Produced | Bullet Finance
Author | Reading Night
Edit | Lightning
Artistic Editing | Qianqian
Reviewed | Songwen
In recent years, live streaming shopping has become one of the daily shopping methods of consumers, and the related industries have developed rapidly, which has led to the continuous growth of new business forms, but at the same time, it has also bred various chaos. For example, some anchors are willing to pay out of their own pocket subsidies in order to attract fans and drain water. Moreover, this is not an individual case. This "spending money to earn money" model is still spreading in a large area.
The anchor subsidizes himself, and the broadcast room aims to pursue the "lowest price". In the era of consumption grading, the "lowest price" is like a dream that everyone wants to realize. For the "lowest price", both the platform and the anchor and the organizations behind them have made every effort.
If every major platform has a great cause and can afford to post money in order to continuously expand its influence, or if the business is trying to compete for sales volume, but if it is only used as a sales channel and the size of the anchor is not big enough, it will also post money? Is it crazy?
On the surface, it is a small matter that the anchor and the organization behind them are "losing money", but in fact, it has already evolved into a major event that disturbs the normal order of the market. In recent years, market disputes caused by price chaos have never stopped. What are the causes and future development trends of this industry disorder?
1. Out of pocket subsidies have become a common practice
Subsidizing fans out of their own pocket seems to be the "activity" of the live broadcast room. Open a few live broadcast booths at random. It's no accident. Within ten minutes, you can basically hear the anchors talking about this script.
For example, a jewelry store that broadcasts regularly every week. At 8:1 pm, the broadcast will blow up a wave of welfare. For example, a bracelet known as Nanhong, "to give back to fans, the shopkeeper will pay 39.9 yuan from his own pocket, take it away directly, 10 pieces, come on, no hand." Then, another Wang Fried, "the same style of Nanhong Earrings, elegant and generous, 19.9 yuan, high volume price, and fan babies will be refreshed and photographed." In the next few hours of live broadcast, "subsidies" and "welfare for fan babies" The words often appear, repeatedly stimulating the enthusiasm of fans to place orders.
The official live broadcast of some big brands has also begun to use the new script of "pay out of your own pocket today and give subsidies to everyone". In the warm-up small video, the anchor bowed 90 degrees first, then apologized to the consumers, and said, "In order to thank the fans for their support, the anchor should pay 10000 yuan from his own pocket, and the live broadcast room is sending benefits", so that the fans can hurry to buy in the live broadcast room.
If the "out of pocket subsidy" is shown in the live broadcast of the store, some anchors directly put "conscience anchor, pet fan maniac, out of pocket subsidy" and other content into their own short videos for warm-up communication.
In the production of short video content, some anchors will also focus on fans and pay for themselves. "# The reason why the anchor does not charge advertising fees and endorsement fees for one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one hundred one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand one thousand, There was a warm picture of the host Qian Yi giving gifts to a family of three.
Behind the out of pocket payment is the "reduction" of commodity prices. It is the anchor and fans who stand together to bargain with the pricing side.
In the face of such a gentle and affordable offensive, many consumers said that they "couldn't stand it". "There was no demand at all. Seeing the passionate performance of the anchor, there was always an impulse that I would lose if I didn't buy it again." "But it may not be necessary if I bought it back." "I didn't dare to open the live broadcast to bring goods. I just wanted to watch small videos and went to sleep, but I didn't expect to place several orders." "When the atmosphere comes, I feel sorry for the anchor if I don't buy it"
2. True subsidy vs false subsidy
Then the question arises, why do anchors pay their own way to subsidize consumers? Does the anchor not suffer from out of pocket subsidies?
This needs to start with the underlying logic of the live video with goods. In brief, the live broadcast with goods is an aggregation effect formed by the credit value of the people set, and the saved costs are distributed to the buyer, the seller and the middleman, which feeds back to the people set, thus producing a greater aggregation effect.
The anchor's core asset in the live broadcast room is "credit value". The daily content output also revolves around this credit value. For example, fans will pay attention to the content of an anchor because they like it. They will watch it when the anchor broadcasts live. They will also naturally trust the good things introduced by the anchor. At this time, fans firmly believe that the goods brought by the anchor are either tested by the anchor, or the price is more appropriate, or the anchor gives new meaning to the goods. These are the things behind the credit value.
Moreover, the credit value is not the end of a live broadcast, but also the need for the anchor to constantly improve on the quality and low price formation for a long time. Then word of mouth spread, and finally fans loyalty. The way of talking about prices through live broadcast and producers across intermediaries can indeed make prices more advantageous, thus forming a virtuous circle.
