Year-end review | In 2022, is live streaming sales, which keeps “crashing”, still popular?

In 2022, the pattern and style of live streaming sales have undergone earth-shaking changes. The once popular anchors have disappeared, and a new batch of anchors have emerged. Today's live broadcast rooms are also different in style, and selling goods is full of routines. Let's take stock today.

The ranks of top anchors who were once sought after by thousands of families have disappeared, or are becoming more cautious. Faced with a regulatory storm that may become increasingly fierce, the top anchors who are at a higher position have to plan a way out for themselves in advance.

In the ever-changing format, Dongfang Zhenxuan has become a strong dark horse, and has become popular with its bilingual knowledge sales model with a bookish flavor. Li Dan, who started his first live broadcast on Taobao at the end of the year, also made many golden sentences, and may set off a new style of talk show sales.

Celebrities are still going astray in their promotions. They are using similar tactics and saying the same things to cash in on their “feathers”, but are gradually losing their “family” in the live studio. In addition, those “flash sale benefits” that are snatched at 9.9 yuan are actually scam products with commissions as high as 50%.

What tricks have you encountered in the live broadcast room this year?

1. Keyword 1: Competition for position: After the top anchor "gave way", has anyone taken over?

Since last year, Wei Ya and Xue Li faded out of people's sight for various reasons, Li Jiaqi also disappeared during the "618" period this year. It was not until 109 days later that Li Jiaqi finally returned with the Double Eleven event. Many domestic and foreign beauty brands made sincere offers just to occupy a seat.

Li Jiaqi once again proved his status in the industry with this return. The brands that appeared in "All Girls' Offer 2" were almost all sold out quickly, achieving a good result for Double Eleven.

Such "revenge consumption" may also indirectly prove that in the gap when the top anchors disappear, even if a few sporadic anchors emerge, it is still difficult for them to take over and become the top anchors.

Among them, Dongfang Selection is worth mentioning. Dong Yuhui, nicknamed "Zhongguancun Jay Chou" by fans, led the Dongfang Selection team to take a unique and difficult to imitate live broadcast route. His popularity can be traced back to June 9. As usual, he was selling goods in bilingual in the live broadcast room. He was holding steak and rice and citing a wide range of references, calmly telling the feelings and ideals of a scholar.

But from then on, Dong Yuhui and Oriental Selection took advantage of the traffic express train. Not only did they accumulate the number of fans of the account from one million to 20 million in less than a month, but they also caused New Oriental’s stock price to rise by nearly 70% in just ten days.

Oriental selection has a unique style

In addition to Oriental Selection, Wei Ya's former assistant Qi Er also moved from Taobao to Douyin and started her own independent portal. Although Qi Er currently has only 4.143 million fans on Douyin, her sales performance often surpasses some of the top anchors on the Douyin platform with tens of millions of fans.

However, according to Zinc Scale, after controlling the traffic for a period of time, the popularity of Oriental Selection began to decline, and mid-level anchors like Qi'er did not get more of the pie from the disappearance of "Li Jiaqi and others". Both the fan base and event settings such as "Snack Festival" and "Life Festival" are no different from the past.

Let’s talk about Liu Genghong, who has a lot of traffic during the epidemic thanks to his professional live broadcasts. Since he became famous, his team has been working hard to find opportunities to monetize, occasionally wearing sports equipment with brand logos for advertisements, or selling a small number of sports products. Data shows that the live broadcast with the highest sales of Liu Genghong and his wife had a viewing volume of 5 million times, with estimated sales of nearly 9 million yuan.

But soon after, Liu Genghong and his wife's sales performance gradually declined, and Wang Wanfei's first live broadcast sales after returning to Taobao was less than 1 million yuan. The best-selling product of her self-created brand "VIVICYCLE" in the Tmall flagship store currently only sells more than 100 units per month. Compared with the traffic when she was training, this conversion rate is not ideal.

Zhang Lan is one of the anchors who has converted traffic into sales. When Wang Xiaofei posted a "crazy article" on Weibo and Da S's family responded quickly, Zhang Lan would play DJs, cut denim bags, and put braised eggs and green tea on the shelves in the live broadcast room.

According to Huitun data, Zhang Lan's live broadcast room ranked first on the live broadcast follower growth list, and the number of live broadcast viewers on November 24 reached 36.352 million, with an average stay of 4 minutes and 47 seconds per person. 76 products were sold with more than 700,000 sales and sales of 20 million yuan.

However, it is still unknown how long this method will work. In general, during the period when the top anchors "disappeared", many anchors did start to emerge, but none of them were able to successfully rise to the top.

2. Keyword 2 has no limit: cross-platform, matrix, are the anchors looking for a way out?

After experiencing wild growth, the landscape of live streaming e-commerce is changing. Anchors with a lot of traffic and fans are also beginning to look for ways to gain a more stable foothold, exploring unlimited options from e-commerce formats to e-commerce platforms.

Luo Yonghao, who once performed the "True Return Story" on Douyin, announced his retirement from the Internet, saying that he would start a business again. It is reported that "Make Friends" spent 100 million yuan to buy the "Luo Yonghao" related accounts, and then Luo Yonghao's Douyin, Weibo and other media accounts were renamed "Make Friends Live Room". However, Luo Yonghao did not say goodbye to live streaming, but instead moved from Douyin to Taobao.

