Station B finally wants to vigorously develop live streaming with goods.
On the eve of Double Twelve, the new version of the APP of Station B added the function of small yellow car, and users can watch the live broadcast while placing orders and shopping. The closed loop of live e-commerce on station B is gradually forming.
Station B has been laid out in the e-commerce sector for a long time. In August 2017, Station B launched "Member Purchase". In the following years, Station B has successively added functions such as UP main stores and third-party commodity external links, and gradually built an e-commerce ecology.
From the perspective of business logic, live streaming with goods has improved the various businesses of Station B. For example, in addition to entering the B station membership purchase, the brand side can also sell more goods through the UP main goods; the UP owner can also form a closer cooperative relationship with the brand owner and increase the diversity of monetization.
As a gathering place for young people in China, B station users have always been the focus of brand and business grabbing. Dolphin Research analyst Li Weilong believes that "young people are originally live streaming users on other platforms, and the migration cost is not high." Previously, the revenue contribution of e-commerce to Station B was not large, and Station B now has great opportunities to do live streaming with goods, which is also conducive to changing the revenue structure. ”
At present, there are three e-commerce entrances in Station B: the first is the member purchase at the bottom of the APP, which sells two-dimensional hand-made and peripheral, Comic Show tickets, digital products, etc. in the platform self-operated mode; the second is the "promotion window" of the main homepage of UP; the third is the reward program cooperated by Station B and Taobao, and the UP owner can choose related products, linked to the video below, and distributes commissions by bringing goods.
In addition, in late November this year, Station B indirectly obtained a payment license through the acquisition of Yongyi Payment, and went one step further towards opening up the e-commerce closed loop within the platform.
However, for live streaming with goods, Station B has always been more cautious, even slightly sluggish.
In September this year, Station B arranged for four big UP owners, Panshi, Xie Anran, Cool Breeze Kaze and Han Xiaomu, to conduct a 4-hour live broadcast with goods, and the products were mainly pan-secondary cultural products such as head IP hand-made, B station peripherals, and uniforms. However, regardless of category or sales, this live broadcast with goods can only be said to be a small test of cattle knives, and has not aroused widespread concern.
But for Station B, which has 237 million monthly active users and 21 million monthly paying users, the strategic importance of live e-commerce is increasing.
In the past year, the live streaming industry has developed rapidly. According to iResearch's "2021 China Live E-commerce Industry Research Report", the scale of China's live e-commerce market will exceed 1.2 trillion yuan in 2020 and is expected to exceed 4.9 trillion yuan in 2023. At present, Douyin, Kuaishou and Taobao have become the main battlefields of live e-commerce. Public information shows that in 2020, the GMV (total amount of commodity transactions) of Douyin e-commerce will reach 500 billion yuan, Taobao live broadcasting will be 400 billion, and Kuaishou will be 380 billion.
In contrast, the revenue of e-commerce and other businesses in Station B in 2020 is only 1.5 billion yuan, most of which comes from the sales of self-operated goods, which is far from the scale of Jitter And Taobao Live. Accelerating the development of live e-commerce is expected to inject new growth momentum into the e-commerce sector of Station B and rapidly expand the plate.
On the other hand, in the third quarter of this year, mobile game revenue increased by only 9.1% year-on-year, and Station B was under pressure to find new revenue sources.
However, under the pattern of Taobao live broadcast, vibrato, and kuaishou, whether station B can get a piece of the pie is still unknown. Compared with platforms such as Jitter, the creators and user ecosystems of Station B are obviously different, and they are particularly sensitive to commercial promotion content; while Station B itself lacks experience in upstream and downstream operations of e-commerce, and the sources of goods and order distribution still rely on third-party services. These unfavorable factors have added uncertainty to the entry of live e-commerce on B station.
A
It is not too late for Station B to test the e-commerce business, but the development speed has obviously lagged behind.
In 2017, Douyin and Kuaishou have not yet carried out e-commerce business, and Station B has begun to try membership purchases. Member purchase is a self-operated e-commerce platform that sells secondary derivatives to large members.
A year later, Station B began to encourage UP owners to display shopping windows, publish grass planting videos, and support UP owners to open stores. In addition to the video link with the mode of goods, the UP main home page has also added two entrances to the store and goods, which is very similar to the window with goods mode of today's Vibrato.
