Live E-Commerce Industry Is Booming In Epidemic Situation

What is the hottest tuyere in 2020?

I believe many people will blurt out: Live e-commerce. Under the influence of the "black swan" epidemic in 2020, a large number of physical businesses and manufacturers have turned to live e-commerce, hoping to take goods to inventory and increase sales volume to make up for the decline in performance.

So, what kind of career has live e-commerce brought? I believe many people will blurt out: anchor with goods. With some head anchors opening the crazy mode of bringing goods, all kinds of star artists / writers / entrepreneurs have also come to an end. In addition to the familiar Li Jiaqi and Weiya, such as Dong Mingzhu, Liang Jianzhang, Li Yanhong, Zhang Chaoyang and other entrepreneurs, as well as Luo Yonghao, who is also known as zhenhuanzhuan, have successively started live broadcasting to speak for their own or other brand products.

All walks of life are pouring into the trend of live e-commerce, regardless of whether it is inside or outside the circle, new or old people. It can be said that it is a true portrayal of the field of live e-commerce in 2020. In addition, there is a circle that has experienced a "roller coaster" development from the beginning of 2020 to now, which is MCN organization.

It took only one year for MCN industry to go through the whole industry crackdown on counterfeit goods, the end of pure Commission, the distribution of sales and the downturn of the market.

According to the data report released by AI media consulting, the number of MCN institutions is expected to reach 28000 in 2020, with a growth rate of 93.1%, but the growth rate has been decreasing year by year. In addition, some MCNS are caught up in the period of the industry, and close down in the way of "large retreat".

In the face of the coming 2020 and 2021, what is the future of MCN?

"One pit" is hard to find

Person: Xiaoyue Occupation: Live selection location: Yuhang, Hangzhou

"At the beginning of last year (2019), we are still asking enterprises to do live broadcasting. At the beginning of this year, we are all flocking to our door, and now..."

March 2020 is a small month for more than a year engaged in live selection, and the busiest month since entering the industry. She told understand notes that after various industries returned to work, a large number of offline and physical commercial stores were still closed due to epidemic prevention and control, so many traditional businesses and manufacturers began to switch to online channels.

At that time, many e-commerce stores registered by many businesses were generally short of traffic, and it was difficult to convert sales in a short time. Therefore, these customers began to seek cooperation with MCN, which has huge traffic and anchor, and set foot in live delivery with goods.

"Before, many traditional enterprises didn't value live delivery with goods. They felt that they had a strong dealer channel and network, so they didn't have to worry about the failure to sell their products. But in the face of the stagnation of real consumption, these enterprises began to realize the imminent disaster. " Xiaoyue said that at that time, some business owners who had refused to cooperate with their company had no choice but to ask the assistant to contact her and hope to help arrange in the studio.

But she was already overwhelmed. Because of the instant blowout of live broadcast cooperation needs, she and the company's anchors are extremely busy. Generally speaking, a two-hour live broadcast can arrange to introduce ten products. However, since March, due to the large number of cooperative enterprises, the anchor often needs to introduce 30 or more products within two hours, and the explanation time of each product is even less than four minutes. "At that time, the anchor's way of explaining was to read the book according to the book and read the running account desperately."

At this time, many MCN organizations in Hangzhou were in short supply. "Some enterprises did not sign a contract to transfer to the company's account number for two or three minutes in order to make the products appear in the live broadcasting room. After occupying the" pit position ", they began to talk about the selling points of products and communicate the details of direct broadcasting with the selected products. They think that as long as the money arrives, the company can't refuse it. However, our finance department often receives transfer without clue, and then cooperative enterprises come to claim it one after another. "

According to Xiaoyue, due to the surge in demand for live broadcasting from enterprises, MCN can only increase the duration of live broadcasting. In the past, it was only after 7:00 p.m., but since the middle of March, it has been running live broadcasting from the afternoon until 11:00 or 2:00 p.m. During each live broadcast, the anchor's rest time has also been shortened from half an hour to ten minutes.

"All of them are tired and crazy. After a whole day, an anchor often has to recommend three or four hundred products in the live room. He is completely exhausted and doesn't know what his lines are." Even so, the nearly 30 anchors signed by this MCN are still spinning around the clock. Otherwise, it will be difficult to digest the customers' demand for blowout. "The" pit fee "of the head anchor has also increased from 80000 yuan at the end of 2019 to 100000 yuan, and then it is still rising."

