Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang have been suspected of pyramid schemes for many years, and have recently been officially qualified.
On December 28, according to China Net Finance, Shanghai Darway Trading Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Darway"), the secret operator of the daily chemical brand TST Court established by Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang, was suspected of engaging in pyramid schemes and had been investigated by the Shijiazhuang Municipal Supervision Bureau. According to the management of the bureau, the funds frozen by the Company applied for property preservation this time were as high as 600 million yuan.
As soon as the relevant news came out, it quickly appeared on Weibo's hot search. In the early morning of the 29th, the TST Court secretly responded through Weibo, saying that "Shanghai Darway Trading Co., Ltd. is a legally operated company, and since its inception, it has always followed the guidance of the government, adhered to legal operation, and paid taxes according to law." Thank you very much to the Shijiazhuang Yuhua District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for guiding our company to check the risks, the company's current operation is normal, our company will actively cooperate with the relevant departments. ”
It is worth noting that, unlike general corporate statements, TST court secret statements do not have a date, payment and official seal. At the bottom of the microblog, some netizens teased: Is the statement not willing to issue an official seal that is official?
The staff of the Shijiazhuang Municipal Supervision Bureau said in an interview with Jimu News that the specific number of people involved in the case is inconvenient to disclose, "I can only tell you that the amount of money involved in his case is relatively large." The staff member also added, "At present, the case has entered the financial audit stage, and the qualified audit company will audit the amount and illegal income involved in the case and obtain the corresponding data, and the next step will be to punish Dalway based on the audit data." ”
This time, Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang's companies were investigated early. In June this year, the Shijiazhuang Municipal Supervision Bureau launched an investigation into Darway's alleged pyramid schemes. The following month, the well-known actor Tao Hong was exposed to the news of untying with Zhang Ting. Shanghai Taobuting Culture Media Co., Ltd., which the two jointly operated, was renamed "Taobuting". In November, Tao Hong officially withdrew from the company's shareholder ranks.
In addition to the departure of his friends for many years, many companies under Zhang Ting's name have also been intensively written off since September. At the same time, tax supervision policies began to tighten, and the State Administration of Taxation began to thoroughly investigate the suspected tax evasion of network anchors and other groups by concealing personal income and changing the nature of income.
The entire micro-business industry has also begun to smell the smell of changing days. In addition to Zhang Ting, more than a dozen micro-business brands have been punished or voluntarily deregistered this year.
A more intuitive example is that Gong Wenxiang, who has always called himself the "godfather of micro-business", announced his official withdrawal from the micro-business industry. He said that after being jointly investigated and punished by the special case teams such as the Industrial and Commercial Taxation Public Security Court, he "went bankrupt, sold houses and cars, and was penniless."
Today, Zhang Ting, known as the "godmother of micro-business", is still waiting for the knife to fall. How much life is left in the micro-business industry?
In 2013, Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang withdrew from the real estate industry and turned to micro-business, established Darway, and launched the skin care brand TST Court Secret. Since then, 43-year-old Zhang Ting has endorsed and campaigned for the company in front of the stage, and Lin Ruiyang, 53, has been responsible for the company's operation behind the scenes.
When the TST court secret agent, the threshold is quite low, the official claim does not need agency fees and hoarding, support a piece of free mail, the performance rebate ratio is between 15% and 32%, the primary agent can recruit subordinate agents, once the performance of the subordinate agent meets the standard, the superior can get additional rewards.
Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Ting secretly portrayed the TST court as a warm home, and the agents gathered under the eaves were collectively referred to as family. However, not many people buy this statement outside the micro-business circle. Zhang Ting once said on the show "The Times Show": "I run skin care products to do good deeds. He was interrupted by the host Li Xiang: "Then you don't sell, you should send it." ”
Under the hard work of Zhang Ting and the temptation of money, many celebrity friends have directly participated in their platforms, such as Tao Hong, Xu Zheng and his wife, Cao Ge, Lin Chiling and other stars have become secret partners of TST Court, and Zhao Wei and Fan Bingbing also post TST mask photos from time to time. Among them, Tao Hong is the most active one, often interacting with Zhang Ting's Weibo, helping TST Ting secretly shoot promotional posters, and turning a blind eye to the messages that netizens advised her to stay away from micro-business at that time.
