China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Sui Lou lou Yang Shi province reported in Shenzhen
After a short period of moderation at the beginning of the year, the country ushered in retaliatory consumption, and live broadcasting became the most popular sales method in 2020. Platforms across the world want a piece of the live economy, including box technology, which makes payments start-up.
"'Laughing Spectrum Push' can not only make the box guys (pos machine pushers) make money and help the merchants sell goods, but also let consumers save money, the goal is to create a sinking market 'Vipshop'." Han Sen, CEO of Box Technology, told the "China Times" reporter, "At present, the purchase of xiaopu is still in the pilot, and it is necessary to decide when to promote it in a large area according to the performance of internal enterprises and data." ”
But the outlet is not for everyone to stand on its own feet. As a payment institution, Box Technology also faces many uncertainties: Douyin Kuaishou, Taobao Pinduoduo and other head short videos and e-commerce platforms have entered the market environment of live broadcasting with goods, why does Box Technology still have to dig for gold in this field? Can the purchase of laughter be accepted by the public? When will Box Technology's compliance risks in the payment field be eliminated?
Platform users are cold and have not yet stepped out of the payment world
According to Box Technology, the company did not start from scratch with cross-border short video live broadcasts. Relying on the merchant resources and local push team accumulated by Box Technology in the development of the payment field, Xiaopu Push "covers 50 million consumer traffic".
Huang Dazhi, a senior researcher at Suning Institute of Finance, also pointed out in an interview with the China Times that for aggregate payments such as box technology, it "links many merchants and payment institutions, and merchant resources are its transformation advantages." However, from the current point of view, the so-called "50 million consumer traffic" of Xiaopu has not been intuitively reflected.
The reporter observed on the Xiaopu Push APP that the number of video likes recommended by the APP homepage basically did not exceed 50. The videos recommended by Douyin Kuaishou for users have the number of likes in the 10,000-level or 100,000-level echelon. Not only that, click into any of the live broadcast rooms in the Xiaopu push app, although it shows that there are hundreds of people watching, there is basically no user interaction with the anchor, even in the evening of the peak of the live broadcast, each live broadcast room is equally deserted.
"There are few professional anchors like Douyin Kuaishou on this platform, and we all do pos machines here." Zhang Haiping (pseudonym), the anchor of the Xiaopu platform, told this reporter that he also wondered why no one interacted with him during the live broadcast, "They will pay attention to me and like me, but they just don't speak, and I sometimes wonder." Maybe because everyone is doing payments, getting to know each other, and coming to see how you broadcast it, you're gone. Only people outside the industry chat with anchors. ”
And Box Technology CEO Han Sen also told reporters bluntly that the xiaopu push is only for the merchant end, C end and ground push end (that is, the "T-BCS ecology" mentioned by box technology), "and douyin kuaishou is certainly not an order of magnitude and cannot be compared." ”
As of December 17, Zhang Haiping had been live on the Xiaopu platform for less than 20 days. Since the audience that stayed in the live broadcast room for a long time was "only thirty or fifty people", Zhang Haiping usually just played music during the live broadcast and then did his own thing. He told reporters that the reason why he would come to the live broadcast after work during the day was to hope to accumulate some fans and then sign a contract with Box Technology. "If you sign a contract and earn three or five thousand a month, isn't it very good?" Slowly there are more fans, and then you can bring some goods, which is also an income. Zhang Haiping said.
However, Meng Meng (pseudonym), the operation of Xiaopu Push, told this reporter that the Xiaopu platform no longer recruits individual anchors, "According to the latest policy modified by the platform in early December, Xiaopu now only recruits live broadcast guilds, that is, it needs to have physical companies, anchor bases and supporting anchor training institutions." ”
The policy of constantly innovating has caused dissatisfaction among some anchors of the Xiaopu platform. "The policy is adjusted too frequently, and the policy is overturned every three to five years, and a group of people have lost confidence in the company and even have a feeling of distrust." So recently there have been a group of people who have stopped broadcasting. Ms. Xue believes that the platform is now in its infancy, and the company should also pay attention to the views of the grassroots.
Up to now, The Smile Spectrum has been available for more than a year. If a product is still losing users after a year-long incubation period, the story of "50 million consumer traffic" may not be a reality.
