"It's a bit of a panic."
Talking about the atmosphere of the anchor industry under the current tide of tax reimbursement, e-commerce analyst Li Chengdong told the first financial reporter. He mentioned that the reason is not only the vigilance effect of the head anchor being informed, but also the fact that in the past, anchors, institutions and relevant departments rarely intersected, lacked relevant experience, and were not professional enough in tax treatment.
Incomplete statistics, as of now, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning, Hubei and other about 20 provinces and cities have issued announcements, reminding star artists and network anchors who have not paid attention to their own tax-related problems or are not in place for self-inspection and rectification, and take the initiative to report and correct tax-related problems to the tax department before December 31 this year.
The tax supplement incident has made the entire live streaming industry shift from barbaric growth to rational norms, and the phenomenon of crazy low-price sales in the past will become rational under stricter tax supervision. Since the State Administration of Taxation issued a notice in mid-September to strengthen the tax administration of cultural and entertainment practitioners, thousands of people have taken the initiative to check and pay back taxes. The first financial reporter learned that there are anchors in the live broadcast industry who urgently hire professional financial institutions to guide tax self-examination.
Mo Daiqing, director of the online retail department and senior analyst of the e-commerce research center of the network economic and social society, told First Finance and Economics that the huge resource concentration effect reflected behind the head live broadcast, the space that small and medium-sized anchors and long-tail anchors could obtain was compressed, and the monopoly of the head anchor in the past was unfavorable to the development of the industry. This event will distract the head anchor effect, usher in a wave of reshuffle, and other anchors, MCN institutions, brands, merchants, etc. will usher in more opportunities.
Anchor industry shuffling moments
Near Shanghai's Xujiahui business district, in a building marked with "never's family" and five cartoon dogs, the team of Li Jiaqi, a leading Chinese Internet celebrity, is located here.
At the end of December, after passing through a room full of samples, cameras, and medals of honor, the first financial reporter came to the area where Li Jiaqi's daily live broadcast work. In the afternoon, there were still hours before the start of the broadcast, but several staff members had already begun to commission the machine and test the lighting effect.
After the live broadcast rooms of Wei Ya and Sydney were closed, Li Jiaqi became the only head anchor of the Taobao platform, which attracted much attention from the outside world.
"The company has always been operating legally and compliantly." The relevant person in charge of Meijian (Shanghai) Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Mei ONE", the MCN organization to which Li Jiaqi belongs) said solemnly.
However, on December 23, Li Jiaqi was quickly listed on the hot search by the Zhejiang Provincial Consumer Protection Commission. In the latest response, Li Jiaqi's operator said that it would immediately stop selling related goods, make changes to all goods in inventory, and re-list related products after the changes were completed and after a new round of testing.
Among the current head anchors in the live broadcasting industry, Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, etc. are operating normally, and the Internet celebrity anchors Sydney, Lin Shanshan, and Wei Ya have been punished for tax evasion and tax evasion, where will their market share flow. The industry generally believes that one is to flow to other anchors in the station and the self-broadcast live broadcast room of the business; the other is outside the station, such as Douyin, Kuaishou and other platforms.
Behind the reshuffle of the anchor industry, the reporter learned in the interview that after the big anchor overturned, some small anchors can divert some traffic, and some brands will take the initiative to seek cooperation, and the situation is better than before.
For brand merchants who have relied too much on the head anchor, it is also time to rebuild channels and even rebuild the product system.
Chen Dengfeng, vice president of Zhejiang Silk Sleep Technology, which is listed on the New Third Board, told First Finance: "If the dependence is relatively high, then the follow-up will have a relatively large challenge to the re-integration of channels, and if it needs to be re-established, there are not many anchor resources to choose from, or focus on channels with higher operational capabilities, or even rebuild their own product system." ”
Mo Daiqing commented to reporters that in the past, the concentration of head anchor resources was unfavorable for businesses, such as double 11, the original consumers could find themselves through the venue, and now they have to pass the anchor, in fact, there is one more hurdle. Then, under the coercion of the platform, in order to be able to enter the live broadcast room of the head anchor, the merchant is bound to make concessions and sacrifices. This creates uneven development for the business ecosystem, and it is not necessarily healthy.
