The truth behind the "retirement" of head anchors such as Brother Xiao Yang: it is difficult to balance the contradiction between price and quality, which is intensifying the industry reshuffle
The news that Xiao Yang, Simba and other head anchors faded out of the live broadcast has not cooled down, and on April 3, the news of Xiao Yang's withdrawal from the joint venture with the United States was on the hot search again. The upstream news (report mailbox: [email protected]) reporter noticed that in the past period of time, with the frequent occurrence of live broadcast overturning, more and more head anchors have announced their withdrawal from live broadcasting. Some practitioners said that there is a contradiction between price, quality, and trust in the logic of e-commerce, and the anchor with goods cannot endorse the quality of the product, coupled with the great influence of the head anchor, the repeated rollover phenomenon has been infinitely amplified by the Internet, and it has also leveraged the leverage of the reshuffle of the live broadcast industry.
Regarding the future development trend of live streaming, Hong Yong, an expert from the think tank of the 50-person forum on the integration of data and reality in China, said that in the future, live streaming may tend to be a more professional, standardized and high-quality development path, which not only depends on the maturity of policy guidelines and industry norms, but also requires anchors to improve their professional quality and credibility, platforms to enhance regulatory efficiency, and merchants to improve product research and development and service quality.
Brother Xiao Yang said that in 2024, live streaming will be reduced. Image source/Crazy Brother Yang's live broadcast room
The head anchor "retired" to bring goods
Brother Xiao Yang and Simba have announced the suspension of live broadcasts, less than 10 days apart.
At the beginning of March this year, Brother Xiao Yang said in the live broadcast that there will be more entertainment live broadcasts in 2024, and the number of live broadcasts will be reduced. At the same time, he said that if there is a special event, consider directly handing over the account of his more than 100 million fans to the apprentice. In the first live broadcast with goods after the official announcement, Brother Xiao Yang did not use his personal account to broadcast live, but appeared in the apprentice's live broadcast room as an assistant. According to Douyin data, in February this year, Xiao Yang's personal account fell out of the top 20 on the list of goods.
After "falling out of the top 20 for the first time" and "appearing in the apprentice's live broadcast room" and other hot search topics that continued to be on the list, Brother Xiao Yang responded in the video that he would try to minimize the frequency of appearing in front of the screen, and his positioning of his identity is more inclined to be an entrepreneur than an Internet celebrity, and he will gradually shift from the front of the stage to the back of the scenes in the future.
Not only Brother Xiao Yang, but also Kuaishou's head anchor Simba also revealed in the live broadcast in mid-March that he would suspend the live broadcast, precipitate for two years, go out to learn artificial intelligence, and choose a new track to start again after two years. At the same time, he also said that there is nothing to excite in the current live streaming industry.
Upstream news reporters combed through the live broadcast development trajectory and relevant information of the two and found that in fact, the "retirement" of the two had been foreshadowed. According to official data, using the dividends brought by live broadcast traffic, Brother Xiaoyang's Three Sheep (Hefei) Holding Group Co., Ltd. has achieved a revenue of more than 10 billion yuan in 2022, paid taxes of 250 million yuan, and has more than 1,000 direct employees.
Xinxuan Group, a subsidiary of Simba, has also become a top MCN company in the anchor delivery industry, with a total merchandise transaction volume of more than 50 billion yuan in 2023 and a total sales volume of more than 200 billion yuan in five years. Under the enterprise operation, Brother Xiao Yang and Simba have begun to support their anchors since 2023 and further divert their own traffic, of which Simba has more than 95 million fans in the team.
On the other hand, the aura of the head anchor also made the two of them tired. Brother Xiao Yang once said in the live broadcast that his identity as an "Internet celebrity" has affected his life, and he can be on the hot search if he goes to the kindergarten to hold a parent-teacher meeting. Not only Brother Xiao Yang and Simba, upstream news reporters noticed that after experiencing events such as "Dong Yuhui suddenly emptied his personal Weibo", Dong Yuhui, who came out of the circle with his rich knowledge reserves and expression skills, also shifted his focus from live broadcast to interview programs. In addition, some celebrity anchors who rely on popularity to dominate the list have also reduced the frequency of live broadcasts and faded out of the rivers and lakes. There is an obvious trend of de-heading live streaming.
