On the day that the anchor Wei Ya was informed of her involvement in tax evasion, Kesha, who was in Jiubao, Hangzhou, received a call from her mother. On the other end of the phone, her mother asked her if she had evaded taxes, in a serious tone. In the face of this sudden problem, Kesha cried and laughed. She is a contracted anchor of an MCN agency (note: similar to an Internet celebrity brokerage company), who takes a fixed salary and sales commission every month, and she never needs to worry about paying taxes: "I told my mother that your daughter only made so much money, she couldn't pay much tax, and it was not my turn to evade taxes!" ”
When Yuan Zihao brushed the WeChat circle of friends the next day, he knew that Wei Ya had "had an accident". When the news came out, he was like all the anchors active in Yiwu Beixia zhu, carrying huge black plastic bags, wandering the supply chain stores on the street to select goods. Although he is also engaged in live streaming and carrying goods, for this young man who has just turned 21, Wei Ya, as an anchor, was actually recovered and fined 1.341 billion yuan for tax evasion, which is too far away from him - Yuan Zihao's average monthly income may be just enough to meet a tax threshold.
In the past 2021, the live e-commerce industry has experienced shocks. The introduction of a series of strong regulatory measures and compliance investigations are prompting that this emerging industry is about to usher in further regulation, and the situation of barbaric growth may come to an end. The "head anchor" has been chased back a large number of taxes, and the industry knows that the industry chaos will be rectified. A large number of "waist" and even "bottom" anchors have not been able to feel the storm for the time being, but they have also faintly perceived the arrival of changes. However, at present, they do not have time to think too much, and the rotation with the algorithm and the competition for traffic involve all their energy. In this industry, how to get a piece of the pie is still their number one problem.
Supply chain stores on the streets of Zhucun in the north of Yiwu. In measurement
"Parallel Universes" with No Impact
In a science fiction term, Weiya Li Jiaqi, Hangzhou Jiubao, Yiwu North Zhu, may be three parallel universes.
In the impression of many Hangzhou locals, Jiubao is the junction of urban and rural areas, except for long-distance passenger terminals and patches of garment factories. However, the trend of live streaming with goods has suddenly emerged, backed by the clothing industry resources of Jiubao, and Wei Ya has turned out from here. As The "mother's home" of Wei Ya, Jiubao has become the "cosmic center" of live e-commerce, with a large number of brands and supply chains entering the layout, and at one time tens of thousands of anchors with goods gathered here. However, Via soon had her own "universe" and gradually drifted away from the Nine Castles. In Yiwu, the original name of the northern Lower Zhu is unknown. By chance, this peasant relocation community near the Yiwu small commodity market was photographed by foreign grassroots entrepreneurs and became their starting point and base camp for gold panning in Yiwu. From jianghu stalls to social e-commerce, and then to the later live streaming with goods, Beixia Zhu has always aimed at the sinking market. Today, all entrances to The North Xia zhu village are erected with the sign of "E-commerce Capital", and even the nearby Bai'antou, Dongfu House, Xia Luo House and other communities have also regarded themselves as "Net Red Anchor Village" and "E-commerce Live BroadcastIng Base". At the beginning of the new year, the reporter visited the two live broadcast bases of Jiubao and Beixiazhu and found that everything was as usual. During the day, the anchors are busy looking around for goods; at night, the live broadcast room begins to be busy. The difference between the two parallel universes is that the anchors of Jiubao choose brand clothing and jewelry, while the anchors of Beixia Zhu are looking for nine pieces of nine packs of toothpaste and chocolate with a pound name. For what happened in another parallel universe, Kesha of the Nine Castles and Yuan Zihao of Beixia Zhu had a very consistent attitude: there was no impact. Some small anchors said that worrying about what happened in another universe is as funny as worrying about whether the emperor carries water with a golden flat burden. But change is really happening. Huang Yihang is the person in charge of investment promotion in a park in Jiubao, and like most offices in Jiubao, the park where he works also gathers a large number of enterprises in the live broadcasting industry. In his view, the departure of the super head anchor does give up a considerable part of the traffic, but this part of the traffic may not be transferred to the head of the small anchor. "Last year's double eleven, live streaming sales of tens of billions of yuan, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya accounted for the majority, the top 50 anchors may have eaten 99% of the traffic." Nowadays, a very small number of super head anchors have withdrawn, but some of the traffic they have released may be an opportunity for a small number of head anchors, but for more than 1 million waist and bottom anchors in the country, it is not yet the turn to undertake, and the traffic has been divided. Huang Yihang judged so. In September last year, the tax department issued a list for the live broadcasting industry, requiring self-examination and self-supplementation, and some local anchors in Jiubao, Hangzhou were also on this list. Jiubao also has no shortage of waist anchors with a tax payment of 100,000 yuan or even a million yuan, but Sha is not among them.
The "can't make money" live streaming industry
But Sha Wan refused the coffee ordered by the reporter, and she was worried that she would not be able to sleep after drinking the coffee. The day before the interview, she had aired at 2 a.m., and it was 4 a.m. after the review.
