wardrobes", which are independent of Li Jiaqi Austin's live broadcast room. Dongfang Zhenxuan has also opened other live broadcast accounts and continued to discover new anchors.

2. The era of live streaming of content e-commerce has arrived

While Taobao's live streaming e-commerce is undergoing a change of leadership, Douyin's live streaming is also undergoing the same changes.

During the period of everyone staying at home in April and May, Liu Genghong, the "fitness coach" who Jay Chou could never make popular in his early years, made "Compendium of Materia Medica" popular again with a set of fitness exercises and set multiple Douyin live broadcast records.

43 live broadcasts, with a cumulative viewership of over 100 million, and the highest number of views for a single broadcast was 44.76 million, breaking the latest record of Douyin live broadcast in 2022. In less than two months, it has gained over 70 million fans, breaking the record of fan growth created by Li Jiaqi in one fell swoop.

In June, Douyin was the most searched topic in the live streaming e-commerce sector for the entire month.

After gaining a large number of "Liu Genghong girls", Liu Genghong and his wife vivi Wang Wanfei started live streaming to sell goods on another account "Liu Genghong Feiyou Kakadiao".

But just like everyone said after dancing "Compendium of Materia Medica" for a few days, it would be better to let Liu Genghong dance for them. In terms of live streaming sales, Liu Genghong's sales performance has gradually cooled down as people ended their home life, and he has shown a downward trend.

The anchor who really became popular this month is called Dong Yuhui.

"I haven't taken you to see the white snow on the Changbai Mountains, I haven't taken you to feel the breeze blowing through the fields in October, I haven't taken you to see the heavy ears of rice bending down like wise men. I haven't taken you to witness all of this, but dear, I want you to taste this kind of rice."

This poetic language of selling products has made Oriental Selection the first live broadcast room to win with high-quality content this year.

But rather than saying that "Eastern Selection" is about culture, it is better to say that it is selling inner softness. In this year's depressing public environment, the audience needs an emotional outlet, and Dong Yuhui and other anchors who have previous teaching and training experience have used culture as raw materials to make a bowl of high-quality chicken soup.

This also indicates that live streaming e-commerce has also entered the competition for existing market share. Simply meeting user needs is not enough. More attention needs to be paid to content in order to gain more attention from consumers.

The era of content live streaming e-commerce has arrived.

On June 12, Luo Yonghao announced his farewell to social media platforms, saying he would officially quit Weibo and all social media platforms and devote more energy to starting a business in the AR field.

Lao Luo also stated that in principle he would no longer accept media interviews in the next few years. He hopes to eliminate external interference and "focus on the research and development of the next generation of smart platform products."

Just a few months later, the phrase became a joke.

In fact, Luo Yonghao, who has always listed himself as one of the "Four Heavenly Kings of Live Streaming", has become inseparable from live streaming e-commerce. This time his withdrawal from the Internet has simply given netizens a new term, "Luo Yonghao-style withdrawal from the Internet."

However, playing with gimmicks and relying on personal image will eventually backfire. This is what happened to Luo Yonghao and another anchor with the surname Luo.

Luo Min, the founder of Qudian, who once started his business with campus loans, first promoted his pre-prepared food live broadcast with welfare gimmicks such as giving away pickled fish for one cent and giving away iPhone 13 for forwarding on Weibo. He also invested over 100 million yuan in purchasing traffic for this live broadcast, and finally achieved a single-game sales of 260 million yuan.

But what followed was that Luo Min’s past history was quickly dug up by netizens, the Oriental Selection live broadcast room also blocked his account, and the franchise model of Qudian’s pre-prepared meals was also exposed to be suspected of cutting leeks.

Overnight, Luo Min and Qudian were condemned by everyone. "Boss Luo of Qudian" was forced to clear all works in his account, and the pre-prepared food project was also terminated.

Sometimes it only takes 7 days for someone to go from becoming an overnight sensation to quitting the internet in disgrace.

3. Multi-platform layout becomes the norm

As the hot and noisy summer passed, live streaming e-commerce did not receive any big news until September.

After 109 days away, the "No. 1 Live Streamer" is back. At 7pm on September 20, Li Jiaqi appeared in his familiar Taobao live streaming room again.

In just two hours of live broadcast, nearly 63.53 million people watched it, which is three times the average number of views of his previous daily broadcasts. One user lamented that she couldn't even grab a garbage bag in the live broadcast room.

This was achieved even though Li Jiaqi did not release any preview and could not even be found on Taobao's homepage at the beginning.

Without too much greetings, or occupying the most eye-catching position on the Taobao homepage, Li Jiaqi acted as if he had never left, facing the familiar camera and saying the familiar opening line: "All girls, here we come!"

Obviously, both the platform and Li Jiaqi and the Mei ONE company behind him would rather handle the "comeback" in a low-key manner.

Caution and restraint were the deepest impressions Li Jiaqi left on consumers that night.

Transformation is inevitable. With the joint release of the "Code of Conduct for Internet Anchors" by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in June, the "strictest new regulations" in history have drawn 31 red lines involving speech, guidance and daily management.

Every time a top anchor suffers a failure, MeiONE learns a lesson.

Helping farmers has also become a new trend. Whether it is Dong Yuhui's "low grain prices hurt farmers", or Yu Minhong's transformation of agriculture and his personal involvement, or Li Jiaqi's opening of the charity harvest festival and good things sharing special three days after resuming broadcasting, all of these show that live e-commerce has its due responsibilities in actively responding to the road of rural revitalization.

