Cool Thinking Behind The Hot Air Of Live Goods: Will Li Jiaqi Be The Lifeline Of Retail Businesses?

An epidemic in early 2020 almost frozen all the offline channels of all physical entities overnight, and all the stores closed, but unexpectedly promoted the great development of new live broadcast formats.

Prior to this, CCTV host Zhu Guangquan, the red net of the United Network, Li Jiaqi, launched the Hubei gourmet live broadcast live on air. In the same night, the total number of live broadcast times was 122 million, 160 million points, and 40 million 140 thousand of Hubei products sold. Earlier, Luo Yonghao's live broadcast for 3 hours attracted a total of 48 million 916 thousand people, with sales exceeding 1.7 billion. Since then, Liang Jianzhang, chairman of Ctrip board chairman, and GREE air conditioner chairman Dong Mingzhu have personally released the live broadcast of goods with a total sales volume of several hundred million yuan.

"During the special period of the epidemic, live broadcast is undoubtedly the best way for terminal oriented retail enterprises. Executives and salesmen turn to the anchor, using the existing third party platform, the cost is almost zero, and can display products and services to customers at 360 degrees. For customers, because of the impact of the epidemic on home, there is plenty of time to "cloud shopping" on mobile phones. In May 13th, Zhang Liang, an investment manager of a consumer industry investment fund in Beijing, said that live broadcasting often meant giving more discounts. As one of the ways to deal with inventory during the epidemic period, it was a good choice, but in the long run, retail enterprises still faced difficulties in making profits.

Live broadcasting often means giving more discounts. As one of the ways to deal with inventory during the epidemic period, it is a good choice. But in the long run, retailers still face the problem of profitability. Visual China

Forced digital transformation

During the epidemic, almost stagnant economic activities gave the rapid growth of the live broadcasting mode. According to the data released by the jitter combined with the huge engine, the 2020 live streaming data atlas shows that in February 2020, the number of anchors and trappings was increased by 61% compared to January, and the number of live broadcaster was 93% higher than that in January. Similarly, the cosmetics category has also developed rapidly. The number of anchors broadcast has increased by 71% compared with January, and the number of live broadcaster has increased to 109%. The number of watching users has increased by 126% compared to December last year.

A survey of consumers by Chinese Consumers Association from 1 to March showed that clothing, daily necessities, food and cosmetics were most popular, accounting for about 64% of live sales.

This digital change is changing the habits and needs of Chinese consumers, and the epidemic has accelerated the process. Almost overnight, the live broadcast mode represented by Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya became the best choice for many retailers to save themselves.

Mao Shengyong, a spokesman for the National Bureau of statistics, also said at a press conference in April 17th that the consumption of the earlier suppressed will continue to be released in the later stage, and will be repaid to a certain extent, and the new consumption will be more robust.

While the potential of direct selling sales is promising, many retailers are also using this opportunity to step up the digital transformation and upgrade the supply chain.

He was born in March this year in Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha and Wuhan, and opened 6 new box stores, and used the online "sharing staff" to solve the problem of manpower. The flagship store of Tmall was formally launched in April 21st. According to the relevant data, during the epidemic period, more than 200 box and horse fresh member stores welcomed the double growth of online and offline, and online traffic was nearly 3 times that of the same period last year. The proportion of online orders increased from 50% to 80%.

Digital transformation is both an opportunity and a challenge for retail enterprises. In an interview with the twenty-first Century economic report, Li Yunzhou, executive director of the Beijing University of vertical and horizontal partners and the center of China's vision Fogg Research Institute, said: "in order to seize the trend of digital transformation, retail enterprises need to enhance the ability to control the transformation cost while enhancing the ability to use digital technology, while optimizing the retail business structure, and at the same time, shorten the product innovation cycle. While improving the level of digital marketing facing the market, we should improve the effective guarantee of the flexibility of supply chain flexibility in three streams.

