The huge blue T platform extends to both sides of the street, with gongs and drums roaring and gold paper floating in the air. When the red banners of "Business is booming" and "Customers come like clouds" in Shitoukou were launched together, the mood of the audience at the scene was brought to a high point - this was the scene of the opening ceremony of the Evergreen Leisure Women's Wear Market in Hangzhou Sijiqing Market on April 18. Hangzhou Sijiqing Market Business District gathers 22 professional markets and is known as "the first street of Chinese clothing". In March this year, the Evergreen Leisure Women's Wear Market in the business circle made the first shot to ban live broadcast. The vast number of merchants and purchasers created this carnival, which also explained its confidence in declaring war on live broadcast. The wave of live broadcast has swept thousands of professional wholesale markets across the country. They are uncertain about the current situation and have no idea about the future. People in the upstream and downstream industries of the wholesale market have their own choices. During the transformation, there are confrontations between brands and live broadcasting, panic of disorderly competition, worries about the demise of the real economy, and resentment against the expansion of live broadcasting The live broadcast is like a catfish. In recent years, some source factories have abandoned the wholesale market and plunged into the surging wave of traffic, using live broadcast to directly face consumer retail. The professional market, which has not been turbulent for many years, has been thoroughly stirred, forcing everyone in the upstream and downstream industries to look up and see if the road is still under way and where they are going. Live broadcast impacts the traditional business trajectory Clothing wholesale markets were scattered all over the country, and merchants gathered. The wholesale market depends on the operation track of the source factory - the wholesale market - the retail physical stores. The source factory is the "heart" of supplying fresh blood, and the retail physical stores become the "capillaries" of receiving goods. Cheng Weixiong, an independent analyst in the footwear and clothing industry and the founder of Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co., Ltd., analyzed that the survival of the wholesale market depended on information gap, time gap and geographical difference. In the past, many collection stores, buyer stores, small and medium-sized brand stores, etc., needed to organize goods through the wholesale market. For decades, this traditional business track has been running smoothly, but with the emergence of the live broadcast industry, it has been seriously impacted. Some source factories abandoned the wholesale market and plunged into the surging wave of traffic, using live broadcast to directly face consumer retail. This kind of consumer facing business access has increased, and the supply chain link has been de intermediate, which has led to the continuous reduction of the wholesale market. The loss of physical customers, the prosperity of the source factory live broadcast, and the derivative crisis has emerged. Some once hot stalls began to cool, the rent was reduced, and many shops above the second floor became warehouses. In the boutique children's wear market of Sijiqing market business circle, the replacement rate of nearly 400 stores since last year has reached one-third. "Many of the original stall owners stopped doing offline business and sublet the stalls, and many people completely switched to live broadcast with goods." Lu Xiuxia, manager of investment attraction management department of Sijiqing boutique children's clothing market, said that last year, there were more than ten stalls vacant in the market, "This is something that never happened before. Up to now, there are still two or three companies that haven't rented out." The loss of popularity is a stronger warning signal. "Now, the passenger flow in the market is not half of the booming period." Cheng Weixiong said, "Now, there are only a few wholesale markets with the advantages of industrial clusters and the ability to design, develop and process the whole chain. For example, Sijiqing in Hangzhou, Shisanhang in Guangzhou and other clothing markets are few in number." Behind the decline of the wholesale market is the rapid rise of live broadcast e-commerce. Huang Mingguo is the head of Zhejiang Jinshui Siyu E-commerce Co., Ltd. He has devoted himself to the live broadcast industry for nearly 10 years, attracting nearly 200 anchors from all over the country, of which 30% - 40% are clothing anchors. Huang Mingguo said that they would choose to go to the clothing source factory to place orders and pick up goods. The factory provides the latest clothing style of the season. If it can satisfy the host's tricky appetite, the factory can often reap the record of ordering up to 12000 pieces of the same style. "The sales volume of one anchor can be equal to that of 10 second batch merchants. Many source factories have their own judgment." "As early as during the" Double Twelfth "in 2018, Taobao has organized live broadcast of the industrial belt for 12 consecutive days, including Wuhan Hankou North