Many merchants have begun to shift their focus to mid-waist anchors.
In terms of talent with goods, Chen Dengfeng told the first financial reporter, "Now the anchors in the head and middle waist will look for it." A marketing person in charge of a small kitchen appliance company told reporters that after a head anchor was fined a huge amount of money for tax evasion, it is expected that the head brand of home appliances will turn more to self-broadcast goods in the future, and the initiative is in their own hands. “
"In the early days, the platform would tilt traffic to MCN institutions, because MCN institutions can incubate anchors; now traffic tends to live broadcast bases, because only bases can drive goods, such as Pinduoduo and Douyin from the beginning to give traffic to live broadcast bases, not anchors." Some people in the clothing industry told the first financial reporter that next, the merchants who grasp the goods will have more and more say, the more scarce the goods, the more the anchor hopes to cooperate with the merchants of the goods; after the platform understands the scarcity of the goods, the traffic will be more and more inclined to the end of the goods.
Self-inspection and self-correction of cargo drainage
The core of the e-commerce live streaming industry chain is composed of the traffic end and the supply chain end, of which the traffic side mainly includes the live broadcast platform (Taobao Live, Kuaishou, Douyin), MCN and the anchor, which is responsible for obtaining user traffic; the supply chain side includes the main e-commerce platforms (Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo), the upstream supply chain (brand side, dealer, factory), responsible for the full set of operations after diversion.
Behind the anchor, the MCN agency's self-examination and self-correction is also carried out at the same time.
Connected between the traffic end and the supply chain end is the commission generated after the sale of goods. At present, the mainstream commission distribution method of live/short video e-commerce is mainly CPS (the actual number of products sold is converted into advertising amounts). After a live broadcast, according to the number of goods, MCN institutions will usually take a commission of 20% to 40%.
Dawn, the founder of an MCN, told the first financial reporter that whether it is the head anchor or the Taoshi live broadcast ecology that is closely connected with the anchor, there will inevitably be huge changes.
Where are the trends in the future of the live streaming industry? Dawn believes that it is interested in e-commerce. "Although the head anchor has developed rapidly in the past one or two years, they have no external traffic outside of Taobao, so every time there is a big promotion and activity, they need to buy advertisements on Weibo, offline advertising, elevator advertising and Xiaohongshu and other channels, and also need to send live broadcast previews on the public account to attract consumers." At the same time, Taoshi live broadcast is a search-and-wait type live broadcast form, which has been accumulated for a long time. Therefore, it is impossible to run a third super anchor in the short term. From the perspective of Taobao ecology, the recommendation mechanism of 'thousands of people and thousands of faces' is also very good, and it is not necessary to die live. ”
For the "thousands of anchors to supplement taxes" in the previous news reports, the founder of the above-mentioned MCN institution told First Finance and Economics that in addition to the head anchor, the industry speculated that most of them may be stars, because the influence of stars is larger when they carry goods, there are pit fees, and the rebates are also higher. Now they all default to industry self-discipline, tax reimbursement or self-examination and self-correction is conducive to the development of the industry, which has a greater positive impact on the industry.
In addition, the industries related to the diversion of goods are also gradually self-examination and self-correction.
On December 28, the home appliance evaluation blogger named "Blue Immortal" posted a message on Weibo reminding him of the tax reimbursement. The news shows that the blogger needs to make up taxes of 218527.7 yuan in 2020 and 127089.38 yuan in 2021, which requires the blogger to transfer money to the account provided by the JD Alliance.
Cheng Liang, a lawyer at Shanghai Rongfu Law Firm, said that the tax evasion penalties for network anchors, popular film and television stars, etc., not only warned other people in the same industry and urged them to actively and actively correct tax evasion, but also educated latecomers to establish a sense of tax payment according to law and implement tax obligations into practice from the beginning. This is of great significance for strengthening the supervision of the live broadcasting industry and standardizing the development of the live broadcasting industry, and at the same time, it will also be conducive to the long-term standardized and healthy development of the platform economy.