Where are the people in the circle of friends who want to make money now?

Taiyuan, January 9, 2016. Thousands of micro-merchants attended the annual meeting of a cosmetics company. / Visual China

Ten years of micro-business, some people are still up and down in it, and some people have withdrawn sadly.

In the past few years, everyone's circle of friends will inevitably have a few micro-merchants who "from opening their eyes to dark" and tirelessly promote products, their business covers everything, from snacks, clothing, cosmetics, to jewelry, medical beauty, as long as there are goods. On the one hand, this benefits from the low threshold of micro-businesses, which only need a mobile phone and franchise fees ranging from tens to thousands of yuan, and you can quickly become a member of micro-businesses.

Many housewives and students who aspire to financial independence have joined the micro-business family for this reason. On the other hand, as a business model originating from social platforms, micro-businesses have never had clear market norms, and merchants do not need to pay taxes and go through any procedures to start a business, which makes micro-businesses have a natural economic attractiveness.

However, in the past two years, micro-merchants have gradually been dusted, and emerging business models such as live streaming have had a big impact on them, and many micro-merchants have begun to be forced to repeatedly change their products, or even completely withdraw from this industry. "Go find a class", micro-merchants seem to be abandoned by the trend. Ten years of micro-business, some people are still up and down in it, and some people have withdrawn sadly.

Micro-business fever

In 2022, the news that TST was identified as a pyramid scheme made Zhang Ting and his wife's "micro-business empire" collapse with a bang, and also brought micro-commerce back into the public's field of vision again. This is not an isolated case, Brother Liu, who has been in this industry for ten years, admits that micro-business is a mixed industry, but he does not recognize Zhang Ting's identity as the "originator of micro-business". TST entered the mainland in 2014 with a micro-business system, but as early as shortly after the launch of WeChat, Liu Ge sold goods on WeChat.

Source: Figureworm Creative

Brother Liu originally worked in engineering and had a good income, but his wife did not like him to engage in this industry, and he had to travel all year round to do engineering, and the husband and wife got together less and separated more. After getting married in 2012, Liu Ge resigned and returned to his hometown of Panyu, Guangdong, when his friend happened to start a diamond business in Jewelry City, so he pulled him into the industry. At the beginning, Brother Liu couldn't find a sales channel, and he didn't know where to find customers, and it was very difficult to open a single order.

At that time, Brother Liu's wife was doing online consulting in a medical beauty institution and had some sensitivity to the Internet, so she said to Brother Liu: "Now many people use Weibo, you go to Weibo to try to attract customers." Brother Liu didn't have much hope at first, just symbolically posted Weibo and searched for relevant comments, but he didn't expect to receive information about the product soon and added hundreds of friends.

At that time, there was no concept of micro-business, Brother Liu clearly remembered that his first customer was a Beijinger, placed an order for a 50-gram diamond on WeChat, and directly transferred the money without asking anything, Brother Liu thought in his heart "This person is really bold", while honestly packing goods, couldn't help but be happy, and felt that "this business has to be done". In Liu Ge's view, part of his success is due to Panyu's jewelry city.

It is a similar existence to a jewelry wholesale market, because it is a first-hand source, so the price is lower than the market. In the first three years of his work as a micro-businessman, Liu Ge played the role of "intermediary", and when customers sent demand, he went to the jewelry city to customize the goods, and then sold them at an appropriate markup. For a while, almost all the people in a town health center became Brother Liu's customers. Initially, a doctor approached him to buy a pair of gold bracelets.

"At that time, the gold price was more than 200 yuan, and I only added 5 yuan per gram to sell it to her, and later she did a local test to prove that the bracelet I sold her was full of gold, and also made a certificate. Because I sold it for a lot less than the market, many of her colleagues came to add me. In this "word-of-mouth" story, Brother Liu deeply felt the weight of integrity.

Of course, micro-merchants like Brother Liu who take a first-hand source of goods only account for a small part of the huge micro-business group. From 2015 to 2018, micro-business entered the "heyday", and the "2016-2020 China Micro-business Industry Panorama Research and Development Strategy Research Report" released by the Micro-business Special Committee of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce shows that by the end of 2016, the number of micro-business practitioners has reached nearly 30 million.