Zero threshold, high rebates, coupled with the endorsement of various stars, TST Court Secret quickly attracted a large number of bao mom groups to join.
In 2015, the micro-business industry ushered in the spring. Brands such as TST, Pretty Ten-Year-Old, and Sibu have completed scale fission with WeChat, and the number of pretty ten-year-old agents in the earlier layout was once as high as two million. In the circle of friends of micro-businessmen, the stories of luxury goods, luxury cars, and monthly income of millions are rampant.
As one of the first batch of micro-business practitioners, Simba's wife Chu Ruixue began to use luxury cars to motivate agents to sell goods very early, and many subordinate agents of Chu Ruixue posted their own Maserati on social platforms. Later, after an investigation by the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce, it was found that the so-called luxury car reward was only the right to use the vehicle given by Chu Ruixue.
In 2016, some consumers said that after using TST live yeast products, "bad face", Zhang Ting pointed the spearhead at consumers in his response, believing that individual consumers' own physiques were not compatible with the product. In the end, these negative voices were drowned out in the record high performance of Zhang Ting and his wife.
In May of that year, Zhang Ting announced that the TST court secret sales champion performance had exceeded 40 million yuan. At the end of the year, Zhang Ting and his wife spent 50 million yuan to charter a cruise ship and traveled to South Korea with stars such as Huang Zhilie and Chen Yiru, and this habit continued until 2020.
As the plate of Zhang Ting's micro-business empire grows bigger and bigger, from 2017 to 2019, TST Ting was secretly rumored to be listed on the New Third Board, Hong Kong stocks and Taiwan stocks respectively. Although these rumors did not end well, they somewhat boosted the confidence of the agents who had secretly been in the TST Court.
In 2018, the micro-business industry was at its peak, and Hanhou and Sibu Group became micro-business brands with annual sales of 10 billion. Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang also gained a lot. On January 24 of the following year, Shanghai Qingpu District held a commendation meeting for the top 100 enterprises, and with the achievement of paying 2.1 billion yuan in taxes in 2018, Dalwei suppressed Zhongtong, Yuantong and other enterprises in the same district and won the qingpu District tax championship.
At an event shortly after the end of the commendation meeting, 49-year-old Zhang Ting held up a microphone in his left hand and a fist in his right hand on the stage, mobilizing passionately with Lin Ruiyang next to him, shouting "May break through 2 billion!" over and over again!" The slogan, the cheers on the scene have not stopped.
In 2019, it has become a watershed year for the micro-business industry.
On January 1, the E-commerce Law of the People's Republic of China was officially implemented, and micro-businesses were included in the category of e-commerce operators, and if they wanted to continue to operate, they needed to apply for a self-employed business license or a company business license. Micro-merchants who used to grow barbarically began to be put on a tight curse.
Soon, a group of tail micro-businesses were eliminated. Another micro-business with a keen sense of smell began to learn from Chu Ruixue and transformed short video live broadcasts with goods. Gong Wenxiang mentioned in an interview with "Deep Net" that every industry has its cycle, and after 2019, micro-businesses began to enter a period of decline.
More adverse situations followed. The epidemic in 2020 has caused many factories to shut down, logistics to be blocked, and the micro-business industry to cool down again. At that time, the traffic of the WeChat platform that depended on survival also began to reach the ceiling.
In stark contrast to the decline of micro-businesses, there are live broadcast rooms that are rapidly rising. Luo Yonghao, Chen He and other celebrities have refreshed people's cognition again and again. In July, 13 departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, proposed to "support diversified self-employment and time-sharing employment such as micro-business e-commerce and online live broadcasting", further pointing out the transformation direction for micro-businesses.
According to the "Leopard Change" report, after the epidemic, Wen Wan, a micro-business practitioner, sold a suite in order to give employees a salary, but soon began to lay off employees. Even if she increased the rebate from less than 10% to 30% in the past and was willing to sell all the profits, it did not stop the agents from rushing to the live broadcast room.
