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All are overdone, all are crazy.
——David Bodeville
Wen/Ba Jiuling
Source/WeChat official account: Wu Xiaobo Channel
At 6:30 on Friday evening, Mai Zi changed her clothes and came out of the room. She picked up her daughter who was playing on the cushion and kissed her chubby cheek. Then she handed it to the nurse and gave her a few instructions. Then she went out to take a taxi to a live e-commerce industrial park in Jiubao, Hangzhou.
Tonight, there is a live broadcast of skin care products that lasts until 12 o'clock, waiting for the anchor to start.
"Basically, they will come to the company more than an hour in advance to make preparations. Tonight, I am scheduled to broadcast for 4 hours, which is easy." On the online car hailing, Mai Zi is talking to the minibus while turning over the product information in her mobile phone. Her voice is very fast and has a frosty texture.
Upon arriving at the company, Maizi went straight into the dressing room to make up and change clothes, and continued to be familiar with the products to be sold tonight. More than half of the space of the live broadcast e-commerce company, which occupies the whole floor, is divided into more than a dozen 50 square meters of live broadcast rooms, where staff constantly push equipment or carry products.
Just after seven o'clock, a dozen 4-storey office buildings in the park were brightly lit. Xizi Global, the first batch of live broadcast e-commerce gathering place in Jiubao, Hangzhou, less than 800 meters away from the park, also became lively in the night. At this time, it seems that another dimension is opening in Hangzhou Jiubao.
However, in sharp contrast to the bustle seen by the minibus, a screenshot of the circle of friends frequently appeared in articles in various media last September. Most of the content took this as the starting point to express concern about the ebb of Hangzhou's live broadcast e-commerce.
At that time, such a voice did not stir up waves. Until November 2021, online celebrity anchor Sydney will be fined 60 million yuan for tax evasion. A month later, another large-scale anchor Weiya will also be fined 1.3 billion yuan for tax evasion. The two leading anchors in Hangzhou stopped broadcasting due to accidents one after another, as if to ignite the fuse. At the beginning of this year, the outside world was more worried about Hangzhou live broadcast e-commerce. In January 2022, "Hangzhou. com" reported that the era of barbaric growth of the live broadcast e-commerce industry was over, and the industry was shuffled and standardized. Whether Hangzhou can continue to maintain its first mover advantage in Guangzhou, Shanghai and other cities that also make efforts to broadcast e-commerce still needs time to test. In March, an article of the "E-Commerce Headlines" titled "A large number of live broadcast e-commerce companies have closed down! The reason is related to Weiya" mentioned that recently many bosses of live broadcast companies have coincidentally released information such as subletting live broadcast venues, transferring live broadcast equipment, and transferring their anchor contracts, indicating that a large number of live broadcast e-commerce companies are falling down in Hangzhou. In April, "New Waner"'s "Live E-commerce Abandons Hangzhou" compared Hangzhou to a besieged city that needs reflection. The fallen live broadcast e-commerce companies in Hangzhou also have a more intuitive proportion. The article lists the content of financial bloggers and other users with more than one million Weibo fans, and shows that "90% of Hangzhou live broadcast studios have closed down" and "Hangzhou live broadcast e-commerce is no longer suitable for personal entrepreneurship". On the one hand, the live broadcast base is in full swing, and on the other hand, there are continuous concerns from various parties. What is the real situation of Hangzhou live broadcast e-commerce?
"The bankruptcy is 90% true, but there is no"
Zhao Kai, who started his business in Hangzhou in 2019, is now the head of a MCN organization. Among the celebrities that his company cooperates with, there are many stars such as Zhang Jizhong and his wife, Cao Ying, etc.
When the minibus mentioned the bankruptcy of Hangzhou Live E-Commerce Company, he said that he did not feel the crisis: "We did not feel bad. We and the MCN institutions around us did not fail or cannot continue, and everyone lived well."
After pausing for a few seconds, he continued to add with a smile: "We all belong to the middle and even the head organizations in the industry. If we are not good enough, the industry will not work, right? Of course, it is true that nearly 90% of the small live broadcast e-commerce companies reported online have gone bankrupt. The 28/20 law of the industry is obvious, and it needs some foundation to do live broadcast e-commerce."
In 2019, driven by the epidemic, the live broadcast e-commerce exploded rapidly. In combination with the industrial economic belt with developed products and logistics and Hangzhou's preferential policies, more and more popular webcasters, institutions, brands and platforms settled in Hangzhou.
When the live broadcast e-commerce is in the air, the foundation of the MCN organization is the traffic brought by the celebrity IP.