In 2020, Station B upgraded the bounty program and continued to increase its e-commerce business. The bounty program is developed from the UP main recommendation advertisement, and the video and live broadcast released by the UP master can hang Taobao links and earn commissions with goods.
Also in this year, the B station live broadcast business grew rapidly. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the proportion of value-added service revenue of Station B exceeded that of the game business for the first time, becoming the largest source of revenue.
However, Station B has not developed live e-commerce because of this, and the industry is also in the wait-and-see stage. "Everyone realizes that Station B is a traffic depression, but they don't know how to play with this platform very well." A service provider said in an interview with Ebang Power.
On November 19 this year, Station B acquired Yongyi Pay and indirectly obtained a payment license. The improvement of the payment link makes it logical for the B station to get the e-commerce live streaming with goods.
Wu Hao, an investor who has long been concerned about the content field, analyzed that Station B hopes to open up a new revenue model for a long time. At present, the live broadcast business and e-commerce business are developing well, and the incoming live e-commerce is obviously a good choice. "It is not difficult to go online to live stream the function of carrying goods, it is difficult to choose the path, rhythm and benchmark of the development."
For example, he said, such as what to sell to maintain the characteristics of the B station, whether the benchmark anchor is internally cultivated or dig up external anchors, and whether the short-term KPI is GMV or the number of broadcasts, are the next challenges for the B station live e-commerce.
The pattern of live e-commerce has been determined, and how to pry open the breakthrough of station B has become a new problem. However, in Wu Hao's view, this is not something that needs to be anxious, "the industry is gradually mature, and station B can try and make mistakes with mature gameplay, depending on where the boundary is." ”
B
B station to do e-commerce, first of all to crack the platform "two-dimensional concentration" is too high problem.
The two-dimensional community is a unique attribute that Station B has always emphasized and is different from other content platforms. Station B users are extremely sticky due to community attributes, which also allows Station B to place the first landing point to meet the secondary consumption needs of platform users when exploring e-commerce through member purchases.
But this may mean that the development of e-commerce in Station B can only be cautious, and the action is too large may trigger the reaction of community culture. Users also do not want Station B to become a live e-commerce platform similar to Douyin and Kuaishou.
An old B station user born in 98 said to the alphabet list that if the B station's live broadcast with goods like Vibrato, Kuaishou with a dramatic style, then he is not willing to contribute traffic nor GMV, "but if the B station's live streaming style is more distinct, such as nike and Gundam's joint name, then I feel that buying at B station will make people have a sense of trust." ”
This distinct attribute leads to the relatively narrow category of B station self-operated products, few e-commerce SKUs, and cannot cover large and complete categories, which obviously limits the growth rate of B station e-commerce.
On the other hand, if the next vigorous development of e-commerce with goods, B station's self-operated two-dimensional goods are obviously difficult to support the entire business, and it is necessary to broaden the source of goods. Station B previously tried to let the UP owner divert Taobao goods, which may also take into account the factors of expanding the coverage of goods.
In addition, the user base of the second dimension is small, which determines that the GMV of the B station e-commerce is not too high. According to the financial report, the daily active users of Station B are 65 million, which is far from the Vibrato with more than 600 million daily active users and the Kuaishou with daily active users of 300 million.
If the B station e-commerce business wants to break the circle, it also needs to increase the base of the purchase population while enriching the category, so that it is possible to achieve rapid growth in turnover. However, this kind of circle breaking is closely related to the breaking circle of Station B itself, and it is not that the e-commerce sector can be completed independently.
The bigger challenge is that e-commerce is a complex heavy operation business, and whether the B station that is accustomed to light operation can withstand the pain of operation? Although Douyin and Kuaishou have sampled the e-commerce business of the content platform, in terms of volume, the operation ability of Station B is obviously not the same as that of Jitter.
Wu Hao once analyzed the alphabet list, and an important reason why the video number is not good at live streaming with goods is that it has not increased the operation of "dirty work and hard work". Station B will face the same difficulties.
On the other hand, station B sells traffic to the e-commerce platform on the one hand, and on the other hand, it takes goods and grabs the business of other e-commerce companies, which may lead to two pieces of business fighting each other left and right, and the gain is not worth the loss.