It is worth noting that the recent executive meeting of the State Council has accelerated the deployment of new infrastructure such as information networks and other industries, promoted the upgrading of industries and consumption, and provided "infrastructure" dividends for the digitalized transformation of retail enterprises. After the joint efforts of the 23 departments of the national development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of finance, the implementation of opinions on promoting consumption expansion and upgrading to form a strong domestic market is evident. It has been pointed out that the development of new consumption patterns, such as online and offline integration, has also injected momentum into the digital transformation of retail enterprises.

Direct seeding and self-help still face challenges

In fact, not only is the B2C mode of retail business going to the direct seeding area, but B2B's enterprises are also trying to save themselves by live broadcast. But the live broadcast mode is not friendly to the B2B enterprises in the upper and middle reaches.

"Under epidemic situation, we must use all channels to carry out sales." In the office of a private textile company in Wujiang, Jiangsu, Tan Huazheng and his salesmen set up a green screen to prepare for the live broadcast. Qin Hua is the owner of this private textile company. The company has been providing textiles for domestic sports brands and foreign department stores for many years. But affected by the epidemic, most orders received at the beginning of the year were cancelled by customers, and a small number of orders have been completed in warehouses.

In order to cope with the sharp drop in orders caused by the epidemic, the company encourages salesmen to do live sales at Alibaba (Chinese station), increasing the volume and increasing orders by drawing lottery tickets. However, unlike the direct broadcast of retail activities directly facing the C end users, the difficulty and cycle of converting 2B sales from the "sale" and the "surface sale" to the online market has become more and more lengthy.

"Because the main customers are wholesalers, most wholesalers haven't seen the habit of live broadcast, and rely more on the continuity of product sales and their daily relationship with customers. But now the company also provides a live broadcast platform for the salesmen, hoping to increase sales through direct seeding." At present, the live broadcast sales of Qin Hua company are not optimistic. At the most time, the more than 50 people are online at the same time. Under normal circumstances, there are only more than 20 people. In addition to the live broadcast of Alibaba, the company has also made a lot of progress on the basis of the original Tmall and Jingdong platform. "Our current idea is to lower prices, small profits and quick turnover, first to revitalize inventory."

"We must have brand awareness for online retail broadcast. Secondly, we should choose the right platform, and the platform should be consistent with the tonal of the enterprise product. This has no advantage for our suppliers, so the role of live broadcast is limited. Qin Hua told reporters on twenty-first Century economic report. Taking into account the brand effect of customer groups and direct seeding that the enterprises themselves are facing, Qin said that they would not consider expanding the business on the third party live platform outside Alibaba.

The industrial products industry similar to Qin Hua's textile industry is also actively exploring the online live sales mode. Take the League of nations as an example, as the pioneer of the industry, it launched the live broadcast of industrial raw materials in March 11th. So far, it has conducted 4 live broadcast, with orders exceeding 389 million yuan. But this is mainly related to the accumulation of traffic, products, customers and brands in the early days of the league.

Pan Yong, vice president of the League of nations, also admitted in a public interview that "the transaction of industrial products is a transaction between enterprises and enterprises. The amount of transactions is very large, and there is a great difference between the relative emotional and impulsive purchasing mode of consumer goods, and most of the purchases are rational purchasing behavior. It is not very realistic to expect the people who do not have the intention to purchase only rely on the anchor's "cry out", which requires a lot of initial work.

Direct selling has been leaping forward in the epidemic since its appearance in 2016. There are different opinions on the development of live broadcasting. Previously, three squirrels, paraquat and Zhou Dasheng companies have also publicly stated that the net red economy can not actually bring considerable revenue.

Regarding this, Li Yunzhou, executive partner of Beijing University's vertical and horizontal partnership and executive director of the center of the Institute of vision, Fogg, said: "for retail enterprises, it is easy to achieve results in the short term, and there will be more obvious structural differentiation in long-term effects. After the end of the epidemic, the retail industry's use of digital marketing including live broadcasting will become a definite option for retail enterprises."

But there are also industry analysts, saying, "price war is the commercial nature of live broadcasting providers, and how much the anchor can sell depends on the bargaining power with the enterprises. It is true that the enterprises that participate in the red live broadcasting with goods will pay the anchor team link fees and commission fees in addition to giving profits to the live webcast users.