According to Xiao Yue, even the "budding" online celebrities and small anchors have been robbed of the "pit seat" of the live broadcast. The original "pit seat fee" of several thousand yuan has risen to 10000 yuan. Foreign trade enterprises have said that they will invest hundreds of thousands of yuan to "buy" the whole weekend live broadcast of the company's newly signed small online star.

This upsurge made many domestic MCN management unexpected. In order to cope with the industry reshuffle in mid-2019, Xiaoyue's institution "dissuaded" more than a dozen small online celebrities with "crane tail" traffic in the fourth quarter of 2019 based on the consideration of reducing operating costs. As a result, in the face of the sudden demand, the company rushed around to "arrest" people. "If we didn't persuade so many people back, maybe we could make a lot of pit fees in March and April this year."

In fact, many domestic MCN started a new round of recruitment, which started in the second quarter of this year.

Excessive growth and scarcity of talents

Person: Cindy Occupation: HR and administrative location: Tianhe, Guangzhou

"I used to be engaged in human resources work in MCN, so I didn't need to set up a stall to do school recruitment. Who would like to bubble on campus every day during that time?"

At the end of 2019, Cindy, who did not like to face new graduates with "high vision and low skill", resigned from his original job and applied to become a human resources specialist of a MCN organization in Tianhe District, Guangzhou. Although the organization is small and the HR specialist still has to take on administrative duties, she feels OK as long as she doesn't have to deal with new students as frequently as the previous company.

However, contrary to our wishes, at the beginning of 2020, the demand for live e-commerce cooperation between manufacturers and enterprises is booming, and the continuous rotation of MCN contract anchor still can not meet the growing demand. The company's management decided to incubate a large number of new Internet Celebrities and recruit anchors. In order to reduce the cost of centralized recruitment, the company's leaders asked her to carry out school recruitment work.

"It is said that the newly graduated students are good at management and obedient, and they don't need specific majors and work experience to be young and beautiful." Cindy said that it is easier to live school recruitment than social recruitment. Although the fresh graduates are not well-known in the world, they all agree that the job of an online celebrity anchor is simple and has a high income, which is a way to realize "financial freedom".

In order to meet the mentality of "high vision and low skill" and comply with the demands of graduates for "more money and less work", the company has raised the starting salary of new online celebrities. As long as they are admitted, the basic salary of the trainees during the internship and training period reaches 4000 yuan. After that, the live listing fee and commission are separately calculated, which has crushed the treatment of many financial and technical posts for a time.

"More than a dozen school recruitment and online recruitment started in May. Even though many schools are unable to enter the campus due to epidemic control, a large number of students come to apply for jobs almost every day on the playground or outside the school." Cindy told me to understand the notes that because the company was eager to expand the number of anchors, the company had very low requirements for school recruitment. As long as they were good-looking, well behaved and talked properly, they could be admitted successfully and included in the training incubation system.

In just two months, the company has already recruited more than 100 interns through school recruitment and online recruitment. In order to accommodate such a large network celebrity anchor team, the company has rented a larger office area and transformed more than a dozen live broadcasting rooms for new trainees to use in their internship.

"At that time, it was recruitment, induction and training every day I'm so tired. However, the demand for business is still increasing. The original plan is to train new employees after three weeks, but all of them have replaced training with workers. " Cindy recalled that in order to digest the surge of live broadcasting orders, a shy newcomer was pushed into the live broadcasting room by the company, and began the road of ignorant live broadcasting with goods.

Because of their shallow experience and limited flow, many new people frequently "roll over" when they live broadcast. Therefore, only small enterprises' products will be handed over to the newcomers for "hands-on" practice. Even so, many cooperative enterprises do not care or complain, "it's good to have a live broadcast. The ranking of major anchors is one or two months later. Moreover, the" pit fee "of newcomers is also cheap. It is not easy for enterprises to tear their faces 。”

As for the new lack of flow and influence, Cindy revealed a set of "quick" methods of MCN, that is, brush volume. In fact, at the beginning of this year, many brush volume agencies for live broadcast with goods have not appeared, because the market at that time was in short supply. However, some MCN mechanisms are gradually contacting brush mechanism in order to set off the atmosphere for "new and novice".

Little did not know, a vigorous brush "Star" wave from this start, but also in a number of stars on the battle reached a climax.