Clothing City, Huzhou Zhili Children's Clothing City, etc. You can see the Taobao anchors shuttle." Huang Mingguo said that the live broadcast of the source factory is not new and has been continuously encouraged by Pingtai. He has traveled far and wide to visit many garment factories all over the country. Whether it is Huzhou Children's Wear Factory, Taizhou Children's Shoes Factory, Guangzhou and Shandong Women's Wear Factory, they are all committed to taking a share in the live broadcast cake, and they are all making a stunt of retailing a wholesale price. He calculated that the proportion of live broadcast in the clothing source factories across the country has reached 89%. Diversified responses to professional markets The performance comparison that is too straightforward has spread widely among the internal communication groups of manufacturers. Costume anchors backed by fans can easily digest a huge amount of clothing. In the face of temptation, the source factory forgot two groups of customers and instead turned to the arms of popular webcasters with high volume of goods. Zhang Ting, vice president of boutique children's wear market, has perceived the subtle psychological changes brought by the live broadcast from the game played by a small number of suppliers in the market - children's wear factory in Zhili Town, Huzhou. In 2022, children's wear manufacturers in Zhili Town, Huzhou, will generally tend to sell their products with live broadcast. Compared with the second batch of regular customers, the anchors will get the new products of the factory in the current season at a lower price and faster speed. This biased move eventually triggered two groups of merchants to jointly protest to Huzhou manufacturers. "The factories that follow the brand line will consider the objections of the second batch, while the miscellaneous brand children's clothing manufacturers that live purely for the sake of sales give up the channels of the second batch of customers and put all the goods into the live broadcast room." Zhang Ting said frankly. The still persistent professional market is also seeking solutions. In the Evergreen market, live broadcasting is being banned - no matter whether businesses want to direct broadcast or bring goods, once found, they will give a written warning and make an appointment for the first time; For the second time, the equipment was confiscated and a fine of 20000 yuan was imposed; The third time, the equipment was confiscated and the penalty doubled. "At the moment when wholesalers broadcast live, they will be regarded as betrayal by physical purchasers." Evergreen's market management said that the ban was to maintain the market operation order and promote the original virtuous circle of the upstream and downstream industrial chains of the clothing industry. From a national perspective, Evergreen Market is not the first clothing wholesale market to break with the live broadcast e-commerce. Previously, in Guangzhou, Shisanhang Clothing Wholesale Street and Shahe Clothing Wholesale Market have successively called off live selling. In 2020, Guangzhou Shahe Garment Wholesale Market issued a ban to refuse to sell goods live, blocking all the anchors of an e-commerce live broadcast platform company that had previously been active in the market. However, under the ban, some markets have not been "tough" for a long time. This year, Shahe Clothing Wholesale Market again "bowed" to the flow and acquiesced in the live broadcast of goods. In the face of live broadcast, it is different from Evergreen Market in its attitude of making a decisive break with Evergreen Market. Kunlong Children's Wear City, which is also in the business circle of Sijiqing Market, hopes to find a path for the joint development of live broadcast and wholesale market. Zheng Jie, assistant general manager of the market, said: "After a year of trying, it has been a little effective, and the atmosphere of Four Seasons is back." While talking, Zheng Jie turned her mobile phone camera to a crowded children's clothing store. She is using the official voice shaking number of Kunlong Children's Wear City to broadcast live. Every day from 12:30 to 1:30, she takes tens of thousands of fans from all over the world to the market. Within one hour, she moved from the second floor to the first floor and walked into more than ten stores in succession. At each store, the boss or shop assistant will tacitly show and introduce the new models to her camera. Zheng Jie pulls in the lens from time to time to show the material of the clothes. "I have squeezed this kind of heavy industry yarn, which is very soft." She blurts out that it is refreshing, foreign, trendy, classic... She gives them various labels. On the screen, various comments were quickly captured, and Zheng Jie responded one by one, "The sisters who took the goods, pay attention in the upper left corner, enter the fan group, and share the source of goods for free." She also channeled the chattering number of the market merchants from time to time, "follow the list one, and this store also does live broadcast." While promoting the market wholesalers, she did not forget to care for the terminal consumers who entered the live broadcast room, "Sister of retail, contact the physical stores in the group."
