Author | Pan Jie
Edited by | Xing Yun
Jin Qi found that she loved to place orders and shop in the live broadcast room more and more, "This thing is the lowest price in the whole network in my live broadcast room" "The link just on it has now been robbed, and it will be replenished later, don't worry", the voice of the anchor in the live broadcast room is like the singing voice of the Siren Siren, tempting Jin Qi to continue to place orders and buy some goods that were not originally needed.
Like Jinqi, there are not a few consumers who are attracted by live broadcasting. In the 48th report released by the China Internet Information Center in September 2021, as of June 2021, the number of e-commerce live broadcast users nationwide reached 384 million, accounting for 38.0% of the total netizens.
In fact, the seemingly hot live rush scene, tens of millions of transactions, 10 seconds of instantaneous seconds empty goods, these eye-catching report cards behind the traces of manual operation. In the live broadcast room, not only the number of fans, views, and likes can be brushed, but also the sales volume can be injected.
"Brush sales can make the anchor show a high GMV, convenient to increase the late pit fee, the brand side on the surface has good sales data, it is easier to talk about cooperation, brush single intermediary to earn a commission." An MCN agency practitioner told Leopard Change that although the risk of brushing orders is increasing as the platform and supervision become stricter, this is still the "unspoken rule" of the e-commerce industry.
The punishment for brushing orders is increasing, and the live broadcast platform will immediately close the store when it finds that there is a single brushing behavior. The Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Transactions, implemented by the State Administration for Market Regulation in May, make it clear that online trading operators may not fabricate transactions or fabricate user evaluations.
Although no one in the industry admits it, it is an open secret.
1. The brand brushes the list for the anchor:
Without millions of sales, you won't be able to go to the live broadcast room next time
"Selected by the big anchor, the brand awareness will be further enhanced", as the market leader of a beverage brand, when Xiao Yuan knew that his own products may appear in the live broadcast room of the big anchor, she felt very lucky, she immediately sent all the products to the anchor company to participate in the selection, and only one product was selected.
After paying the fee, Xiao Yuan found that his products were only in the anchor's candidate list, "the anchor has a key promotion of the product, and my family product is only in the candidate list, if a product can not be broadcast, vacated out of the time slot, the business will temporarily notify me to prepare immediately." Xiao Yuan told "Leopard Change" that the cooperation procedure of big anchors is more cumbersome, and the minimum price control is necessary.
The big anchor put forward the price control requirements, the product in his live broadcast room is the lowest price, the offline store and brand membership price can not be lower than the price of the live broadcast room, in order to smoothly participate in the live broadcast, Xiao Yuan made an omni-channel price increase for the product.
In the face of big anchors, Xiao Yuan, as a brand party, was also hinted at brushing orders and guaranteeing quantity (to ensure sales).
Before the start of the broadcast, the anchor company asked Xiao Yuan to provide a new link to the goods, and the link needs to have a large number of positive comments, and the quickest way for the brand side is to manually purchase (brush orders).
The mercenary water army system will bring risks to the store, and the buyer's network IP address is concentrated and easy to be found by the platform. Xiao Yuan revealed that in order to complete the requirements of the anchor, the company's employees will go home and place orders to buy goods, leaving praise after receiving the goods.
There are still many routines during the live broadcast, the first time the product is on the stock, the inventory will be required to control to 1000-3000 copies, creating a fiery scene of selling out within a few seconds, and the staff of the brand side began to brush the comments "How is this product gone" "I still want to buy it.". After receiving the information, the anchor began to dramatically "perform": I want to benefit the fans, ask the brand side to make multiple replenishments, in fact, the brand side's stock is much higher than the link inventory during the live broadcast.
The big anchor team is very cautious, and in the whole process of communicating with the brand side, it will not directly mention the brushing order or put forward the requirement of the amount of insurance for the brushing policy, but the docking business will give some hints. Business euphemistically told Xiao Yuan: "If the product does not complete 1 million sales, the next time your brand will not have the opportunity to go to our live broadcast room again." ”
Although the ability of big anchors to carry goods is very strong, there is still uncertainty about whether they can achieve the final sales performance target. In order to be able to continue to cooperate, Xiao Yuan can only silently carry out some operations.
Manual brushing becomes the most direct method.
In 2020, China Consumer Daily reported that an e-commerce company in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, brushed 135,000 orders from September 2019 to July 2020, with a total of more than 4.2 million yuan in principal and commission, of which 6,201 orders were brushed on multiple live broadcast platforms.