Fake amount of brush, crazy "gold sucking"

Person: Chen Jinbiao Occupation: administrator of a "community" location: Bao'an, Shenzhen

"The amount of live broadcasting (behavior) has always existed, but this year (2020) needs interaction, orders and trading volume."

Chen Jinbiao, who has resigned from a marketing organization in Shenzhen, was once the "community" administrator of the organization. This 98 year old young man manages more than 100 full wechat groups of the company. He tells us that if you want to quickly upload volume, whether it's short video or live broadcast, the simplest way is to brush the amount and data.

Generally speaking, if the live broadcasting room is only for the purpose of "supporting the scene" with traffic, it usually chooses "non real" group control traffic. Group control can achieve a large number of brushes, and the price is cheap. Regardless of the number of live and short video views, 1000 playback volume is only more than 10 yuan. This is also the most commonly used way of small MCN in the early stage of many live broadcasting with goods. "It only costs several thousand yuan to make the amount of short video and live broadcast rush to the front end."

However, the marketing of "community" is more complicated. It is generally only applied to scenes that require real person operation and real interaction, such as commodity evaluation, group speech, e-commerce coupons "weeding wool", etc., which are rarely used in live delivery and short video content.

"But in the past six months, most of those who come to us to do brush data are MCN institutions, especially those who need to speak and interact in the live broadcasting room." Chen Jinbiao told me to understand the notes. Since mid-2020, many MCNS have come to the company's salesmen to discuss the cooperation of interactive brush volume. The specific requirement of the other party is that he should send the link between the live broadcast room which needs interaction and speech to the wechat group operated by the company, and mobilize the members of the group to speak in the live broadcast room and participate in the live broadcast commodity discussion.

The purpose of this is to set off the interactive atmosphere of the live broadcast room, so that the golden master can see the lively scene. In terms of fees, one interaction and one speech cost about one yuan, and speakers get six components of commission. The demand for each activity ranges from thousands to tens of thousands.

"At the beginning, as long as a lot of MCNS are brushed, I hinted that the group control brush volume is not easy to use. Only watching without interaction will appear to be very fake." Indeed, since the beginning of the year, MCN wants to let the cooperative live broadcasting enterprises pay for the "pit fee", which only needs to show the data of the live broadcast room flow and watching. However, since the news of the amount of live broadcast with goods is exposed, many enterprises do not eat this set.

Some enterprises, before paying the "pit fee", said that they must first observe the live broadcasting process of MCN, and then consider investing in cooperation after seeing the real interaction (content). Therefore, MCN also understands that the amount of interaction and the lively atmosphere in the studio determine whether enterprises can invest money and cooperate.

"Since the second half of the year, MCN needs real people to operate the interactive reality and content matching, which can only be achieved by mobilizing community resources." Chen Jinbiao revealed that nearly 90% of the interactive brushing tasks the company has received since this year are from live MCN. Especially in recent half a year, after the "broadcast" of the live broadcasting room, MCN will require the group control ash production to brush the flow first, and then ask the community and the river basin controllers to start to brush and interact.

However, such excitement did not last long. As there is only traffic and interaction, there is no actual commodity transaction in the live broadcasting room. Over time, many cooperative enterprises have seen through the "pit fee" fraud caused by MCN consumption. Therefore, the requirements of MCN brush volume also began to "upgrade", "now all brush interaction and then brush orders, that is to mobilize group members to take the goods, and then return them separately."

The sales volume requires the marketing team and the ash production organization to pay for the goods in advance, so the relevant expenses are relatively high. The basic charge for a single order is 10 yuan or even higher. The general requirement is to start with 1000 orders and return the goods within the specified unconditional return period. This is not what small MCN institutions and marketing organizations can operate. It requires a lot of capital and manpower The audience, and the sales volume is good, will certainly invest money to cooperate. As for cooperation, we don't care if we will find a lot of returns

When did MCN earn tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of "pit fees" from cooperative enterprises after a live broadcast, without any psychological pressure. With the rise of transaction orders, many enterprises still have to pay a large amount of transaction sub account and host Commission. At the same time, they have to face the return freight and labor cost, which can be said to be a loss for the wife and loss of soldiers. As for the production of brush volume ash, it is the "lying and earning" side in this round of changes.