In August 2020, Kesha came to Jiubao. She signed a contract with a clothing brand to bring goods for the brand's live broadcast. At that time, her job was very relaxed: "The brand does not have high requirements for anchors, and it can talk and show." Every day, I memorize the words in advance, then broadcast them for 4 hours, and go home after work. Kesha soon discovered that the easy job didn't make money — her definition of "no money" was a net monthly income of $30,000. This is not "Versailles". Before becoming an anchor, Kesha worked as a teacher in a technical school and also engaged in education and training. In 2019, she opened her own company and tried to bring goods through short videos. At that time, Kesha had more than 50 mobile phones and operated dozens of Douyin accounts at the same time. She bought video footage, mixed and cut it into her own shooting content, posted it on her various accounts, and looked forward to a single item hanging in the "little yellow car" every day to "explode". Finally, a mask sold out. Overnight, Kesha had more than a hundred thousand yuan in her bank account. After such an experience, the monthly five-figure income in Jiubao was indeed not worth a damn in Kesha's view. What's more, in the live broadcast industry, the monthly income of more than 100,000 yuan is only the threshold of the waist anchor. In the second half of last year, Kesha switched to a local MCN agency in Jiubao, and its monthly income was still stable at tens of thousands of yuan. In another parallel universe, Yuan Zihao has been doing live broadcasting for almost 1 year, and he has not earned enough 100,000 yuan. In March 2021, Yuan Zihao came from his hometown of Inner Mongolia to the north of Zhu. Previously, his cognition of Beixia Zhu all came from the short video platform - standing on the "net red bridge" that is only a few meters long at the mouth of Beixia Zhucunkou, many short video bloggers enthusiastically introduced Beixia Zhu to the audience. In their descriptions, this is a paradise for grassroots entrepreneurship, and the story of a one-night "counterattack" is constantly staged here. For young people who want to go out and make a career in the era of mobile Internet, these videos, which are tens of seconds short and no longer than three minutes long, are undoubtedly extremely inflammatory. In the north of Zhu, it is not difficult to find a job as an anchor. Small commodities whose profits are measured in "points" or even "centimeters" need massive orders to support a business that can make money, so the supply chain's demand for anchors seems to never have an upper limit. Soon after settling down, Yuan Zihao joined a small live broadcast team. He broadcasts twice a day, each for 3 to 4 hours. The sales of nearly 10,000 yuan in a single game were exchanged for his income of more than 6,000 yuan per month.
The bulletin board at the entrance of Bai'antou Village is plastered with notices for recruiting anchors. In measurement
This income is far lower than Yuan Zihao's expectations, but it is enough to ensure that he has no food and clothing in Yiwu. After the north of Zhu became famous, the rent of the shop rose again and again, but for the anchor, the cost of daily life is still low, and the rent plus water and electricity bills is usually only seven or eight hundred yuan per month. More importantly, Yuan Zihao realized that the anchors of Beixia Zhu basically earned only this little money: "If individual anchors find supply chain cooperation, the market price is 200 yuan a day." In contrast, my job is a little easier. "Whether it is tens of thousands of yuan per month or thousands of yuan per month, the anchors of Jiubao and Beixia Zhu feel that they cannot earn money.
Impenetrable rules of the game
There's always someone who really makes money.
Leaving aside the parallel universe that belongs to the super-head anchors, in the place where Kesha and Yuan Zihao are in, the story of sudden wealth is real, and they have also witnessed it with their own eyes - of course, different parallel universes have different definitions of sudden wealth.
"One of my anchor friends bought a house in downtown Hangzhou last year with a down payment of 2 million yuan. This money, ordinary wage earners have to save for many years, but for anchors with a little bit of volume, it is two or three years. Kesha said that she had seen the sports car parked in a whole garage when the company was building a team, and she had also seen her peers earn hundreds of thousands of yuan in one night. There are also little sisters who have just entered the industry to travel to Sanya, in order to have fun, simply chartered the hotel swimming pool with friends. The little sister told her in a colorful way that the fruit plate, which cost 500 yuan a piece, was "casually on". Yuan Zihao had never seen a drunken gold fan in the north, but he clearly remembered that last summer, a familiar anchor sold more than 100,000 yuan worth of edible salt and coconut juice in one night. The next day, when he met the anchor on the street, when talking about this matter, the other party tried his best to behave lightly, but he could not hide his pride, and that look made him instantly burst into jealousy. Recalling how he felt at that time, he laughed, "Envy, jealousy, hate! After the envy is over, I go home and think about how others have done it. After thinking about it for half a day, I couldn't figure it out. "Yuan Zihao has studied vocal music, his voice is quite magnetic, and he thinks that he has an advantage over many people as an anchor." He ultimately attributed each other's success to a combination of effort and chance, of which effort accounted for 80% and chance accounted for 20%.