When the market uses the live broadcast platform to drain, the buyer, who was once an intermediary between the market wholesalers and the physical shopkeepers, has quietly lost his job. In the past, buyers built bridges for both ends and made a living by virtue of information gap, geographical difference and cargo assembly capacity. Now, Zheng Jie is a "buyer" who doesn't charge for anything. With 104000 fans, the Douyin No. of Kunlong Children's Wear City has gathered a group of clothing store customers all over the country, as far as Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia. After the broadcast, Zheng Jie turned to customer service and successively set up more than 60 WeChat groups, which are divided into wholesale and retail groups. She recommends market wholesalers for clothing shopkeepers and loyal customers of market wholesalers for end consumers - clothing shopkeepers everywhere. The popularity of Kunlong Children's Wear City, which was once on the decline, has warmed up from this. "There are almost no empty shops." "The market will survive only when popularity picks up." Zheng Jie takes the lead and encourages wholesalers to use live broadcast to realize store diversion. Under her leadership, more than ten merchants also launched live broadcast attempts. Zhang Ting held a similar view on this, "We don't reject live broadcast, but we should find a live broadcast method that matches our own positioning. Merchants are not recommended to broadcast retail, but we encourage them to use live broadcast for online promotion." Whether live broadcasting is prohibited or used, it is the self insurance of the wholesale market in the crisis. In Cheng Weixiong's view, with the iteration of new technologies such as live broadcast e-commerce, the shrinking of the wholesale market is an inevitable development trend. "In the face of impact, it is not a long-term solution to just unblock without persuasion." "Live broadcast and wholesale market are nothing more than two forms of commercial tools, but this is not a simple choice." Cheng Weixiong believes that the wholesale market should more actively match user needs, reshape the business model, "always stick to the beaten track, and will eventually be eliminated by the times." On the way to follow Zheng Jie, a young online celebrity with exquisite makeup came to inquire about Zheng Jie's dithering number. She said that she has more than 100000 fans and has just moved from Changshu to Hangzhou. She plans to buy some sample clothes from Sijiqing and take them back to the studio for live broadcast. Different wholesalers have different attitudes towards such anchors. Small shopkeepers hope to attract new customers and reach cooperation; However, some large shopkeepers who have operated their brands for many years are more alert. "We don't welcome them. They may just come to buy styles and then go to the processing factory to copy them and sell them online at a low price." After the trial live broadcast, the business of Jin Yong (a pseudonym), the owner of the children's clothing brand, is booming, with annual sales exceeding 100 million, but at the same time, there are more pirated copies. "Those low-cost live broadcast booths sell goods by a photo, but consumers may never be able to buy the clothes shown by the anchor." Jin Yong further explained, "For the same style, if you change the material and surface accessories, the cost will be reduced, but the quality is completely different." The disorderly development of live broadcast goods is eroding the living space of original brands. Several market managers of Sijiqing mentioned similar views in their discussions on live broadcast with goods. Last year, Sijiqing boutique children's clothing market helped operators digest clothing inventory by means of live broadcast, which deeply worried Zhang Ting that the inherent low price feature of the live broadcast room is squeezing the survival space of original brands. A high-quality domestic original clothing brand will incur costs in design, plate making, enterprise publicity and other aspects. After careful operation, the team often gets the result that the new original brand can not adapt to the low price of the live channel. When the original brand is sold offline, customers can feel the value from the multi-dimensional perspectives of fabric, wearing comfort, etc., but they compete in the broadcast room. Under the different attack of similar models and different fabrics, the uniqueness of the original brand "loses" to the low price of the broadcast room. Zhang Ting has seen original designers wavering between the low price of live broadcast and the road of brand. She tried to reduce the cost of brand products continuously and gain a place in the live broadcast wave by reducing the price, but the result was that the original products fell into a dilemma where high-end customers did not accept the quality and online customers did not agree with the price. What's more, original designers are afraid of is that designers spend a lot of time to check the quality of clothing. The live broadcast room stealthily copied the version, copied the style and replaced it with cheap fabric. After customers buy it, their trust in the brand will be greatly reduced. In the long run, it will also cause image damage to the original brand. In the past, clothing store owner Meng Juan often went to Sijiqing market to purchase goods, but since last year, she found that "the new models of all wholesalers are the same, feeling that they are just the same style." Under the dark clouds, fewer and fewer brands are willing to invest in product design, research and development.