There is no lack of bad money driving out good money in the Internet world. The MCN organizations that really promote good products may not be able to match the smart players who can brush data and order. Short term interests are overwhelming, and unscrupulous brush volume, fraud, also let more and more enterprises begin to lose trust in MCN circle.

MCN industry, in the live with goods, destroyed by the amount of false brush.

Chaos, mud and sand

Person: Zhou Xiaoqun (pseudonym) Occupation: MCN person in charge location: Baiyun, Guangzhou

"Do you think these traditional enterprises (owners) are a group of very contradictory people, living a tangled life!"

Talking about the current chaos of MCN consumption and data fraud, Zhou Xiaoqun, as the head of an old MCN organization, admits that the brush volume behavior is common in the industry.

Including his company's signing network red, no live broadcast is not brush volume. But at the same time, he attributed the amount of money spent to the "hard to serve" of traditional business owners.

Zhou Xiaoqun told me to understand the notes. Under normal circumstances, it takes a long time for a MCN to incubate and train online celebrities to gain traffic and influence, but this can ensure that the anchor traffic and influence are real, and the live sales also have real sales transformation. "The problem with * * is that the initial viewing volume and interactive volume are not very good."

"As long as the real traffic is displayed in front of enterprise customers, people will think that the flow is low, and they think it is not worth tens of thousands of yuan for putting on the shelves. They even turn around and leave, saying that the data of other homes are watched by hundreds of thousands of people. In this way, we can't talk about live broadcast cooperation at all. However, the flow and interaction volume of those brushes are not true now. They say that MCN plays a routine. Therefore, it's difficult to let them not cooperate with each other now because of the achievements of brush volume. What do you think we should do? "

Zhou Xiaoqun said frankly, because most of the traditional enterprises do not understand the Internet, they think that the sales volume should be instant. But the real anchor traffic is low, the influence is small, the enterprise looks down on, thinks is not worth; and the flow, the influence big head network red, the enterprise also lacks the budget; the organization only has the high brush quantity low quotation, can let the enterprise see the so-called "cost performance" and pay the bill, and make a lot of money.

"But now the bitter fruit has come. Everybody brushes the flow to do the data, the enterprise also began to understand, dare not throw money indiscriminately. " From July 2020, Zhou Xiaoqun obviously felt that it was extremely difficult to talk about live broadcast cooperation with many enterprises. The other party cited some news reports and questioned that the data and sales volume of MCN were fake, and it was difficult to promote the mode of transaction volume sharing.

Due to the sharp decrease of orders for live broadcast cooperation in the past two months, in order to maintain the company's operation and operation, those small and medium-sized MCNS that used to "pick customers" began to come. In the past, MCN usually considered the influence of enterprise brand and the qualification of product production when selecting products. Nowadays, as long as the enterprise can afford to pay, it will take all orders.

"The threshold of cooperation has been lowered, resulting in a large number of three no manufacturers, fake and inferior products began to be sold through live broadcast." Zhou Xiaoqun frankly said that after lowering the standard of live broadcast selection, MCN usually restricts manufacturers with a "agreement to guarantee product quality". However, the workshops and small factories with fake and inferior products have no contract and integrity, which is really a dead letter.

The manufacturers of these three no commodities don't care about the quantity of MCN live broadcasting, and the price of their products is quite low. The comment and transaction of live broadcast brushes will only arouse the desire of the audience to follow suit. The larger the amount of institutional brush data, the higher the sales volume of small factories and workshops, the more opportunities they can take advantage of.

But once something goes wrong, consumers will go to MCN to protect their rights, and MCN will go to small manufacturers to pursue their responsibilities. MCN often needs to be blamed, and even can cause irreparable damage to the anchor's reputation. Especially for some "fake and inferior" commodities, if the professional anti-counterfeiting personnel pass the inspection and audit of the authority, and give the real detection / evaluation results, the situation will further ferment, and the MCN institutions and the so-called online celebrities may need to close down.

"Isn't Simba an example? Wang Hai's evidence is there. At first, he retorted hard, but in the end, he was suspended from live broadcasting by the platform? Today, MCN is much harder to do than in early 2020, whether you are a big V or head MCN. "

It is precisely because the "amount of consumption" in the live broadcasting industry forces the traditional enterprises to return to their senses, which leads to many MCN to start to cooperate with small factories and fake and shoddy businesses in order to make money, and the hidden risks gradually break out. With the coming of the new year, some "smart" MCN institutions have begun to close when they are good and decide to take the opportunity to leave.