However, with the frequent accidents of the head anchors, the platform and brand side realized the risk of relying on huge amounts of traffic and began to rethink the reasonable path of live broadcast e-commerce. As a result, the live broadcast e-commerce institutions have entered the stage of "crossing the river by feeling the stones", constantly increasing their "weight" in order not to be swept away by the torrent. Zhao Kai's idea is to strengthen the ability to control the whole link of live broadcast e-commerce. He invested in a women's clothing live broadcast e-commerce company, with a live broadcast sales of 1.5 billion yuan throughout the year. He also established an alliance of short video live broadcasting institutions, whose members include MCN institutions with more than 100 million fans, celebrities with tens of millions of viewers in a single live broadcast, and entrepreneurs with demand for goods. The mode of "MCN institutions+institutional alliances+live broadcast e-commerce companies" runs through the whole operation process of generating traffic in the early stage, connecting supply chain demand in the middle stage, and realizing traffic in the later stage, which may be the reason why Zhao Kai and similar institutions around him are living well. Then look at Qian Xun, who triggered this round of concern. After the disturbance of Weiya, he started a broader business line layout. We learned from Hu Di, a former employee of Weiya's team, that after the tax evasion incident, the team's workload was reduced, and after a period of suspension, the business model was readjusted to support other anchors to open up new markets. At the same time, it is also planning supply chain, shop broadcast, anchor training and other related businesses. "Live broadcast with goods has become an important part of marketing, and it will not disappear. The so-called disappeared company is just the product of the survival of the fittest." Woody said. In February this year, Zhejiang E-commerce Promotion Association released the Report on the Development of Zhejiang Province's Live E-Commerce in 2021. According to the report data, from January to October 2021, Zhejiang Province's live e-commerce transaction volume reached 609.21 billion yuan, accounting for 28.4% of the country's total, ranking first in the country; However, Hangzhou's direct broadcast e-commerce transaction volume reached 502.48 billion yuan, accounting for 82.5% of the province's total direct broadcast e-commerce transaction volume, ranking first in the province in terms of scale, with a year-on-year growth of 128.4%.
In other words, Hangzhou can still be called the first city of live broadcast e-commerce in terms of transaction volume. So, who is the 90% that fell?
Embarrassed Broadcast Company
In the screenshot that initially caused concern, it was actually the "Hangzhou live broadcast service provider with goods".
Live broadcast e-commerce service providers can be roughly divided into three categories: MCN institutions such as Zhao Kai, who hold celebrity IP, Taobao Alliance and other integrated supply chains, supply chain service providers that link merchants and MCN institutions&KOL, and agent operators of brand live broadcast e-commerce business.
The "hardest hit area" of Hangzhou live broadcast e-commerce is the last type of service provider.
Live broadcast e-commerce proxy operation service, mainly based on proxy broadcast. Maizi told the minibus that such companies are known in the industry as proxy broadcasting companies, that is, live broadcasting service providers that provide operations, anchors, venues and other services during brand live broadcasting. In the three elements of live broadcast: people, goods and the field, the person in charge of the broadcasting company and the field.
In 2019, Taobao will turn Taobao Live into an independent app. In order to get rid of the influence of the head anchor, there are live broadcast requirements for Taobao stores. In particular, large brand businesses must ensure more than 6 hours of broadcast time a day.
As a result, Taobao pushed live e-commerce into the 2.0 era. According to Taobao data, 90% of live broadcasts on Taobao in 2019 will come from businesses, and 10% of live broadcasts will come from anchors/online celebrities. 70% of the transaction volume is contributed by the live broadcast of merchants, and 30% is brought by the anchor/online celebrity.
For the brand side, the site fee, personnel investment and effect can not be estimated at the beginning of the broadcast, so the agency came into being. According to the "E-commerce Online" report, since the "618" promotion in 2019, the number of proxy broadcasting service agencies on Taobao Live has increased from 0 to more than 200.
From the perspective of service business alone, the agent company seems to be similar to MCN institutions. The brand side provides products, and the service provider carries out live broadcast with goods. But in fact, there are huge differences between them. First, it is the substitutability of the host. Whether it is Liu Genghong, who became the top anchor due to fitness live broadcast recently, or Weiya and Sydney, who have disappeared, the accounts they use for live broadcast on various platforms are all "personal accounts" owned by MCN institutions. Merchants choose to cooperate with them, which also shows their preference for the personal influence of institutional celebrity anchors.
According to Mai Zi, most of the accounts used by the broadcast companies are brand accounts, and the anchor is more like a shopping guide hired by the brand through the broadcast companies, with almost zero personal influence and strong substitutability.
This brings about the second difference: income.
MCN institutions that hold fan traffic mostly charge by the way of anchor "pit fee+commission".
According to China Economic Weekly, the anchor's pit fee ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and the commission sharing ratio is generally 20% - 30%. For example, Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast with goods in Douyin, the pit fee is up to 600000 yuan/piece.
On the other hand, most of the generation companies use "service fee+hourly salary" as their charging mode, that is, tens of thousands of yuan of service fee+hundreds to twelve thousand yuan per hour for live broadcast. "In order to compete for a big brand, a broadcasting company I stayed in before reported 300 yuan an hour, which was really killing me," Maizi said.
Compared with the pit fee of tens of thousands of yuan, the hourly salary of the agent broadcasting company is so "friendly". This makes it the first choice for brand side to test the live broadcast e-commerce, but it also puts it in an awkward situation.
"If the live broadcast effect is good, the brand can sign a long-term cooperation with the broadcasting company, which will amount to several million a year." Mai Zi paused for a few seconds and added, "But if it is really done, why don't the brand take over? Hangzhou has so many live broadcast e-commerce practitioners, and the anchor is not a network celebrity, so the team is very well organized."