After a live broadcast with goods in October 2023, Simba's Douyin account was banned. Image source/Southern Metropolis Daily
It's hard to balance price, trust, and quality
At the past "3.15" party, the report of the use of trough meat in the prefabricated plum vegetable button meat attracted attention. Some netizens noticed that after the company was exposed, head anchors such as Dongfang Selection and Brother Xiao Yang had brought this plum vegetable button meat. Even if it is not a manufacturer, the bad word-of-mouth reviews brought by the rollover incident of the anchor with goods are obviously more lethal.
Why are more and more top anchors caught up in the turmoil of overturning with goods? A number of live streaming practitioners told upstream news reporters that the main reason is the contradiction between price, quality and trust. Upstream news reporters combed through the live broadcast information of many top anchors and found that "the bottom price of the whole network", "price protection" and "exclusive price" have become the standard configuration for top anchors to attract popularity. With the "siphon effect" brought by traffic, the head anchor has more say in front of the business, but the problems caused by low-price drainage have caused several losses.
According to media reports, in October 2023, Simba sold a mattress with an original price of 20,000 yuan in the live broadcast room at a price lower than 5,000 yuan, and also gave away a five-zone black gold mattress and a golden sister-in-law wok. In the live video, Simba once said, "(Mattress) 4980 yuan, if you find any channel lower than this price, you can just return it, there is no need to have any risk". Simba said that the two-hour live broadcast brought 1 billion yuan in sales to the company. According to a rough estimate by relevant media, Simba's live broadcast room can sell nearly 28 mattresses per second. However, after the order exploded, due to the protest of offline dealers, the company overdrafted the brand effect due to public opinion, and could only remove online related products. On November 2 of the same year, Simba's account was also banned for violating the relevant provisions of the "Douyin Community Self-Discipline Convention".
In addition, according to the "Analysis Report on Public Opinion on the Protection of Rights of Live Streaming Consumers (2023)" released on March 14, the public opinion on the rights protection of live streaming consumers in 2023 mainly reflects eight issues, including false publicity, product quality, misleading prices, uncivilized delivery, delivery problems, returns and exchanges, sales of prohibited goods, and inducement of over-the-counter transactions. False advertising has risen to become the primary problem of live streaming. Only Li Jiaqi and "Crazy Brother Yang" accounted for seventy percent of the public opinion on live streaming consumption and rights protection. More than eighty percent of the problems related to false publicity, product quality problems, and price misleading problems of head anchors are related. Among the 17 head anchors named, Xiao Yang's false publicity, uncivilized delivery, and return and exchange problems are more prominent, while Simba's uncivilized delivery and delivery problems are more obvious. According to statistics, there are tens of thousands of complaints about the products brought by the head anchors.
"Seeing that my favorite product is sold in the live broadcast room of the head anchor with a number of often 100,000+, it must be an order in seconds, who would have thought that the live broadcast room of the head anchor also has problems. Miss Guo, who lives in Shanghai, is a fan of a head anchor, and as long as there is a live broadcast, she always has to place a single or two products, until she finds that the products sold by the trusted anchor do not meet the national standards, she said: "I really don't know who else can I trust with live broadcasts?"
In response to this phenomenon, a number of industry practitioners admitted to upstream news reporters that consumers use orders to help trusted anchors get on the list, and anchors mostly rely on price to attract traffic in order to increase sales. After paying a high pit fee, merchants want to make a profit in the price of "fractures", so they can only save costs from quality. On the other hand, consumers look at the price when shopping online, and in order to meet the psychology of consumers looking for "cost performance", many head anchors will also intersperse ultra-low-priced goods in the live broadcast to stabilize traffic, and such products are often the most easy to overturn products. In addition, the anchor's inability to endorse the quality of the product is also a contradiction. "There are very few streamers who can balance price, trust and quality. A number of practitioners said.
