I, day and night upside down, tried to bring goods, and became a cross-border anchor on TikTok

Reporter | Xu Shiqi

Edit | Wen Shuqi

TikTok has swept the world, and TikTok has surpassed Google to become the most visited Internet site in the world.

New forms of entertainment create new business opportunities. Represented by Luo Yonghao's entry into Douyin live broadcast with goods, the commercial exploration of Douyin in China is very mature. In China, the anchors of Tao and Jitter belt goods have built a solid ecology, and even have already begun to "roll inside". However, in foreign countries, another Anchor with Goods at the level of Li Jiaqi and Luo Yonghao has not yet been born.

This is a new opportunity. TikTok opened the live e-commerce capabilities of the United Kingdom and Indonesia in mid-2021, which has laid a shot in the arm for Chinese sellers who have already played cross-border e-commerce, and MCNs, domestic brands, and cross-border large sellers have poured in.

Although cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada also have live broadcast capabilities before, TikTok, which has entertainment and social attributes, is essentially different from them - TikTok's logic is fans, vertical, and deeply related to content.

Cross-border anchors are a fresh profession born in this wave of boom. Compared with Chinese anchors, the threshold for cross-border anchors is higher: to have both foreign languages and cargo capabilities, many live broadcasts are carried out late at night, and anchors have to adapt to the upside-down schedule of day and night.

During the Spring Festival, Interface News interviewed two Chinese girls who are cross-border anchors, from which we can get a glimpse of the working methods of cross-border anchors.

Here's what interface news has compiled:

Chole: Transformation in the midst of a wave of layoffs

I studied English as both undergraduate and graduate students, and I have been in the education industry since graduation. Last year, I was doing online education products in an Internet company, and after the release of "double reduction", I became a member of the wave of layoffs.

After being laid off, it was difficult to find a job, at that time, educational institutions basically did not recruit people, and I also met some adult English education institutions, but to be honest, the salary did not meet my requirements.

During that time, brushing the little red book, I would always recommend the content of "teaching and training the employment status of the unemployed", and one day I suddenly brushed someone who was doing the Anchor of the Goods in English. I never knew there was such work before, as if opening the door to a new world. I searched on the job search software and found that there are many companies in Shanghai that are recruiting English anchors, I went to meet two, successfully passed, and later joined an advertising company.

When I was interviewed, I was asked to audition, and I found that being an English anchor and I used to be a teacher also had something in common. For example, you must be fluent in English and keep talking. But after doing it for a while, you will find that being an anchor should be more "cheeky", the mouth should be sweet, and let the audience double-click to pay attention to send out a small red heart, so that the platform will recommend you.

I'm in a small team of 20 or so people, someone in charge of social platforms like Facebook, someone in charge of TikTok. TikTok is divided into short video content and live broadcast, and I am responsible for doing live streaming with goods.

We broadcast live to UK users, just during normal working hours in China, corresponding to late night to morning in the UK. This kind of time is actually not watching the live broadcast, so our data is not very good, so far for two months of broadcasting has not been opened. On average, only 5-6 people are online at the same time per live stream. Before doing this line, I hadn't even seen Li Jiaqi's live broadcast, but now in order to learn skills, I often go to see how domestic anchors do it.

Doing the broadcast is to serve Party A, and some of the ideas we think of ourselves cannot be used. For example, before I was selling electric screwdrivers, this category is not very flattering, I thought I could make a "decompression video" form, live broadcast screws full of a wooden board. But the idea was rejected by the customer, because the focus of the live broadcast was still to introduce the product features.

Before becoming an anchor, I also tried to interview for operation positions in cross-border e-commerce companies, but my ability did not meet the requirements. Now as an anchor, you can also learn some operational and customer communication skills. To a certain extent, being an anchor is to eat youth meals, learn more skills, and then transform is not difficult.

In the green screen live broadcast room, the pictures were provided by the interviewees.

Chen Xi: The life of day and night is also a little tired

I hate working nine-to-five and want to be free to spend my time. Before being a cross-border anchor, I ran 200 yuan a day of crew group announcements, also worked as an advertising model, and did Taobao anchors with goods, all very free.

Now I come to work as a cross-border anchor on a part-time basis, but I basically go every day. I think I have an advantage in doing this. I went to college in Canada, and later stayed in the local luxury shopping guide, and my English and sales skills are OK. People who may broadcast English are not as good as me, and people with good English are afraid of the camera.

My company is called Newme, the boss is all in TikTok, the company originally had to do accounts, last August began to do live streaming with goods, facing the United Kingdom. Now the company has more than a dozen anchors in various places. There are many broadcast products, including household items, plush toys, consumer electronics, clothing, etc., mainly to play cost-effective, selling cheaper than platforms such as Amazon.

Recently I broadcast a DIY mobile phone case, and there are many girls who like to do handicrafts in the live broadcast room. After a while of broadcasting, I already have a small fixed audience, one fan is the administrator, and she sometimes sends me private messages to recommend products for us to sell.

It may be related to the company's original operating experience, and I had a deal on the first live broadcast, and the turnover was 60 pounds. After proficiency, the turnover of a single live broadcast is now around 200 pounds, and the highest reaches 300 pounds. This is already a relatively ideal result in the industry.

However, the company's labor costs are also very high, and the anchor is calculated as an hourly wage, 200-500 yuan per hour, which is slightly higher than the price of domestic Chinese anchors. It is actually difficult to make money doing a live broadcast company in this way, but the boss's idea is to accumulate operational experience in China first, and then bring experience and people overseas to set up points.

In order to adapt to the high-frequency consumption time in the UK, that is, 8 to 12 pm, our working hours are also a bit "hades", which is 0 am to 6 am. My current routine is to leave work in the morning, go home and sleep until the afternoon, eat a meal at 7 or 8 p.m., and leave for work at 11 a.m. I haven't seen the sun in a long time and it feels like my temper and skin are getting worse. Sometimes I joke with my friends that I earn 1,000 at work and 8,000 in medical beauty.

Maybe I was originally a more "fighting" person, and I tried to get up at 4:30 in the morning when I was catching the announcement before. But occasionally I feel quite tired. Once, when I was bored on the morning and felt lonely on the way home, I called my mother, and she asked me, "Is it worth it for you to exchange your life for money like this?", and I was a little sad.

In fact, in addition to working freely, I pay more attention to the environment and atmosphere. The boss and colleagues in the company have no superiors and subordinates, and the atmosphere is very relaxed, I think I will continue to do it.