Source: Figureworm Creative

But at that time, micro-merchants who "sold pictures" occupied half of the country. Fang Fang is a typical "picture seller" person, in 2016, Fang Fang just went to college, she was attracted by the snack advertisements that often appeared in the circle of friends, she bought it twice, and the taste was good. Later, Fang Fang saw that the sister who sold snacks sent out a message to recruit agents, and did not need to stock up, only need to pay a franchise fee of more than sixty yuan, and you can send it one by one.

Fang Fang almost did not hesitate, so he transferred the money, "Even if you can't sell it, you can get snacks at the agency price without loss." At first, Fang Fang sold to his classmates and friends, and later after learning to drain traffic, he added a lot of strangers' WeChat. "It is true that you can earn some pocket money, but the profit margin of this agency micro-business is very low, and a snack can earn two or three yuan."

money, so it is actually quite difficult to achieve economic independence on this.

The agents I have come into contact with are basically students and mothers, after all, this input cost is very small, if you want to make a lot of money, you still have to find your own source or do purchasing, the investment is very large. Fang Fang said. In the years when micro-business grew wildly, it built a beautiful vision of "everyone can become a product manager", and also made some people immerse themselves in the daydream of starting from scratch.

"The bond between micro-merchants and customers is fragile"

So far, micro-merchants have mainly formed five business models, in addition to micro-merchants who master first-hand sources, purchasing and "selling pictures", there are also "cutting leeks" micro-businesses and micro-business divisions attached to enterprises. "Zhang Ting is a typical case of 'cutting leeks'," Liu Ge said, "They just make money by 'harvesting people's heads', they don't care about the quality of the product, or even whether there is a product, what they care about is 'I developed another head'."

"This type of micro-business has two obvious characteristics, one is that they have strict ranks, relying on stockpiling goods or "pulling people's heads" to achieve promotion; The second is that the proportion of products in their circle of friends is very small, and screenshots of product feedback, transfer screenshots and pictures and texts showing off wealth are the main content. According to Liu Ge's recollection, at that time, there was even a software development company that designed a "collection artifact" specifically for the micro-business group, as long as the amount was entered, the transfer screenshot could be directly generated.

Source: Figureworm Creative

In contrast, micro-businesses that are attached to enterprises are much more reliable. As early as 2014, the beauty brand Hanshu established a micro-business business department and developed two micro-business products, within a few months, Hanshu's agents exceeded 30,000 people, and the business unit once created the myth of "100 million in 40 days". Although there are different branches internally, it is difficult to make a specific distinction between the impression of micro-merchants from the outside world, which leads to the inevitable problem of group credit overdraft.

In the past ten years of practice, Brother Liu has personally seen too many people who make quick money. "Before it was very popular to recharge consumption, such as the original price of a dress is 100 yuan, you charge 10,000 yuan in WeChat business, then you can buy this dress for 50 yuan. But this method is actually very risky, there are many micro-merchants who are second-tier traffickers, maybe he doesn't want to do it halfway, and runs away directly.

At that time, there was an illegal industry, specializing in selling ID cards, telephone cards, bank cards, and some WeChat real-name authentication was not even themselves, and you couldn't find him if you complained. "There are many more scams like this. In the past few years of the epidemic, many daigou have fallen, and live streaming has also had an impact on micro-businesses, in Fang Fang's words, this impact is "fatal".

"In the past, many people chose to buy things from micro-merchants because the price of micro-merchants was attractive, and now there are live broadcast goods everywhere, in fact, the price of products is more transparent, many of them are factory direct sales, and the price advantage of micro-merchants is lost." In the past two years, the control of micro-businesses has also become stricter, Fang Fang's circle of friends is often limited, more importantly, "video live broadcast is always more attractive than graphics and text, the flow of live streaming goods is far greater than that of the circle of friends", so many micro-business friends Fang knows have switched to live broadcast goods, as for Fang Fang himself, he completely abandoned this line in 2021.

In Brother Liu's circle of friends, some peers began to disappear. Brother Liu knows a post-90s girl who started micro-business in 2015, and in previous years, the business was very good, and she often exchanged experience with Brother Liu in private. Two years ago, she suddenly told Brother Liu that she planned to give up doing micro-business, because she really couldn't make money, and she only had a few hundred yuan a month, so it was difficult to maintain her life. "She may have had a problem with the after-sales service, and the WeChat account was complained by some people, so later whenever someone transferred money to her, there would be a risk warning."

