Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618)
Wen | Zhai Yuanyuan
Cover source | Visual China
After being notified by the Hangzhou tax department of nearly 100 million yuan in fines, Chenfan, the company behind Sydney, ushered in a greater punishment.
The first dominoes of dominoes fell, and the entire commercial kingdom of Sydney became in jeopardy. First of all, on December 9, the Weibo accounts of more than 15 million fans in Sydney were blocked, (Weibo ID: Sydney Cherie), Lin Shanshan (Weibo ID: Lin Shanshan _Sunny) Weibo accounts all showed "can not be viewed", and then the Douyin, Xiaohongshu accounts were blocked, and finally even the base camp Taobao store was also shut down, and all the store goods were removed from the shelves, which can be described as a fatal blow. This means that Chenfan will lose its cash flow source.
The whole network was "blocked", and behind Sydney, it involved the employment of 1500 employees and the factory operation of more than 1000 suppliers. Tech Planet has learned that Sydney Live has been dissolved on the spot. On December 14, Sydney live broadcasting company Shengheng Culture released a group announcement that employees would no longer punch cards since December 15.
An internal employee of Sydney told Tech Planet that the live broadcasting company Shengheng Culture is not under the umbrella of Chenfan, and the entire Chenfan company is still operating normally, employees commute normally, there is no layoff, and the welfare treatment is also normal. The biggest uncertainty is whether and when will it be unsealed?
Where is Chenfan going in the future? Completely in decline, the dismissal of all employees, the collapse of the business kingdom overnight, or is it expected to be unsealed one day and make a comeback?
1 hour before the double 12 goes on sale, the Taobao store is closed
On November 22, the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau issued a tax administrative treatment decision to Zhu Chenhui and Lin Shanshan in accordance with the law, and Zhu Chenhui (Sydney) and Lin Shanshan, two network anchors, were suspected of evading taxes and were fined a total of nearly 100 million yuan.
On the night of the official briefing, Sydney and Lin Shanshan issued a letter of apology at the speed of light on the matter of "tax evasion and punishment", and announced that they would suspend the live broadcast in the live broadcast room, standardize and rectify, and pay fines according to law.
I thought that the tax evasion storm would end here, but what Chenfan did not expect internally was that at that time, the boots could only be regarded as one.
Since November 22, Sydney and Lin Shanshan have not been live broadcast for 19 consecutive days, but Sydney's women's Taobao store is still operating normally, and the store has even launched a new product preview of Double 12. In Chenfan's revenue structure, the live e-commerce business accounts for only 20%, and the bulk of the revenue is clothing e-commerce, and Taobao stores are the top priority.
An hour before the official sale of Double 12, the Sydney Taobao store was suddenly closed. Fans first found abnormalities, Chenfan internal comparison is not known, and even a minute before closing the store, Ali Xiao'er is still communicating with Chenfan's customer service director to exchange double 12 gameplay. The Taobao platform also did not receive any advance notice of the closure of sydney stores.
"Very miserable, really very ignorant, very uncomfortable", Chenfan employees told Tech Planet, the general user at 8 o'clock to visit the store, browse the details of each product to be ready for additional purchase, be prepared for full minus order payment, just wait for the double 12 zero point payment. As long as it is one hour late, double 12 zero point to open the payment, Chenfan will not be absent in this double 12 promotion. Previously, for this year's double 12, Chenfan stockpiled nearly one hundred million.
Sydney is one of the anchors that Taobao officials have pushed this year, on the first day of the double 11 pre-sale, Sydney won the third place in the Taobao anchor goods list with a score of 930 million, second only to Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya. Even in the previous August live streaming sales list TOP50 list, Sydney surpassed Li Jiaqi to become the second place anchor with goods, and Chenfan aimed at the position of the first place to launch an active attack.
However, with the outbreak of tax evasion, Chenfan's entire business kingdom was pressed the pause button. The originally planned spike festival and snack festival were cancelled, Taobao stores were shut down an hour before the start of Double 12, all social accounts related to Sydney were banned, and Shengheng Culture, a live broadcasting company behind Sydney, was dissolved on the spot.
At present, Sydney Taobao stores have been closed and goods have been removed from the shelves, but consumer return refunds and other after-sales services can be provided normally.
"Go to Sydney", buy land and build buildings suspended
All kinds of negative news about Sydney company in the outside world began to be loud, and some netizens broke the news that Sydney company did not pay social security to more than a thousand employees. Sydney Company Chenfan E-commerce Co., Ltd. responded, "It is a rumor that the company normally pays the social security of more than a thousand employees." ”
A departing employee of Chenfan told Tech Planet that it is indeed not true that employees do not pay social security.
At the heart of the storm, Sydney and Chenfan, every negative rumor may be the last straw that crushes its business empire.
In fact, at present, Sydney Company is intensively cutting Chenfan with Sydney and Lin Shanshan to "de-Sydney". According to public information, Sydney is currently associated with a total of 17 companies, of which 7 have been cancelled. Chenfan employees told Tech Planet that the three bosses are currently stepping down and the company is trying to re-register the company.
Chenfan has three major businesses: clothing e-commerce, MCN business, and live broadcast business. At present, the live broadcasting company is dissolved on the spot and will not be done again in a short period of time. Of Chenfan's 15 brands, three or four core brands have been sealed. Because Chenfan has more than 300 celebrities, Chenfan internally hopes to link the flow of celebrities with the supply chain part, reproduce the successful experience of building Sydney Lin Shanshan in the past to the new anchor, and reuse the previous supply chain advantages. However, all the comebacks will need to wait for a clear notice of unblocking.