The Douban Little Elephant Paradise group has previously revealed that a female anchor still requires the brand to brush the amount of insurance in the case of high pit fees due to her own sales problems.
Big anchors have a high voice in the live broadcast market, anchors and e-commerce giant platforms are bundled with each other, if the brand side does not participate in this game, there will be no large traffic, and there will be no considerable transaction volume.
Small and medium-sized anchors live with goods, the brand side will not take the initiative to brush the order, "have paid the pit fee, but also to brush the single flush sales volume, the brand side is also too stupid." A brand side told "Leopard Change" that under normal circumstances, the brand side will contact MCN, MCN has a live broadcast matrix of small and medium-sized anchors, and its small and medium-sized anchors live broadcast 6-8 hours uninterrupted to help recommend products.
MCN will sign a warranty agreement with the brand to promise how much sales it can achieve. In order to prevent MCN companies from brushing orders between the anchor live broadcast, some brands will write the requirements directly in the contract, for example, in order to prevent Party A from using malicious brushing orders and other methods to complete the total sales of the guaranteed transaction, both parties A and B should deduct the return order sales within 15 days after deducting the sale of the return order within 15 days after the end of the live broadcast (which does not include the bad review return order due to the quality problems of Party B's goods or logistics problems), and settle the final total sales during the period of this agreement.
2, the star live debut must be wonderful,
Is brushing a single consensus?
In 2020, live streaming with goods has accelerated madly under the catalysis of the epidemic, not only anchors of all sizes have gone down, but all kinds of stars have also joined the camp of goods, hoping to seize this wave of traffic and wealth codes.
In this "feast", sales volume is an important weather vane, anchors, stars need to rely on this data to prove their strength with goods, improve the commission, pit fee asking price ability; and MCN institutions to play a reputation and popularity; merchants hope to increase product exposure, prove product strength, more can make money through live channels.
However, various rollover cases have also torn off the "false prosperity" of the live broadcast room, exposing the chaos behind it to the public. According to the consumer rights protection public opinion analysis report released by the 2020 Double 11 China Consumers Association, one of the "slot points" of live streaming with goods is concentrated in the suspected single fraud of celebrity goods.
In 2020 double 11, the popular talk show actor Li Xueqin and others did a live broadcast event on a certain platform and brought goods for some digital products, and the data in the live broadcast room showed that 3.11 million people watched. However, since then, some staff involved in the live broadcast have revealed that less than 110,000 people in the live broadcast room on that day really existed, and other viewers were brushed out with money.
In the end, Li Xueqin Studio said that Li Xueqin himself and his work team did not participate in any live broadcast operation and had no knowledge of the live data statistics process.
At about the same time, singer Yang Kun live streaming with goods also fell into the "brush single" cloud of doubt. Previously, Yang Kun's sales of the first battle with goods were as high as tens of millions of yuan, and the super ability to carry goods attracted some merchants. After a live broadcast in early November, some merchants revealed that the return rate was extremely high, with live sales of 1.22 million, and the real sales after the refund the next day were only 40,000 to 50,000. Because of the false transaction, the merchant began to play games with the MCN institution and the Yang Kun team to protect the rights, whether it was the Yang Kun team or the MCN agency that was brushing the order, becoming a Rashomon.
Although there are many cases of celebrity live broadcast injection and overturning, the game continues. The brand side has demand, the star has the will, and the agent operator becomes a bridge for each other to communicate. Xu Bai is engaged in e-commerce agency operation work, while docking businesses, while docking anchors, he defines himself as the role of public relations, before and after coordinating nearly a thousand live broadcasts with goods, in his eyes brushing and profits, income has nothing to do, just a show, to the boss of Party A an explanation.
"If the brand brushes the list for the anchor, it can brush millions at most." In some of the live streams I operate, there are tens of millions of sales. Xu Bai said. Xu Bai once operated for a brand, found some stars, some are past stars, he showdown to one of them: as a star, in the debut with goods need to have high sales, bright data war report, I am willing to cooperate with the completion of sales data.
Celebrity live debuts must be wonderful, and brushing orders has become a consensus. He took the initiative to create fake sales data for a celebrity.
The process of brushing orders is relatively simple, and the delivery uses logistics empty bags or gift packages. The work of operating the brush order will find a special channel provider to cooperate, in order not to leave a trace of the brush order. After the live broadcast, the star sent a war report, and the single pit sold 20 million yuan of goods, and the brand will also send a war report to show that the performance is true and reliable. In return, the celebrity's affiliated institution will give away a number of pure commission live broadcasts (0 pit fee live broadcasts) of other small anchors signed by themselves. The brand's 20 million sales war report will also attract the attention of other anchor businesses, which can reduce commission fees.