Zhang Ting also began to move to the live broadcast room from June. On the night of the premiere, with the help of Li Chen and Tao Hong, Zhang Ting refreshed the turnover of the previous star live broadcast with goods with a single performance of 136 million yuan.
Zhang Ting, who tasted the sweetness, gradually transitioned from the graphic era of micro-business 1.0 to the live broadcast era of micro-business 2.0. In October, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Ting spent 1.7 billion yuan to buy a single-family building on the Huangpu River, waved a big hand, and gave it to their friends Tao Hong and Ming Dao on each floor.
The micro-businessmen who failed to make a smooth transformation have folded their swords: the head company Moneng International has been complained about, accused of false propaganda, and has been blocked for being involved in pyramid schemes; Wu Zhaoguo has tried to transform several times and failed, and the account has been blocked; Gong Wenxiang has entered the douyin wall and continues to look for the next safe haven...
After the live broadcast room replaces the circle of friends and becomes a new circulation channel for various commodities, it is accelerating the decline of traditional micro-businesses.
In 2013, micro-business can rely on WeChat, QQ and other private domain traffic rise, on the one hand, the information is not transparent, micro-business with the help of information difference has enough profit space. On the other hand, the effect of acquaintance endorsement brought about by WeChat's main acquaintance social networking also allows micro-merchants to directly save the cost of trust cultivation by selling goods.
However, with the advent of short video live broadcasts, the situation began to change. The live broadcast room provides an interpersonal communication link far beyond the circle of friends, and creates a price that is far lower than the era of the circle of friends. In the past, a box of micro-business products of hundreds of yuan was difficult to find a buyer.
Moreover, since 2019, the state's supervision of micro-businesses has become stricter, and many micro-businessmen who practice pyramid schemes in the name of micro-businessmen have been investigated and punished. In August this year, Youlan Biotechnology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. was fined 970,000 yuan for suspected pyramid schemes, and Taizhou Mixi Haodi E-commerce Co., Ltd. was fined 5.0722 million yuan for the same reason. In October, Gong Wenxiang spoke: "Even I have a hard time making money, which shows the depression of the industry." ”
A notice issued in November that WeChat and Alipay personal collection codes cannot be used for business activities means that the phenomenon of personal collection code transactions commonly used in the WeChat industry is no longer allowed.
To this end, Gong Wenxiang, who once claimed to "send 3 million WeChat red envelopes every year", stressed that the new membership fee must be "paid to the public". In his last letter to members after declaring bankruptcy in early December, Gong said that he would "never send red envelopes again." ”
The best learning sample left for micro-business is Chu Ruixue. In 2019, Chu Ruixue and Simba married. Since then, she has wholeheartedly supported Simba, put the latter on the throne of "Kuaishou Brother", and withdrew from the micro-business industry as soon as possible and successfully transformed.
Nowadays, live streaming is already a piece of the Red Sea, and it is not easy for micro-businessmen to win a place from it. According to Tech Planet, Gong Wenxiang tried douyin for 7 months and spent millions of yuan without successful transformation.
With the investigation of Zhang Ting and his wife, even if they successfully transformed into the era of live e-commerce, micro-businessmen dressed in the cloak of pyramid schemes are still difficult to escape the law.
Resources:
1. From micro-business to live broadcasting, the rise and fall of a top-notch jianghu, Tech Planet
2. From the circle of friends to the live broadcast room, will the Micro Chamber come back to life? Leopard change
3. The "godmother" of the micro-business began to live stream the goods! Goddess Zhang Ting sold 136 million yuan in 5 hours, deep net
4. From idols to suspected pyramid schemes investigated, what have Lin Ruiyang and Zhang Ting done over the years? , CBN
5. How much do celebrities earn from micro-business? Mr. and Mrs. Zhang Ting's company pays 2.1 billion yuan in taxes a year, daily economic news
6. Lin Ruiyang Zhang Ting and his wife actual control company suspected of pyramid schemes were investigated and punished, China Net Finance
7. Zhang Ting and his wife's company was suspected of pyramid schemes was investigated, and the market supervision department responded: the number of people involved in the case is huge, and it has entered the financial audit stage