You need to know that the bond between micro-merchants and customers is very fragile, as long as the risk warning pops up, most people will choose to terminate the transaction. Brother Liu said. Frequent product replacement is also a signal that micro-commerce is about to disappear, Brother Liu has a friend who has known each other for four years, at first he sold toiletries, then he sold face masks, and in 2020 he began to sell protective products such as masks, and now there is no news. The decline of micro-businesses is not only due to the lack of market norms or the impact of the external environment, the threshold is as low as dust and a group of people who ignore the rules are also corroding the industry.

April 21, 2018, Shanghai. Negotiators participate in a micro-business expo. / Visual China

Behind the sale

The full-time and long-term micro-businessmen around Brother Liu have almost no high education. Of course, academic qualifications have nothing to do with a person's character, but it largely affects a person's cognitive level and ability to judge. After four years as a micro-businessman, Liu Ge opened his own factory - which can customize and mass-produce jewelry and set up a sales team. After that, after receiving the order, Brother Liu did not need to rush to the jewelry city to find merchants to customize, and his main task became to find cost-effective raw materials.

Brother Liu has never hired agents, he feels that the layers of grading are very troublesome, and all the sales staff of the company sell at the same price. In 2018, Brother Liu opened a Taobao store to broaden sales channels, but not long after business, he met a professional counterfeiter, who took the initiative to ask if he could customize a batch of Cartier high-imitation rings, and then applied for a refund and fake one compensation ten after receiving the goods.

"Although the other party is fishing, Taobao's position is that it is strictly forbidden to sell counterfeits, and what we sell is indeed a high imitation, and we can only be punished." Brother Liu said. Later, Taobao stores opened several orders one after another, but there was not much improvement, coupled with the experience of being counterfeited, Liu Ge had a mustard, he simply closed the store, and the sales of micro-commerce and exhibitions at that time were enough to support the operation of the factory. One of the things that Brother Liu minds more is that as a micro-businessman, he was deceived by customers.

It was 2019, "I had a lot of money in my pocket, I was looking for good sources everywhere, and I wanted to run to the mine to buy a diamond, but my professional level was not reached." At that time, one of Liu's customers told him that his brother had a good batch of goods in India. This "younger brother" also specially returned to China and met with Brother Liu with samples, so Brother Liu was completely unsuspected, and remitted a direct payment of $200,000 according to the other party's request, but finally received a bunch of glass ballast.

"But at that time, I didn't think it caused much difficulty, at that time, the micro-business outlet was still very large, and making money was still a very simple thing." The real difficulties came in 2021, because the epidemic kept repeating, factories were shut down for a long time, and customers' spending power was much lower than before. Because of the arrears of wages, the factory's 26 workers applied for labor arbitration together, and with the previous loan, Liu Ge began to go into debt.

Source: Figureworm Creative

"At this point, I don't have a bad attitude or feel aggrieved, other people feel that they are owed wages and want to compensate, this is a natural thing, some time ago I ran Didi for two months, and I can also make some money to pay off debts."

Brother Liu has also seen some businessmen who do business abroad, in recent years, going abroad to participate in exhibitions and open overseas markets is a good choice, but Brother Liu has not been abroad, the farthest place he has been to is Hong Kong, he said a little self-deprecating: "I don't have that strength, half-hangers like us just can't go up and down."

They need to have physical companies for capital verification, e-commerce platforms are also warehousing, and they need to have a large number of goods over there, and it is simply untenable like ours without formal business experience. "Micro-merchants who are still active and have good performance have some commonalities - either they have their own real industry or they work as a team.

Brother Liu's factory is currently out of operation, but there is still a sales team of ten people, "the strength of one person is too small, especially now that the traffic of WeChat is already small, and it is easy to die if one person does it." In the past ten years as a micro-businessman, Brother Liu missed 2015 the most, when his income stabilized, but there was no factory and no team, and later he gained more and needed to bear more responsibilities.

He once stood on the vent and took off, and regretted that he did not have the ability to create the vent. "My mode of operation is micro-business, but I have never asked myself as a micro-businessman, I consider myself a businessman." Brother Liu said.