This statement has also been recognized by Zhang Xiaorong, president of the Deep Science and Technology Research Institute. He said that the increasingly strict management of live streaming has increased operating costs, and the responsibilities and consequences that anchors and their companies need to bear after problems with goods are also the direct reasons why the head anchors fade out of live streaming.
The main issues of live streaming published in the "Public Opinion Analysis Report on Consumer Rights Protection of Live Streaming (2023)". Image source: Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute
Live streaming will face an industry reshuffle
After the head anchor "retires", where will the live broadcast room go?
Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told upstream news reporters that top anchors usually have a huge fan base and influence, and their departure may lead to the loss of some users, which will have a certain impact on the short-term development of the industry. However, in the long run, it also provides more opportunities for other potential streamers and merchants. Therefore, the live streaming industry is about to undergo a reshuffle.
The reason is that with the rise of live streaming, more and more anchors and merchants are pouring into this field, and the competition has become increasingly fierce. However, the government's supervision of the live streaming industry has gradually been strengthened, and the requirements are more standardized and transparent. This may lead to some top streamers opting out or transitioning. However, from the perspective of industry development, the impact of de-"heading" on the industry is still positive. The exit of the top anchor will provide more exposure opportunities for other anchors and merchants, help the diversified and balanced development of the industry, and reduce chaos and misconduct. At the same time, the departure of the top anchor may make consumers look at live streaming more rationally, pay attention to product quality and service, rather than relying only on the influence of the anchor.
In terms of how to balance price and quality, Wang Peng believes that balancing the contradiction between price and product selection is an important challenge faced by live streaming. To solve this contradiction, it is necessary for businesses to increase the degree of product differentiation by designing unique products and providing personalized customized services, so as to reduce consumers' sensitivity to price. In addition, professional shopping guidance anchors are arranged in the live broadcast room to use their professional knowledge and experience to provide consumers with professional shopping guidance and advice, helping them better understand the value and advantages of products, so as to make more informed purchase decisions. More importantly, it is necessary to have a reasonable pricing strategy: Merchants should formulate a reasonable pricing strategy based on the cost of the product, market demand, and competition to ensure that the price matches the quality of the product and the service.
Regarding the trend of the live streaming industry, Wang Peng believes that live streaming should pay more attention to standardization, specialization and quality. As consumers' demands for shopping experience continue to increase, the livestreaming industry should gradually shift from pursuing short-term profits to focusing on long-term development and brand building. In addition to winning the trust and loyalty of consumers by focusing on the quality of products and services, anchors and merchants can also try to add the application of AI, VR and other technologies, which will bring richer display forms and interactive experiences to live streaming.
At the same time, Hong Yong, an expert from the think tank of the 50-person forum on the integration of data and reality in China, also mentioned that the fading out of the live broadcast of Xiao Yang and other head anchors has indeed attracted the attention of the industry and may indicate that the live broadcast e-commerce industry is facing a reshuffle, because they have a huge fan base and significant market influence, and their trends directly affect the platform traffic pattern and user consumption behavior. But at present, more attention should be paid to the standardization of live streaming. First of all, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of laws and regulations, clarify the rights and responsibilities of anchors, merchants, and platforms, especially focusing on issues such as product quality, after-sales, and false publicity, and secondly, strengthen market supervision and strictly prevent counterfeit goods, fraud, and infringement of consumer rights and interests through regular special rectification. At the same time, it is also necessary to promote industry self-discipline, encourage live-streaming e-commerce platforms to set high-standard access, assessment and integrity evaluation systems, strengthen product selection and supply chain management, promote price transparency and rationalization, and resist malicious low-price competition and price gouging. More importantly, it is necessary to improve the consumer protection mechanism, establish fast and effective complaint handling channels, and effectively protect the rights and interests of consumers.
"In the future, live streaming may tend to be a more professional, standardized and high-quality development path. Only in this way, on the premise of protecting the rights and interests of consumers, can we properly balance the contradiction between price and product selection, and realize the sustainable development of the live streaming industry. Hong Yong said.
Upstream news reporter Shi Tingting