Spring Festival, rain and snow, as one of the "most brutal cities for overtime", Hangzhou, finally slowed down, the subway in the west of the city is no longer crowded, the lights in the east of the city are no longer bright, or go home, or stay behind, people have entered the holiday leisure rhythm.
In this city with developed e-commerce, many entrepreneurial myths have been born and many ups and downs have been witnessed. After the head anchor Wei Ya and Qian Xun e-commerce were punished for tax problems, what kind of changes have taken place in the world where the anchors under the head have survived so far?
Spring Festival without rest
"I finished my nucleic acid yesterday and I can go home tomorrow." Taobao anchor Dan Dan's joy overflowed into words.
Dan Dan works in a Taobao shop that mainly sells down jackets, according to her, she usually has two shifts on weekdays, 12:00 ~ 18:00, and then 18:00 ~ 24:00, but if there are big events such as Double Eleven and June 18, she often has to work overtime until the early morning.
Dan Dan told reporters, "In fact, there were many activities during the New Year, but due to the epidemic, many companies in our park have suspended the live broadcast arrangement, and the holiday time has been advanced by several days." ”
Dan Dan's company is located in a building in the Xinhe Lianchuang Digital Fashion Industrial Park (hereinafter referred to as Xinhe Lianchuang), which is located in Jiubao, which is known as the "Universe Center" of e-commerce live broadcasting. Within three kilometers of xinhe lianchuang, there are a large number of anchors, institutions, supply chains and live broadcast bases in the Taobao live broadcasting industry.
The reporter came to Xinhe Lianchuang on January 29, compared with usual, the park at the end of the year is deserted, the interior is mainly composed of office buildings and commercial areas, most of the offices of the office buildings have locked the doors, empty, only a small part is still open. The reporter noted that in front of almost all companies, there are advertisements related to anchor recruitment, including roll-up treasures, paper advertisements, etc.
But not all anchors are like Dan Dan, who can go home for the New Year, and not all manufacturers have chosen to rest.
"Many anchors have gone home for the New Year, and now the prices of anchors who are willing to broadcast are very high, and one has risen four times to five times." Dan Dan said.
In addition, many supply chain companies also said that this year's Spring Festival will not close.
In a form obtained by the reporter from the Xinhe Lianchuang Industry Exchange Group, there are manufacturers of women's clothing, daily necessities and other products, which will still be supplied normally during the Spring Festival, and some stores said that they can carry goods through their own MCN agencies. There are still anchors and manufacturers in the group who are releasing demand information and arranging work in the next year.
From "proud" to "admonished"
Jiubao is located in the earliest garment industry belt in Hangzhou, adjacent to Hangzhou Qiaosi, Xiasha and Jiaxing Haining have many garment factories, and the Four Seasons Green Garment Wholesale Market is one of the most influential garment wholesale and circulation markets in China. From upstream to downstream, the perfect supply chain gives this live broadcast base a unique advantage. Including Wei Ya and Qian xun, Zhang Dayi and Ru Han, including the head anchors and institutions have left footprints here, in 2017, Wei Ya sold 70 million yuan of products for a fur shop in Haining for five hours, and became famous in the First World War, so Xinhe Lianchuang also has the name of "Wei Ya's mother's family".
Gu Zhenjie, investment director of Xinhe Lianchuang Industrial Park, said that 2016 was known as the first year of live video broadcasting, and in that year, a number of garment companies successively entered the park. Since then, some garment processing factories have gradually developed their own brands and actively developed online sales channels. People, goods, fields, this ecology is very stable in Xinhe Lianchuang, the atmosphere of live e-commerce is very good, and now there is basically no empty position.
Huang Wei (Wei Ya's real name) also moved her family to Hangzhou in 2016, renting an office of tens of square meters in the park, opening a live broadcast myth called Wei Ya. In just three months, the office production area has expanded to hundreds of square meters, and sales have exceeded 100 million yuan early. After three years, Qianxun's live broadcast sample needs to be installed in a two-story warehouse, the area is expected to be 10,000 square meters, and the new Helianchuang Park has been "unable to help". So in October 2019, Wei Ya and Qian Xun left here and went to Alibaba's Binjiang Park in Hangzhou, with a ten-story building with an area of 33,000 square meters. In just a few years, Wei Ya has become a "sister" in the field of live e-commerce.