Yuan Zihao stood in front of the "Net Red Bridge" in Zhu Village, north of Yiwu. In measurement
But Shah doesn't see it that way. She believes that there is some mysterious rule of the game in this industry. A fortuitous success is nothing more than a moment that happens to coincide with the elusive rule: "After a long time in this line, you will find that many things are contradictory." We live broadcast every day and review it every day, but we still can't find the rules. "There are always some rules that are clear. Traffic is the most important keyword of live e-commerce. Around traffic, platforms create their own rules of the game. Kesha told reporters that taking Douyin as an example, if the audience conversion rate of a live broadcast room reaches 4%, the residence time is more than 40 seconds, and the transaction rate reaches 10%, it is enough to reach the standard line delineated by the platform. At the beginning of the next live broadcast, the platform side will push a large wave of traffic. If it is reciprocating, if each push can be "picked up", a number will be "raised". But how to make the audience turn powder? How do you keep the audience coming? How do you get the audience to place an order? Behind the clear data is the set of mysterious and mysterious laws, which few people can understand. As a result, devoting oneself to the live broadcasting industry has become a gamble to some extent. Kesha believes that some live broadcast company owners are also gambling: in the early stage, a lot of money is invested in "raising the number", and when it is raised, it can be returned overnight; if it cannot be raised, it can only see the money drifting. "Raising the number, sometimes it depends on whether the boss dares to lose." A few hundred yuan of things for free, a penny for a ring, a dime for a mask. Even if the packaging cost is not counted, the cost of express delivery is more than ten yuan. Now some of the things we sell in the live broadcast room, the star live broadcast room sells for 199 yuan, and our live broadcast room is 99 yuan and 10 boxes. My current company, every month alone in the goods to lose more than 100,000 yuan. Kesha said. Many parallel universes, sharing a set of rules of the game. Unless it becomes the "head", or at least the "waist", the search for rules will continue endlessly.
In the north of Xiazhu Village, e-commerce live broadcast bases can be seen everywhere. In measurement
The dream is still the same, but still insist
Although the rules and regulations are still undeciphered, Kesha and Yuan Zihao still feel some changes. The influence and control of the head anchor is being eliminated, and some brands and manufacturers are regaining the dominance and discourse power. In Jiubao, more and more independent anchors choose to commit to brands or MCN institutions, from "walking broadcasting" to "store broadcasting"; in the north of Zhu, all kinds of "pretending to be crazy and selling stupid" sub-videos are becoming less and less popular, and anchors have begun to study scripts to shoot short dramas and do "drama numbers". Huang Yihang said: "In the live broadcast room, pretending to quarrel and bargain with each other, putting on two down jackets and running into the ice and snow to roll. The audience is tired of this way and is getting more and more unable to eat. "The standardization and healthy development of the industry is the trend of the times, and it is also the trend of the times that "walking broadcasting" has become "store broadcasting" and vulgar passages have become sketch short dramas. Live e-commerce has gradually entered the normal track. In 2021, the GMV (website turnover) of the major domestic live broadcasting e-commerce platforms reached 2.3 trillion yuan, surpassing the Taobao platform for the first time. As far as the current situation is concerned, the development momentum of live e-commerce is still strong. No matter which parallel universe they are in, no one wants to be thrown out of the industry. There are still people who come to the north of Zhu every day, and every day there are people who leave the north of Zhu. For those faces that suddenly appear and suddenly disappear, Yuan Zihao does not care: "In the eyes of everyone, only those who make money will not care about those who choose to quit." In view of this, he decided to continue to insist. The competition in the sinking market is equally fierce, but Yuan Zihao believes that as long as he can gain a firm foothold in the north of Zhu, his own opportunities will always come. One day, his live broadcast room can also have "exploded" products. In each live broadcast, Yuan Zihao sells cheap daily necessities. Like many young people in their early 20s, Yuan Zihao said that he himself had no interest in these products, but after each live broadcast, looking at the transaction data in the background, his sense of accomplishment became stronger. Speaking of this, Yuan Zihao smiled, "The environment has changed people!" "Kesha is a little confused. When she was a teacher in a technical school, her life of 7,000 yuan a month has gradually become a vague memory, and now her monthly income of tens of thousands of yuan belongs to the category of "not earning money" in her eyes. She said that after staying in the industry for a long time, she could no longer see the outside world: "There are only anchors who earn more than themselves and anchors who have become rich, and this temptation is so strong that there is nothing else in the brain except to make money." "Kesha is also going to insist. She doesn't want to be just a "bottom" forever, she also wants to try to figure out that set of "rules". For a live broadcast two days ago, Kesha was angry. In that live broadcast, she failed to "catch" the push stream of the platform side, and the original live broadcast room of more than 20,000 people online fell to less than 8,000 people; what also made her unwilling was the 3 accounts that were "wasted" last year. All kinds of reluctance has almost become a kind of obsession, and this obsession has also driven her to repeat it again and again in the live broadcast room: Sisters who have no attention, please click to pay attention.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Kong Lingjun Text Editor: Kong Lingjun Caption Source: Visual China Image Editor: Yong Kai
Source: Author: Yu Liang Gong Ping