With the development of the Internet age, live streaming has become commonplace. However, the message delivered through live streaming has undergone several transformations.
Initially, live streaming was seen as a way to socialize, a 100-billion-level development opportunity, and an infinite imagination space for new platforms. Subsequently, it became an indispensable tool for Internet platforms, making it easy for anyone to live stream.
Nowadays, live broadcast and e-commerce are closely integrated, and under the promotion of live broadcast e-commerce, live broadcast has completed the comprehensive integration of e-commerce. Nowadays, when it comes to live broadcasting, if there is no clear explanation, it will almost default to the meaning of live broadcast e-commerce. This word, which has once again become a hot topic, has sparked a thousand-broadcast war between Internet giants.
New platforms enter the market, while old platforms are actively changing. However, even in 2023, some old problems remain, while new challenges and problems have emerged......
All platforms do everything
Back in 2018, when people talked about Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, as well as Taobao, JD.com, and even Xiaohongshu, they would be regarded as completely unique Internet products.
Today, these platforms still maintain their own characteristics, but collectively they are called e-commerce platforms. Nowadays, internet users only need to open any of the above platforms to satisfy their shopping needs. As a synthesis of "content + e-commerce", live e-commerce has broken the boundaries between content platforms and e-commerce platforms. In this creative field, content platforms have taken a step towards e-commerce, while e-commerce platforms have evolved towards content. They become unexpected competitors to each other. In the past few years, short videos have become an important traffic portal in addition to social tools such as WeChat. Kuaishou and Douyin have risen one after another, and the annual transaction volume within the platform has exceeded one trillion yuan. Live streaming e-commerce has become one of the important revenue pillars of short video platforms.
In 2023, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu, which have about 100 million daily active users, also joined the competition. They provide traffic to representative creators on the platform, making them stars with goods. Content platforms are inherently advantageous in traffic, and top creators are also easy to win the favor of users. The participation of these two communities has paid off in no small way. According to reports, the GMV of Xiaohongshu's live broadcast room during the Double 11 period increased by 4.2 times compared with last year, and the number of participating merchants increased by 4.1 times. According to the data released at the AD TALK conference in 2024, the GMV of merchants bringing goods at station B has increased by 260% year-on-year.
However, e-commerce platforms still lack an ecosystem to build their own content IP. During the period of creating dividends, Taobao cultivated anchors such as Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi through traffic advantages and operational means. But subsequently, Wei Ya was banned, which shows that it is difficult to create a unique new content IP only by relying on the support and traffic incentives of the platform.
As a result, platforms such as Taobao and JD.com have begun to leverage their strength. In 2023, Taobao invited many already well-known content creators to participate in the live broadcast and cooperated with TVB to create an exclusive live broadcast room. At the same time, they also invited IPs with huge commercial influence, such as Messi and Ronaldo, to settle in and create a lot of topical content.
Whether it's content or e-commerce platforms, the key to communication is to create interesting content to attract users to watch and retain consumers through product features. Shelf e-commerce has begun to create content, and content platforms are also penetrating into the field of shelf e-commerce. For Douyin e-commerce, the construction of shelves stems from the shopping needs of some users who do not like to watch live broadcasts, which can also bring growth to the entire platform. However, this is not good news for traditional e-commerce platforms.
Back at the end of 2020, Alibaba, which had reached its peak in market capitalization, may not have imagined that the live-streaming e-commerce business it founded would become the fuse for Chinese internet platforms to enter the e-commerce field. Almost all platforms have become direct competitors to traditional e-commerce platforms, and complex relationships have been formed between Internet companies. Those non-Pinduoduo's established e-commerce platforms have also lost the trust of shareholders due to the decline in innovation capabilities, and their stock prices have fallen all the way.
The industry is undergoing drastic changes, but there are still some constants.
Big players, old rules
In the trend of live broadcast e-commerce, there is a constant controversy about "super anchors". Initially, people only needed a camera-oriented seller. However, with the development of live broadcast rooms and the Internet, sales have been amplified and have become the dominant force in live broadcast rooms.
In 2019, public opinion continued to question that "merchants have been suffering from big anchors for a long time", but in 2021, industry trends show that big anchors are still important and indispensable. Taobao needs to rely on "Internet celebrities" and "celebrities" to deepen content, JD.com needs to rely on "Luo Yonghao" to take the lead in the transformation of live broadcast e-commerce, and Douyin Kuaishou continues to launch various new IPs.