Beyond responsibilities, competition between platforms continues.

During the 618 period, due to the absence of top anchors, Taobao's live streaming sales volume was inferior to Douyin and Kuaishou, ranking third. I thought the live streaming landscape might have changed since then, but Big Brother is still Big Brother after all. During the Double Eleven period, Taobao made a series of big moves.

Taobao has invited Luo Yonghao, Yu Minhong, Li Dan and others to join the platform, aiming to regain the top spot in live streaming e-commerce. The effect was immediate. During the "Double 11" period, Luo Yonghao's live streaming room quickly became a "billion-yuan live streaming room". Li Dan's first live streaming on Taobao saw a turnover of over 30 million yuan...

After Double Eleven, Cheng Daofang, head of Taobao Live's new ecological business line, said, "We have basically talked about everything you can think of (short video or live broadcast experts on the Internet)."

Even Li Ziqi, who had just reached a settlement with Weinian, was reposted by the official Taobao Live Weibo account and @李子柒 said "welcome", vaguely indicating that she will join Taobao Live.

Amidst this excitement, the curtain has been raised for MCN agencies to break away from a single platform and "walk" on multiple legs.

Not only did "Make Friends" debut on Taobao, but Yaowang Technology, an MCN agency focusing on Kuaishou and Douyin, also officially announced its entry into Taobao Live, and started live streaming sales in the platform's official live broadcast room "Yaowang Dream Station" during the Double 11 period.

Some media also revealed that Yaowang Technology will have an exclusive live broadcast cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Rabbit. Many of Yaowang's top anchors, including Jia Nailiang, may start live broadcasts to sell goods backstage at the Spring Festival Gala on New Year's Eve, the day of the Spring Festival Gala. The guests performing at the Spring Festival Gala will take turns to visit the live broadcast room.

The reason for choosing to cooperate with Yaowang Technology is probably because it covers Douyin, Kuaishou and Taobao, and has a complete all-star + IP matrix anchor lineup, but more importantly, it represents the official's further affirmation of the live broadcast industry.

4. Taobao “steals talent”, while Douyin “creates stars”

When a strong wind blows, some people take advantage of it to rise, while others naturally leave a mess behind.

The most popular person in Kuaishou's live e-commerce this year is still Simba, who first tore into Liu Genghong and then tried to plagiarize Oriental Selection.

In August, Simba, who was fined for selling bird's nest in sugar water, posted a post naming Liu Genghong for selling the same bird's nest and directly accused Douyin of shielding him; in September, he angrily criticized Dongfang Zhenxuan, saying that it was making huge profits under the banner of farmers. Then the next day, he apologized immediately as usual.

Another thing that is equally eye-catching is "Zhang Lan·Qiao Life". While the hot searches for "Wang Xiaofei's electricity bill and mattress" are still dominating the screen, Zhang Lan is selling green tea and boiled eggs in the live broadcast room.

The content of the live broadcast was all-encompassing, from divorce and raising children to Wang Xiaofei and Da S, and even contracting the new coronavirus. She even broadcast live while lying down, and was nicknamed "Zhan Lan" by netizens. Zhang Lan, who became more and more courageous in the battle, sold more than 70 million yuan worth of "Maliuji" hot and sour noodles, so that now she can only sell them in advance.

Apparently seeing Zhang Lan’s success story, “rich lady” Xiang Tai Chen Lan also joined the ranks of live streaming e-commerce at the end of the year.

The debut shocked the entire industry, with more than a dozen veteran stars such as Gong Li, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen promoting it through short videos. On the first day of the premiere, 800,000 people flocked to the live broadcast room within 10 minutes, with sales exceeding 300 million yuan on the same day and fans increasing by more than 5 million in 2 days.

But within a few days, the reputation of the company went south. It was hard to believe that the glamorous Xiang Tai would eat six boxes of cookies for 9.9 yuan. After her assistant tried a ready-to-eat sea cucumber, Xiang Tai even reminded him to "be careful of diarrhea."

Livestreaming is good for selling goods, but it is not a panacea. Huang Guangyu, once the richest man in China, also announced this year that he would bet on livestreaming, but Gome was still unable to recover; Tao Bihua, the founder of "Laoganma", also hoped to attract young people through livestreaming, but it was difficult to get closer by appearing in the livestreaming room in the form of screen recording, and the products were almost without discounts, so she sold less than 1 million yuan in 30 days.

Compared with the early "hawking" e-commerce live streaming model that relied on curiosity or low prices to attract consumers to watch, current e-commerce live streaming requires more high-quality content, fun and interaction to retain users.

While higher requirements are placed on anchors, the same is true for platforms.

Looking back on this year, the tension between major platforms has become increasingly tense. Douyin has been using its traffic advantage to frantically "create stars", while at the same time breaking out from the flank, blocking Taobao's external links, and striving to build its own live e-commerce ecological closed loop; Taobao, on the other hand, has been reforming its traffic distribution mechanism to give small and medium-sized anchors more opportunities to come to the fore, while at the same time, it has been making every effort to "grab people" and fill the traffic gap.

It is foreseeable that this competition will further escalate in the coming year.

2023 will definitely be another “big year for live streaming e-commerce”.

Author: He Bi; WeChat public account: Xinzhai Business Review (ID: xinzhainews)