"The anchor sees that the free brushing order is even more unavoidable, and will not debunk these brushing behaviors at all." Xu Bai said that he saw some anchors or celebrities who claimed to have sold tens of millions of people, and he would also wonder if there was moisture.
The most direct thing brought by the brush order is the income of the operator, after a round of live broadcast with goods, the e-commerce carrier can earn 30,000-50,000 yuan. And some middlemen who master star resources will earn more, and the middlemen will increase prices layer by layer, and eventually the price increase to the brand side is not small.
For start-up brands with limited funds, the road to live streaming with goods is quite tortuous. "In the selection stage, no anchor is willing to take orders." The founder of a start-up skin care brand told Leopard Change that small and medium-sized live broadcast anchors require brands to have sales of 30,000-50,000 on Taobao, and live broadcasting agencies suggest that they brush orders first and then talk about live broadcast cooperation, "but the cost of brushing orders is too high, I can't afford it, and the risk of brush sales is also very high."
However, Xu Bai admitted that there are also many small start-up brands that will brush their own orders and make better sales reports, "Many small brands use this method to fool KOC pure maid trailers (0 pit fees)".
3, the grassroots brush one hand, a single can only earn 5 hairs
The upstream of the brushing operation is the brushing company responsible for execution.
In order to avoid punishment, the brushing company will package itself, "e-commerce resource services" and "live broadcast room optimization", and the good and professional name makes people can't imagine that this is the most "simple" brushing business.
The customer service of a brushing company provided a price list to "Leopard Change", the service content is detailed, and for e-commerce live broadcast platforms such as Jidak, it can provide live transaction orders, live refund orders and other services.
According to the different customer unit prices sold by brand owners, the price of single brushing services also varies. Among them, if you choose the service of live refund form, it means that after placing an order in the live broadcast room, a refund will be issued for a period of time. The unit price of the goods is 0-200 yuan, and the brush party has to pay 4 yuan per order. For every 200 yuan increase in the unit price of goods, the service price increases by 2 yuan.
In addition, if you choose to live the transaction order is 2 yuan more expensive than the refund order, the so-called transaction order will eventually buy an empty package or a package containing small items, because it has to bear additional logistics costs, so the cost is higher.
This also means that if a commodity priced at 100 yuan chooses to brush a single in the live broadcast room, under the 1 million basic GMV, the single agent can have a revenue of 40,000 yuan.
Brush one-handed recruitment for the company, according to insiders to "Leopard Change" revealed, each brush one-handed has its own superior, the superior is divided into 1 yuan, and then the superior is divided into 2 yuan, the lowest brush single hand may only earn 5 cents.
A customer service of the brush single executor told "Leopard Change" that brushing orders is a conventional practice in the e-commerce circle, no matter how many orders the company can arrange brush hand execution, if the brush hand running order, the company will return the corresponding amount, "the supplementary order is not necessarily dead, but not the single must die."
However, the brushing company does not bear the risk of failing to brush the order, and if the platform finds the single brushing behavior, the consequences can only be borne by the merchant.
There is a risk of closing stores, so various other alternative ways of brushing sales have also quietly emerged.
A person familiar with the matter revealed to "Leopard Change" that he had added a group, the group owner would send a link every day, the product price was about 30% off in the live broadcast room, there was a limit on the amount, clapping hands first registered, on the day of the start of the broadcast according to the price of the live room, the payment was praised, and then refunded the difference after a month. Judging from the screenshot provided by the person, the latest purchased product is a certain light spot essence of Ni, and the internal price is 45% off.
As the audit details of each platform become more and more detailed, the supervision is becoming more and more stringent. "The high rate of chargebacks, once the platform is found out, it will take measures to close stores," a person familiar with the matter told Leopard Change. The newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law adds Internet provisions and raises the maximum penalty for false publicity acts such as swiping orders to 2 million yuan.
In the process of continuous changes in e-commerce, live streaming has created more eye-catching achievements, but the single brushing has only brought "false prosperity" and meaningless competition.
Just like the theater effect, everyone in the theater sits and enjoys the performance, and suddenly some people choose to stand up to watch, blocking the view of the people around them, and more people are forced to stand up to watch the performance. In the live streaming with goods, the brand side, MCN agencies, and anchors spend a lot of money in the brush single injection water, but the competition returns to the initial starting point, consumes the trust of consumers, and eventually only produces bitter results.
(At the request of the interviewee, all names in this article are pseudonyms)