When competing among platforms, there are multiple factors such as "price", "service", "logistics and fulfillment capabilities", and "payment system". However, with the development of the industry as a whole, these differences are gradually "smoothed" or narrowed. In the end, the strengths and uniqueness of human beings become an existence that cannot be weakened.
Super streamers continue to play an important role as representatives of the big players. Whether it is the fanatical Crazy Brother Yang and his business matrix, or Dongfang Xuan and Dong Yuhui with a unique brand identity, or Zhang Xiaohui and Dong Jie, who pursue elegance and intellectuality, big players play a dazzling role in business. When big players try to mask their MCN attributes with supply chain brands, the industry doesn't accept it. Oriental Selection can decide what kind of company you want to become, but how the investing consumers perceive Oriental Selection is another matter. This contradiction of interests and the choice of the company's overall strategy were resolved after Yu Minhong's intervention.
The live broadcast room has infinitely amplified Li Jiaqi's favorite side, but the promotion of public opinion has pushed it to the other side of the audience. A similar situation also happened to Dongfang Selection and Dong Yuhui, Dong Yuhui's golden sentences have helped Dongfang Selection enhance its brand value many times, but remarks such as "grain cheapness hurts farmers" have also caused brand crises.
In 2023, super streamers and MCNs will still not be able to break through the existing benefit distribution rules. The value that institutional brands can bring still seems to be limited.
Consumers, merchants, big anchors, MCNs and platforms have built a complex and dynamically balanced network of interests. One side goes further, and the other side takes a step back. But what remains unchanged is that the total amount of business value is limited. In the current era, super streamers still occupy their due share of value, and will not be diminished by the role of "middleman" or the will of "company".
Some seemingly irrational business distribution methods are often gradually adjusted after problems erupt.
New opportunities are brewing in the old times
According to the data displayed in the "Dianshubao" e-commerce big database, the scale of live broadcast e-commerce transactions in the first half of the year was about 1,991.6 billion yuan, and the annual transaction scale is expected to reach 4,565.7 billion yuan. Compared with 2022, the transaction size will reach 3.5 trillion yuan, an increase of about 30%, although it is still relatively strong, but the growth rate is relatively slow.
Like other industries that were once in the limelight, live streaming e-commerce is also looking for new opportunities. And for things that may become the outlet of 2024, there are already many pioneers emerging in 2023.
The first is the development of overseas markets. TikTok's presence has provided a whole new market space for Chinese companies. While TikTok has seen some growth in Southeast Asia and the UK, these two markets are not the first choice for Chinese companies. Chinese companies face competition in Southeast Asia with low unit prices and low labor costs, while the UK market is sparsely populated, has a limited market, and is very different from China in terms of employment relationships.
TikTok has been looking forward to entering the U.S. market, which has a population of 300 million and strong spending power. After testing the waters of Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom, it can be said to be preparing for the opening of the American market. In September this year, TikTok officially announced the launch of TikTok Shop, an e-commerce service in the United States. Some MCN companies with mature experience in China are also targeting overseas markets. For example, Brother Xiao Yang and the three sheep network behind him have made certain achievements in Southeast Asia, and well-known domestic MCN companies such as Wuwu Media and Yuanwang Technology have also explored overseas live broadcasts. According to iiMedia Research, China's cross-border e-commerce exports are expected to reach nearly 3 trillion yuan this year.
The second is the application of AI digital humans. AI is the outlet of the entire industry in 2023, and it has also been combined with different industries. In the field of live broadcasting, the combination of digital humans and AI has been further invested in businesses such as live streaming e-commerce and local life. By investing in a large number of digital humans, you can get certain benefits in the recruitment business and local life business. A digital human can also become a digital doppelganger of a well-known creator, and if the real body of a digital human has enough commercial value and influence, then as long as the digital identity is realistic enough, it can also exert considerable influence. In the field of live broadcast e-commerce, AI digital humans may be able to liberate the time and body of super anchors and further amplify the value of super anchors.
Finally, there is the emergence of new platforms and new IPs. The upgrading of content is far from over, and in different forms of expression, new creators can still emerge. The new content of live e-commerce can sometimes just be a reproduction of content that has already gained popularity in short videos, just like Xiao Yang's short video style is transferred directly to the live broadcast room. New forms of content will create new IPs, giving birth to new giants and new companies. Content creation seems to be more imaginative than ever. As predicted in the book "Live Wars: 2020", large companies will not rest on their laurels, and they will want to start from their core and extend their business to other companies' domains, and even to other content categories.
The competition in the live broadcast e-commerce industry is still escalating, and new battlefields have been opened. However, in all the imagination of "live broadcast", the live broadcast room itself seems to have become pale and weak.