However, their departure is not to leave forever, but to wait for the opportunity to move

"The golden cicada comes out of its shell" and hibernates in hibernation

Character: Yan Yan Occupation: Live assistant location: Jing'an, Shanghai

"I guess I'm going to lose my job. I should be looking for a job after the new year. Several of my selections and helpers are looking for a way out."

With Wang Hai's "crackdown on counterfeit goods" and Luo Yonghao's "crackdown on counterfeits", the MCN where Yan Yan works also starts to launch self-examination by product selection specialists and live broadcast assistants to check and verify the products that have been jointly broadcast in the past two years; check whether there are three no fake and shoddy commodities, and report to the senior management of the company in a timely manner.

The emergence of "anti-counterfeiting" in the industry forces MCN to inspect its live broadcasting products. At first glance, it seems to be a good thing, which can be described as a manifestation of responsible attitude. However, why did the little live assistants lose their jobs?

Yan Yan told understand notes, in fact, as early as October 2020, the company began to "plan" for the future. "The business volume of our company's live broadcasting is OK, but a few days ago, a very close sister reminded me that the company may have a big change, and the legal person has also changed." She inquired in the enterprise credit system that the company had changed its legal person in October. At present, the legal person of the company is a new online celebrity, and the names of shareholders have also been changed to several unfamiliar names that she does not know.

"I remember that little wanghong just started in the middle of 2020. She is a fresh graduate who has never been involved in the world. If she is asked to be a legal person of the company, she should be very happy and will not consider the risks behind her. It's really nice to be young now. " Yan Yan revealed that the change of the company's legal person and shareholders is related to the risk self inspection.

However, if the results of the self-examination are not any problem, then the operation of MCN executives who think they are "eye-catching" is in vain?

In this regard, Yan Yan said with a bitter smile that the competition in the live broadcasting industry is fierce, and who has not experienced the amount of brush and data fraud that can develop smoothly so far? There are even a lot of unknown "greasy", wash is not clean.

"Therefore, there must be a risk of violation. Really cultivate traffic, do live with goods MCN can have a few ah. " As the saying goes, if you can run a monk, you can't run the temple. But in Yan Yan's eyes, the "monk" of the company seems to be going to take a step first, and the designs are all old tricks of "golden cicada breaking away from its shell".

At the same time, her MCN organization also began to "dissuade" many new online celebrities who had been employed in the first three quarters of 2020 in the name of failing to meet the standards. Among them, a new online star with the shortest entry time has only had a "dream of online celebrity" for less than a month. "Fortunately, the salary of the new online star is relatively high, even if the company is allowed to act as a" tool person ", a wave of" pit fees "will not be lost."

According to the news that Yan Yan heard from some peers, from the fourth quarter of 2020, many MCN institutions have begun to dismiss new online celebrities, reducing the operating burden of the institutions. Some MCN executives change the registration information, while others start to go through the enterprise cancellation process.

The main reason is that the relevant laws and regulations have been promulgated and the platform supervision is tightened. MCN, which has more or less violated the regulations, tries to evade the responsibility and avoid subsequent accountability. In particular, after the news of Simba and Luo Yonghao's "fake one pays three" came out, some small and medium-sized MCNS were afraid that the "pit fees" earned in the first half of 2020 would probably be vomited out at the end of the year.

Conclusion

If we say that the community group buying fresh e-commerce in 2020 has experienced "ups and downs", then the live MCN experience can be described as "ups and downs". With the upsurge of "nationwide live broadcasting with goods", a large number of practitioners are pouring into this new outlet, and the disadvantages of MCN field are gradually prominent.

According to the online survey report on consumer satisfaction of live e-commerce shopping released by China Consumer Association, 37.3% of consumers have encountered consumption problems in live shopping. In the atmosphere of bad money driving out good money, MCN institutions chase each other and compete maliciously, which also leads to chaos in the market, and the trust of enterprises, businesses and consumers for live e-commerce is also declining.

If we say that in 2020, the live e-commerce industry will be hot in the epidemic situation and silent in the fight against counterfeit goods, it would be better to say that many MCNS are arrogant and reckless in the face of short-term interests, abandon their professional ethics, and finally end up with nothing.