"Jiao Ge Pengyou" once revealed to the media that this move has added a new live e-commerce operation platform for the company, which will cover more consumers in the future, including Luo Yonghao. All contracted anchors under Jiao Ge Pengyou will come to "Luo Yonghao" Taobao live broadcast room to meet consumers.

On December 10, Li Dan and Wang Tuo, the ace anchor of "Make Friends", went live on Taobao for nearly 6 hours and put 292 products on the shelves. According to Taobao data, Li Dan's first live broadcast on Taobao generated cumulative sales of more than 32 million yuan and a total of 580,000 fans.

"Make Friends", which has begun to explore the parallel development of multiple platforms and multiple types of anchors, seems to have achieved good results. However, the team of Liu Genghong and his wife, who have similar plans to "Make Friends", has not yet found a fast channel from traffic to monetization. Whether it is to increase sales or create its own brand, it still needs to take time.

Li Jiaqi is also actively expanding his own boundaries. In an early interview, Li Jiaqi revealed that "it is impossible for me to sell goods all my life, and I hope to retreat behind the scenes in the future." Although from the current perspective, the exclusive favor of "all girls" for Li Jiaqi makes the realization of this wish a distant prospect, Li Jiaqi has already made new moves.

In fact, outside of Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast time, his assistant team had independently completed live broadcasts for a period of time, but on November 12, the “All Girls” live broadcast room officially appeared in the eyes of consumers, and the hosts were all the assistant team of Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room.

All Girls Live Room

Zinc Scale found through an inquiry on the corporate industrial and commercial information platform that the MCN organization to which "All Girls" belongs is Chengxintuan. Chengxintuan (Shanghai) Network Technology Co., Ltd. was registered on November 3 and is wholly owned by Meiwan (Shanghai) Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Meiwan has publicly stated that the "All Girls" live broadcast room and Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room operate independently. However, "All Girls" focuses on daytime broadcasts, which are scheduled to be broadcast from 12 noon to 19 pm every day. It is not difficult to see that the "All Girls" live broadcast room, as a host matrix created by Meiwan, currently plays a more important role in bringing goods outside of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room.

An industry insider analyzed that "it is not new for top anchors to build matrix accounts. Although the method of assistants taking turns to play is not as easy to stand out as creating a single IP, it makes the team more stable and has a longer-term development."

Regardless of the attack on multiple platforms or the development of multiple matrices, a new form of live streaming has emerged. After entering the new arena, the top anchors are facing multi-faceted tests.

3. Keyword 3 routine: low price and high commission, beware of the benefits are traps

Some people want to go further in the live streaming e-commerce industry, and naturally there are people who want to take advantage of the popularity to make a quick buck.

Have you ever been affectionately called "family" in the live broadcast room? In the live broadcast rooms of various platforms, anchors always like to enthusiastically call fans "family", "baby", "sisters", and then call the products they sell "benefits" or "wools", as if they are sincerely paying for the benefits of fans.

However, Zinc Scale discovered that behind these gimmicks that claim to exchange sincerity for sincerity, there are actually a variety of routines.

Zinc Scale has revealed the profits behind many 9.9 yuan welfare products in the article "The anchor who earns 50% of the 9.9 yuan welfare is really your family?" Take a 24-hour long-lasting mosquito repellent for children made of natural plants for example, which costs 9.9 yuan. The commission given by the brand is 4.95 yuan, accounting for 50% of the selling price. What's more worth mentioning is that the price of the same product on other platforms can be lower.

The commission for products worth 9.9 yuan is often not low

In addition, simply pricing a product low may affect sales to a certain extent, but on the live streaming e-commerce platform, the level of commission will directly affect the strength of the anchor's recommendation and have a greater impact on sales.

For example, a Yunnan herbal mite spray has a price of 9.9 yuan for 3 bottles with free shipping and 19.9 yuan for 2 bottles with free shipping, but the commission for the former is 2.67 yuan, with a commission rate of 27%, while the commission for the latter is 10.98 yuan, with a commission rate of 56%. This commission ratio directly leads to the same product, the former has sales of more than 199,000 units, and the latter has sales of nearly 1.2 million units.

This means that when faced with the same product, the anchor will choose a link with higher commission profits rather than one that can bring benefits to fans.

However, when the anchors talk about these products, they often become welfare products brought to fans at their own expense, asking everyone to compete with each other in terms of hand speed and network speed, and whoever grabs it will win. But the truth may be that the anchors make the most money, and after deducting labor, logistics, commissions and other finished products, there is little left, and consumers are also exploited emotionally.

In general, products with low prices and high commissions have higher sales, but they are usually not from big brands, but from some small manufacturers who use low prices to make profits to expand sales. On the other hand, the commission rate of some mature brands is usually below 20%, and the more well-known the brand is, the lower the commission rate is.

You know, compared to the top anchors at the top of the pyramid, small anchors like this who only care about immediate interests are the majority in the industry. The former negotiate to lower the price, seek benefits for fans, and then exchange for more development benefits, but the latter want to get the commission immediately.

Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important for consumers to keep their eyes open to identify whether the so-called "benefits" and "wools" are actually routines. After the dramatic and routine live broadcast scripts become ineffective, the "money-making" anchors will eventually be abandoned after the tide recedes.

Author: Xingwan

Source: Zinc Scale (ID: znkedu), focusing on original in-depth reports on technology and the new Internet economy