However, in the process of running wildly, the problem of live e-commerce has gradually been exposed. On December 20, 2021, the tax department of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, handled Huang Wei's tax evasion case in accordance with the law. After investigation, Huang Wei evaded taxes of 643 million yuan and other underpaid taxes by concealing personal income, fictitious business conversion income and false declarations, and other underpaid taxes by 0.6 billion yuan between 2019 and 2020. According to the relevant laws, Huang Wei was charged taxes, late fees and fines, totaling 1.341 billion yuan. After that, Via's social media accounts and live broadcast rooms were also shut down.
Previously, Sydney, another head anchor of Taobao, was also punished for tax issues.
All the manufacturers and anchors in the park are paying attention to the incident report for the first time. The person in charge of an MCN agency in Hangzhou stressed to reporters that the income of the anchor is composed of a basic salary + commission, generally after a few months of entry, the monthly salary can break 10,000 yuan, if the performance of the goods is outstanding, it may exceed 30,000 yuan, and the personal income tax is usually paid by the company, and it will generally not evade taxes.
Dan Dan also said that after the Via incident, as a small anchor, his income has not been affected a lot.
In the era of barbaric growth, where is the benchmark of the industry, for these entrepreneurs of xinhe lianchuang, the answer is self-evident; now, the era of standardized development is coming, and the future has to rely on themselves to explore.
A new ecology is taking shape
A whale falls, and everything lives. When a whale dies in the ocean, its carcass eventually sinks to the bottom of the ocean, feeding a system of decomposers for a hundred years.
The relevant person in charge of the tax department pointed out in response to the Weiya incident that in the process of rapid development of the platform economy, the tax violations of some network anchors have disrupted the order of tax collection and management and undermined the market environment of fair competition. The tax department investigates and deals with the tax violations of relevant network anchors in accordance with laws and regulations, which is conducive to the long-term standardized and healthy development of the platform economy.
In the jianghu of e-commerce anchors, the stronger the stronger, the weaker the weaker, and the Matthew effect is obvious. The head anchor sucked away most of the traffic, attention and manufacturers, sales continued to hit new highs, and the right to speak in the face of manufacturers was also constantly improving; while manufacturers and small and medium-sized anchors were gradually tired, and the industry's dividends could fall on them less and less.
Mo Daiqing, director of the online retail department and senior analyst of the e-commerce research center of the network economic and social society, said that the monopoly of the head anchor is not conducive to the development of the industry. Behind the head live broadcast reflects a huge resource concentration effect, and the space available to small and medium-sized anchors and long-tail anchors is compressed.
On the other hand, this is also not good for the merchant, in order to be able to enter the live broadcast room of the head anchor, the merchant is bound to make concessions in price, and even bear a certain loss. This is not necessarily healthy for the business ecosystem.
Although the head anchor "broadcasts", the market cultivation has been completed, and the sky-high price and the huge audience will naturally find new places.
Mo Daiqing believes that this event will make the head anchor effect be dispersed, the industry ushered in a wave of reshuffle, and other anchors, MCN institutions, brands, merchants, etc. ushered in more opportunities.
The above-mentioned MCN person in charge said, "Before, we rarely adjusted the offer of anchors, but after the Via incident, many anchors asked to raise the contract quotation." However, in terms of the effect of bringing goods and turnover, there is no significant improvement. ”
At the same time, the platform has also gained the opportunity to reconstruct the traffic ecology to improve the situation that GMV relies on super anchors.
According to media reports, the fees such as pits and commissions charged by super anchors to brands generally account for more than 30% of the final turnover, which is much higher than the sales expense rate of most retail channels, while the monetization rate of traditional comprehensive shelf-type e-commerce platforms is generally only between 3% and 5%. This part of the sales budget is usually used to purchase traffic in the station before the emergence of live e-commerce formats.
New players are also stirring up this jianghu, Douyin, Kuaishou, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu and other platforms have live e-commerce business, Tencent WeChat video number has also joined the battle, which means that the industry's demand for high-quality anchors will be more intense.
Rather than seeing new head anchors emerge, platforms and manufacturers may want to see a hundred flowers bloom. The 2022 annual incentive plan released by Taobao Live shows that for the middle waist and new talents, new cash incentives are added. After the new anchors meet certain requirements, they will receive a one-time cash incentive issued by the platform; for MCN institutions, institutions with high number and quality of new anchors introduced each year can also superimpose the annual box incentives.
When asked if she knew about the matter, Dan Dan said she did not know, but she felt that live e-commerce still had a chance. "After the Spring Festival continues to come, Hangzhou is close to Ali after all, although the competition is large, but there are many opportunities, Douyin, Kuaishou are recruiting before, our store has to jump ship to do Douyin, and the monthly salary will soon double."