(Map/photo network, based on VRF protocol)
In the whole chain, out of pocket subsidies are not in any link. In other words, in the normal operation logic of live broadcast with goods, self financing subsidies are only a small probability event, not a necessary condition.
Loyal fans don't want the welfare of a commodity at a certain time point, but the trust established by the anchor for a long time. In this way, fans can stay in the live broadcast room for a long time, which will be the continuous "productivity" of the anchor. The act of self financing subsidy will only make fans feel "passing by to pick up red envelopes", and will not bring long-term credit value to the anchor. Once the subsidy is stopped, fans will lose.
But why do some small anchors still pay out of their own pocket to attract fans? In fact, it is not difficult to understand that in the live broadcast room or the early stage of the development of anchors, before their fans' size and influence have become larger and stronger, they must find ways to accumulate. Subsidies or gifts have become the simplest and most effective way.
In the process of subsidies, consumers think they have received substantial benefits, which is true. But I didn't expect that I was just a "tool person" of the anchors, and a valuable "data" in the process of achieving greater goals for the anchors and the live broadcasting companies behind them. The better the data, the more popular the anchor is, and the anchor has a higher bargaining power on the brand side.
From this point of view, such subsidies are temporary, just a "marketing means" for many small sized anchors to become bigger and stronger and increase their bargaining power.
3. Will unfair competition be involved? When will the industry become standardized?
Live broadcast with goods is a rising business model in recent years, with rapid development.
Through live broadcast, some brands are known by consumers, some industries are revitalized, some anchors are recognized by consumers, and some consumers have created new consumption paths. There is no doubt that this is a subversion of the traditional retail industry "people, goods, market".
More than ten years ago, when e-commerce platforms were just emerging, the competition among the top three e-commerce companies was in full swing, focusing on price, service and logistics. With the strong involvement of Pinduoduo, "low price" has become the core of e-commerce's continued competition. Last year, all major platforms also put forward the competitive strategy of "true low price". This shows that in the market environment of consumption degradation and consumption classification, high quality and low price have long become the common demand of all parties.
(Map/photo network, based on VRF protocol)
Reviewing the development history of e-commerce, we can see that benign competition in the market can promote the prosperity of the industry and bring more benefits and convenience to consumers. On the contrary, with the development of the industry, the chaos has to be faced up to. After all, these chaos are not eliminated, which is likely to lead the industry to collapse.
Some anchors pay their own way, which is helpful for their own development in the short term, but may become a major hidden danger for the development of the industry in the long term, such as unfair competition, malicious price war, etc. Therefore, consumers should take a rational view of some anchors who use the so-called price war to suck fans for themselves. This kind of anchor's personal subsidy routine is ultimately nothing more than to improve the bargaining power between himself and the brand side, and it is the consumers who are finally reaped.
In November last year, the China Consumer Association released the public opinion analysis report on "Double 11" consumer rights protection in 2023, which said that 150000 pieces of negative information about "live broadcast with goods". Since this year, dithering and fast hand have successively introduced new live broadcast specifications, strengthening and standardizing live broadcast rooms on the basis of the original rules.
From the perspective of laws and regulations, some positive actions are being carried out. In view of the current industry chaos, the Interim Provisions on Anti unfair Competition on the Internet recently issued by the Market Supervision Administration has made provisions, and a large number of provisions are listed to regulate.
According to the Interim Provisions on Internet Anti unfair Competition, "marketing by means of forging public praise, fabricating topics, creating false public opinion hot spots, and fabricating the income of online employees" belongs to online unfair competition. The anchors of the live broadcast industry, in the form of so-called subsidies, make a big effort to "break the price", saying that they have achieved the "lowest price in the whole network" is a typical example of forging public praise, fabricating topics, and creating false public opinion hot spots. "By breaking through the cost price or the price strategy that is far below the market guidance price of the product, and high cash back, using extremely low prices as marketing gimmicks, fabricating topics, creating false public opinion, deceiving and misleading consumers, and seriously harming the interests of product producers and other operators."
Yao Kefeng, director of Beijing Guobiao Law Firm, said in an interview with the media earlier: "After the implementation of the Regulations, I believe the relevant departments will severely punish them, and these live broadcast chaos will be greatly curbed."
4. Conclusion
How will the live broadcast e-commerce industry finally appear in front of consumers? This is a problem that all brands, platforms and practitioners must face.
When the live broadcast e-commerce came to the second half, it had said goodbye to the wild growth. A more standardized market environment was the high-quality soil for the healthy development of the industry.
*The title in the article is from: Photographic Network, based on VRF protocol.