Self-built shopping mall
Han Sen told this reporter that the reason why the xiaopu push purchase has not yet been promoted to the outside world in a large area is also because of the concern that the follow-up user experience is not good and the impact is promoted.
There are reasons for this concern. According to the official website, Xiaopu Tuibao has a huge number of brand supply chain resources that have been operating for many years, "integrating high-quality brand merchants and bringing together global food, clothing, beauty, home and other fine products". In Han Sen's vision, the xiaopu push purchase serves the young people in the small town, is the vipshop of the sinking market, all the goods are selected by the box guys, the seller through the xiaopu private store, the review can be put on the shelf to the platform, is the box guys their own community e-commerce.
However, the reporter found that all the products in the mall did not set up an evaluation entrance, that is, users could not refer to the quality and cost performance of the goods through the feedback of other consumers. This will not only increase the concerns of users about buying goods in the Xiaopu Mall, but also make merchants miss sales opportunities.
In addition, on the Xiaopu shopping platform, each anchor can choose any commodity provided by the platform to carry the goods, and once a product is sold through the live broadcast room, it can get a profit. But if fans find quality problems after purchasing products, do the anchors need to be held responsible? How to deal with the reputation damage suffered by the anchor as a result? What are the problem handling mechanisms of Laughter Spectrum or Box Technology? Do the above two phenomena represent the blind confidence of Box Technology in the products of the Xiaopu platform?
For Box Technology, it is not easy to build its own operating system on the basis of realizing the "ambition" of e-commerce, and more importantly, it is more important to take precautions and have forward-looking thinking.
The mini program has no fruit in gold mining and has no payment license so far
In fact, this is not the first time that Box Technology has changed lanes, the last time it was aimed at small programs.
In 2018, mini programs have become the outlet for Internet giants to chase, and Box Technology has also chosen to enter the game and launch "Huidian". At the product launch, Han Sen once said that because there are too many imitators, the box has an innovation almost every two years, and "Huidian" is the fourth time, which is expected to bring "the next geometric multiple of growth" to the company.
The ideal is very full, the reality is very bone. After trying with many parties recently, the reporter found that the page of the WeChat Mini Program "Huidian" could not load information, and only displayed "The current network status is not good, please check and try again". The information about "Huidian" on the Internet is only the promotional articles at the beginning of the product's release.
"Huidian is currently partly in operation, and it has been replaced by other brands in operation." Han Sen replied to the "China Times" reporter.
In fact, Box Technology is constantly looking for new profit growth points, which is also related to the changes in the payment industry. At the beginning of this year, under the impetus of the central bank, bar code payment broke through service barriers, that is, different APP and merchant bar code logos can recognize each other and scan each other. But it also means that aggregator codes will no longer have an advantage. Therefore, for aggregate payment service providers such as Box Technology, their living space is further limited.
In terms of payment licenses, box technology has also been caught in illegal public opinion. In 2018, Box Technology had hoped to invest in IPS to obtain a payment license, but it was not approved by the central bank. Although the acquisition transaction was not successfully completed, according to media reports, Box Technology has already reached an agreement with THE SHAREHOLDERS of IPS to take over the latter in 2018 and control key positions such as its general manager, deputy general manager and risk control director, while also making changes to the specific business of IPS.
So, what is the connection between box technology and IPS Payments? Has IPS taken over privately, as the media says? The reporter repeatedly called Han Sen and the head of public relations of Box Technology, but neither of them answered.
If the private takeover is true, the move violates the relevant regulations of the central bank, and IPS may also have the risk of not passing the renewal and being revoked from the payment license. Previously, Lefu Payment was decided by the central bank not to renew and withdraw from the payment business because it did not apply to the central bank for approval, changed the main investor in violation of the law many times, and other major matters, which were disguised transfers of the "Payment Business License".
In addition, since 2016, IPS has been punished every year for violations, and in the past two years, it has been issued a "sky-high" fine. On November 3 this year, IPS Qingdao Branch was ordered to make corrections within a specified period of time and fined 5.18 million yuan due to the lack of implementation of the merchant real-name system, the irregular setting of merchant acquiring and settlement accounts, the mismatch between merchant transaction records and capital settlement records, and the failure to perform customer identification obligations in accordance with regulations. In July last year, IPS also received nearly 60 million yuan in fines from the central bank for violating payment business regulations, and the company was ordered to stop adding new offline merchants and stop online payment business in an orderly manner within 3 months.