Huang Mingguo has witnessed the rapid rise of the live broadcasting industry all the way. The low threshold of the industry has caused the spread of live broadcasting, and it is also easy to fall into the vicious competition of price war. Between catching up with each other, today, 80% of the ecological products in the broadcast room are low price products, and 20% are unique high price products. Low price products have brought traffic, and their shortcomings are particularly prominent: the return rate of women's clothing in the broadcast room is as high as 40% - 70%, and quality problems and upper body effects are the main reasons for women's clothing return. "Too many people compete at low prices in the live broadcast wave." Huang Mingguo sighed that the live broadcast e-commerce has optimized the supply chain, but also brought market chaos.
Brand building takes time to settle down. We should pay attention to and invest in product design, research and development, channels, services, experience and other aspects. Cheng Weixiong analyzed that, at present, under the impact of live broadcast e-commerce, fashion culture has become a fast-food culture, and original brands, especially new brands, are inevitably at a disadvantage in the price game, which will eventually lead to the expulsion of good money from bad money. "This is also the common pain point of the domestic fashion industry." Evergreen market, which has broken away from live broadcast, represents the real economy saying "no" to e-commerce. In Cheng Weixiong's view, behind the battle between live broadcast e-commerce and the real economy, there is also a conflict between the two business concepts of "doing business" and "doing brand". One side of the coin is that online business is booming, but the other side is that the industry has fallen into disorderly competition, and practitioners have turned to the "sales only theory", which may not bring long-term benefits to consumers. "But this kind of out of control and disorder can not be changed by a market fighting against live broadcasting." Cheng Weixiong suggested that the regulatory authorities should face this new topic directly, regulate and guide online businesses such as live broadcasting e-commerce in an orderly manner, "burst the bubble of the live broadcasting economy, and don't let everyone go to 'retreat' blindly." One square world of physical stores In the face of the wave of live broadcast, the evergreen market retreated between the forbidden world and the invincible live broadcast. The diversified choices of market operators about live broadcast with goods also make people suspicious. Is there any commonality between the live broadcast economy and the real economy? The relationship between the two can only change, can not go hand in hand? Lv Miao, deputy director of the New Economy Research Center of Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, analyzed that live selling is to improve the viewing ability of purchase through online interaction. Not only is it intuitive to introduce products, but also cultural output emerges in endlessly, which is easy to be recognized by users. To a certain extent, the anchor's personal charm also promotes commodity consumption. In the three years of the epidemic, the growth of corporate profits and government revenue fell back, the total consumption decreased, and the purchase of low-cost and homogeneous necessities will pay more attention to price/cost factors, and the live broadcast industry will see the wind grow. At the same time, the consumption structure of residents is constantly changing. In the past decade, with the optimization and adjustment of the industrial structure and the change of the population structure, Hangzhou has already had a local consumer group with medium to high consumption capacity. These people demand quality, storytelling and uniqueness for offline consumption, rather than making price difference for middlemen. However, Lv Miao also believes that the live broadcast economy will not obliterate the existence value of physical stores. "It will force offline physical stores to transform." Lv Miao suggested that physical stores should embrace consumption upgrading, improve the quality, style and experience of consumer goods, and compete with online live broadcast.
As one of the leaders of MCN, Huang Mingguo is more keenly aware of the subtle changes in the wind direction.
"The platform hopes to make the traffic more valuable." Huang Mingguo said that he understands the chaos of live broadcasting in which traffic is killed and substandard products are flooded in the live broadcasting room, but the future of live broadcasting is changing. Dithering, fast hand and other platforms have successively pressed the next air outlet on the local city. The platform realizes that the live broadcast room where inferior products occupy the C position can neither bring good experience to consumers nor bring long-term economic value to the platform due to bad traffic. The online and offline mechanisms, such as group buying of life and local clocking in, are gradually guiding the flow back to offline brands and to physical stores. "Physical stores will not die out." Huang Mingguo believed that after the epidemic was released, the direction of the surge of people was the seemingly passive physical stores. After three years of operation, the owner of Hangzhou's new and original brand "Moses Moses" Mumu (alias) feels that many consumers have returned from the online market. "Different from the visual sales model of live broadcast and Taobao, the physical stores match on the spot and buy and wear immediately, which can not be replaced by e-commerce." Mumu feels that physical stores need not be hostile to live broadcast, "Learn live thinking, dare to accept new ways, and at the same time, do your own products and reputation is the most important." However, it should also be noted that the days of "flourishing shops for three generations" have passed away. "Brand management needs to settle down and invest more energy and costs to adapt to this era.