In addition to cutting Sydney with the company, Chenfan also took the initiative to stop the construction at the end of December. Chenfan has previously successfully won the Binjiang Internet Town plot by virtue of the company's brand reputation. "Binjiang Release" was released on the WeChat public account in early October, chenfan e-commerce won the binjiang internet town plot, the project land area of about 25 acres, the total construction area of about 100,000 square meters. Buying land to build a building, Chenfan's determination to expand is clear. But now, because of the tax evasion incident, the construction plan that was originally planned to start at the end of this month has also been shelved.
"A lot of Sydney suppliers are finished"
Sydney fell, in addition to the 1500 employees of Chenfan, the upstream suppliers behind Sydney also "suffered" together.
A Sydney clothing supplier told Tech Planet that according to his understanding, there will be many Sydney suppliers "finished" this year.
They are one of the smaller merchants in Sydney's more than 1,000 suppliers, and in November they sent new samples to Sydney, but because of the Sydney accident, their samples were returned.
When working with Sydney, the usual billing period is one month. They can achieve sales of hundreds of thousands of yuan per month, and Sydney purchases and places orders every month. At present they have recovered their funds. However, some core suppliers have greater support for Sydney, there is no advance payment, and the factory needs to advance funds in advance and prepare raw materials in advance. The Sydney store was closed, which had a greater impact on these core suppliers.
According to the supplier's speculation, there is a supplier that makes cashmere coats, and the advance fund should be more than 50 million. "The price is 3699 yuan, the double 11 is sold more than 20,000 pieces, the supply is included in accordance with 2400 tax, the factory has at least 3 months from stocking to settlement, and the occupation of funds is at least 50 million."
Sydney is absent from Double 12, and many suppliers have a backlog of goods next spring. In some categories, factories also bear a 10% return rate. The situation for suppliers will not be too optimistic. "Sydney is sealed, in addition to affecting the employment of 1600 employees, the upstream factory losses are even greater." It is estimated that the purchase amount is reduced by several hundred million."
The supplier revealed that the platform for Sydney commodities to plant grass and pull grass has a clear division of labor, Weibo, Xiaohongshu planting grass, Taobao selling new goods, and Douyin selling tail goods. Suppliers work with Sydney and don't expect to make high profits, as they mainly go. Need to inspect the factory, open a 13% increase in tickets, full quality inspection, the requirements are not low, "the supplier is about 6-7% net profit, which is hard money."
For Chenfan, in addition to the crisis that may be permanently banned, at present, due to the lack of advance warning for the closure of Taobao stores, all the investment promotions and factory orders and stockpiles that have been carried out previously for the double 12 promotion also need to do a good job in the aftermath.
Wait for the boots to land
Originally, 2021 would be a year for Chenfan to attack the city and strive for cornering overtaking in consumer brands and live e-commerce tracks.
In March and April this year, Chenfan has completed two rounds of financing for investment institutions Orchid Asia and Zhongyuan Capital. According to Chenfan's development plan, Chenfan brand category has expanded from women's clothing to beauty, children's wear, home, fitness and other new consumption areas, and hopes to build the company into a new consumer brand in the future, rather than simply a red e-commerce or e-commerce live broadcasting agency.
MCN institutions have the ambition to build brands, and consumer goods brand companies do have more commercial imagination space than MCN institutions or live broadcasting agencies. Previously, with the Internet celebrity Li Ziqi fell into the micro-concept of capital Rashomon, positioning itself as a consumer goods brand company.
Chenfan's accumulation in the supply chain in the past decade has built a deep enough moat for it, according to Chenfan insiders, 70%-80% of Chenfan's revenue comes from self-operated e-commerce. In 2020, Chenfan's self-owned brand e-commerce segment sales will be 5 billion.
In addition to its own brand building, the live broadcast business is also one of the highlands that Chenfan wants to occupy.
Sydney made a live broadcast with goods late, and it began to officially enter the game in the second half of 2019. At that time, the Taobao live e-commerce track already stood with Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, two super head anchors, who were like two traffic black holes, sucking up most of the traffic on the platform. However, with the blessing of the supply chain and the support of platform policies, Sydney quickly sat firmly in the top three positions of Taobao anchors, and even this year, the GMV surpassed Li Jiaqi many months, becoming the biggest variable that shook the pattern of live streaming anchors.
According to public media reports, during the Double Eleven period in 2020, Sydney Live Broadcast guided the turnover of 2.5 billion yuan. During the 618 period this year, the total sales of Sydney Live Exceeded 2 billion.
Sydney has also bluntly said that her ambitions are not limited to the third, and when others praise her third place, she will feel that she is scolding her. "The expectations for myself are definitely more than this (the third in the whole network), I am all in this matter today, if I am only for a third, I should try harder and try harder to go up", the sword refers to Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi.
The undercurrent of the three companies reached a white-hot state in Double 11, and an insider from Chenfan told Tech Planet that their focus of double 11 this year is to strive to win the beauty brand that Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi have long "monopolized".
However, the ambition eventually struck a fatal blow over tax evasion. An industry insider close to Chenfan said that if there is no tax evasion incident, Chenfan is about to complete a new round of financing. But now financing and listing plans have to be postponed.
Everything needs to wait for the other boot to land.
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