Why is it difficult to do a good job in e-commerce in the Internet monster group "B Station, Weibo, Zhihu and Little Red Book?" The article pointed out that the content platform does a closed loop of transactions, which is easy to anger important Internet advertisers - Ali, JD.com, Pinduoduo, from the perspective of competitors, it is possible to lose advertising budgets.
In addition, it is difficult for Station B to establish a perfect service provider system in a short period of time. Mature generation operators are willing to invest in the huge traffic of Douyin and Kuaishou, but B station may not be equally attractive.
The heads of many MCN agencies told the alphabet list that they used station B more as a position for product publicity, but did not dare to vigorously develop live streaming with goods at station B. "Station B is useful, but the main position of live streaming with goods is still vibrato, and I dare not risk investing higher costs to do live streaming with goods at station B." A mcN chief told alphabet.
C
In addition to finding more paths for commercialization, another purpose of content platforms to increase live e-commerce is to bring more monetization methods to creators and prosper the creator ecosystem.
For the native brand of Station B, live e-commerce is undoubtedly a huge business opportunity. Leefett, founder of Plaything Zhixin Company, said in an interview with Insight that after the National Day, his team opened a number of live tests under the official guidance of Station B, and officially opened the road of live streaming with goods on the day of Double Twelve.
But for many B station UP owners, live e-commerce looks very attractive, but they may not be able to eat the cake.
Dolphin research analyst Li Weilong said that the B station living area has grown relatively fast in the past two years, and the up main monetization ability of beauty and entertainment is strong, and it is also very suitable for live streaming with goods, but at the same time, there are also many UP masters in B station due to attribute reasons, such as knowledge UP masters, and live streaming goods may be more limited.
Taking the knowledge CLASS UP as an example, from 2020 onwards, the knowledge class has become the main direction of the B station, inviting Luo Xiang to settle in, launch the knowledge area, and conduct the "Antarctic Science Popularization Day" live broadcast... Station B has been emphasizing that it is a "learning platform".
But learning and commercialization do not seem to be compatible. While the learning area is growing rapidly, up's main monetization ability is still a bit embarrassing.
A financial UP master in the B station told the alphabet list that in more than a year after entering the B station, the fans grew from thousands to 290,000, and also produced a popular video with nearly 2 million plays, but so far it has not achieved profitability.
He said that at present, the B station live broadcast with goods is still in the stage of exploring growth. "And the content of station B is clearly divided, and many creators are not suitable for carrying goods, such as I, as a financial UP master, there are very few categories that can be brought with goods, or even basically none." ...... The evaluation UP master may choose more, but the financial UP master really has nothing to bring, and it is very likely to overturn. You can try it when you have a chance, but it certainly won't be done for a long time. ”
The UP owner believes that the B station online live streaming with goods is not obviously beneficial to its realization, "unless the platform controls the supply chain and helps me get products below the market price, I may try, but this matter itself will consume the favorability of fans." ”
Station B certification science popularization UP master Ah Fu also expressed the same concern. Ah Fu admitted that the monetization efficiency of live streaming with goods is higher than his current monetization channels, but live streaming needs to have strong supply chain channels, and not every UP owner has it. "It would be strange to have the opportunity to try it, but the knowledge class UP mainly sells products other than books and courses."
Some UP owners who are suitable for live broadcasting with goods also lack interest in starting broadcasts on station B. A beauty UP owner with more than 3 million fans told the alphabet list that although from the attribute point of view, she seems to be suitable for live streaming, but because of the pressure of live streaming with goods, the preparation cycle is long, and she has obtained relatively high revenue through advertising revenue, there is no plan for live streaming with goods recently.
Regardless of whether UP owners will actively respond to the call for live streaming with goods, for the B station that is still in a state of loss, live streaming is undoubtedly an important attempt to explore business growth.
However, after four years of tepid attempts at e-commerce, whether Station B can rely on live streaming to promote the development of e-commerce business still has to be a question mark.
Resources:
"Why is it difficult for B station, Weibo, Zhihu and Xiaohongshu to do a good job in e-commerce?" Internet Monster Gang
"The second dimension breaks into the "live broadcast with goods", and the B station is difficult to splash the big splash? , U.S. Stock Research Agency
"Station B should also take the live broadcast with goods seriously, and will be online "little yellow car" within a week", 36Kr
"B station internal test investment: video and live broadcast can hang Taobao link", Ebang Power
"B Station E-commerce: AB Side under the Platform Gene", Lieyun Network