Usually, the broadcasting agreement signed by the agent company and the brand side has a minimum period of one month, and the broadcasting effect is poor. There are many brand sides that terminate cooperation and withdraw after one month.
The Weiya incident became the last straw that crushed the generation broadcasting company.
"For example, for the skin care products I broadcast yesterday, the investment is supposed to be 10000 yuan, but in fact, the maximum amount of sales is 10000 yuan. In order to get a commission, some agency companies will promise to sell to the brand, and if they don't arrive, they will have to pay their own bills. If there are ten live broadcast booths every day, they will have to spend money." Mai said that only a few brands will bear the investment costs themselves. As for the bill, It is an open secret in the industry.
However, the sales amount of the order will be shown in the company's daily flow. Therefore, this false order will also be included in the calculation of taxes. Since the Weiya incident, Zhejiang has intensified its efforts to crack down on tax evasion of live broadcast e-commerce. Previously, relying on the way of tax avoidance by purse companies was not feasible, and the tax payment made it worse for the agency companies that had low income and large expenditure.
According to enterprise survey data, 341 enterprises related to "live broadcast service" in Hangzhou will be cancelled in 2020, and nearly 600 will be cancelled in 2021. As of 2022, the sales volume of cranes cancelled by Hangzhou related enterprises has reached half of that of last year.
In fact, the business model of acting broadcast companies providing venues and professional "shopping guides" for brand side live broadcast and collecting labor fees is in line with the trend of returning to professionalism and process of live broadcast e-commerce. According to the prediction of iResearch, the proportion of enterprise self broadcasting will be close to 50% in 2023.
The huge market demand is coming, but it is also doomed that the agent broadcasting is not a business of "getting rich overnight". As a product of the transition period of shop broadcasting, the survival path of the agent broadcasting company has never been completed.
After insanity
Young people fleeing from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou find a new city.
Luo Yonghao's "Make a Friend", singer Hu Haiquan's MCN Jujiang Xingchen, Diaoyin Dingliu, "Big Wolf Zheng Jianpeng&Yan Zhen Couple", "Surplus and Maomao Sister" and other celebrity organizations have successively settled in Hangzhou. The "hard work" of the government, platform, brand, online celebrity and migrant workers has made more and more people believe that Hangzhou is another dream city after Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
According to the data released by the public account "Zeping Macro", from 2017 to 2020, a total of 15.8% of Hangzhou's talents came from Shanghai and Beijing, and a large number of resources and talents "fled" from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and poured into Hangzhou.
The Hangzhou live broadcast e-commerce at that time may also be applicable to the film scholar David Bodeville's comment on Hong Kong films: "All are overdone, all are crazy."
"The live broadcast companies are all cut by our anchors." Maizi has worked for three years. According to her, she has cooperated with no less than ten Hangzhou live broadcast e-commerce companies, and the base salary has also increased from 8000 to nearly 30000. Large salary increase and poor stability of practitioners seem to be the general knowledge of live broadcast e-commerce industry. "Hangzhou e-commerce talents are really mixed up, mainly because there are too many rich people, and everyone wants to use money to solve the problem of time cost." Zhao Kai said, "After the live broadcast e-commerce started in Hangzhou, it attracted bosses from all over the country to open companies in Hangzhou, and the salaries of live broadcast talents trained by large factories doubled when they changed jobs." The anchor with half a year's experience can earn 10000 yuan as the base salary, and the field control The basic salary of Central Control is also generally around 6K. As for operation, Zhao Kai said that the basic salary of a dithering live broadcast e-commerce operator interviewed by his alliance organization is required to be 50000 yuan. The rising labor costs and the high rent brought by the large area of space required for live broadcasting have always been the burden of live broadcasting e-commerce companies, which to some extent has also led to the crushing situation of some of them. When the wind gradually stops, the talents who are blown to Hangzhou by their desires and dreams will eventually fall back to the ground. I met Maizi a year ago, when her daughter was just born. I thought she would change her job from nine to five to take care of her children. But when she met again, she just changed to a new live broadcasting company, and her voice was even more hoarse: "The base salary has risen to 30000, and the live broadcasting company is calm now, but the capable anchors are still making money, and raising children costs too much. The new anchors look at the high salary and want to enter the game, which is difficult." Mai worked harder to live for the golden time from 8:00 to 12:00 every night, In this way, she and her daughter have no jet lag for at least one time every day and can spend more time with their children.
On May 7, Weiya's assistant Qi Er opened the live broadcast delivery in Diaoyin as the anchor. Whether The former "Bee Surprise Club" is still Qi today son ， Without Weiya's modest pursuit, although the aura of the head IP is missing, there is still a complete supply chain and operation team available.
After the craze, the live broadcast e-commerce may have the best outcome at the moment, becoming a regular business that needs to be played steadily.
Note: Maizi, Zhao Kai and Hu Di are pseudonyms
Author | Ji Yiao | Edit on duty | Sesame sauce
Responsible editor | He Mengfei | Editor in Chief | Zheng Yuanmei | Map source | VCG
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
