Our reporters Wei Donghua and Zheng Mengyu
On a winter night in Beijing, outside Xizhimen, the trees along the road are full of string lights, decorating the night.
This was once the landmark of Beijing-the location of the largest clothing wholesale distribution center "Dongban" in the north.
The surging e-commerce quickly dissipated the crowd who came to wholesale with large bags and small bags.
When the times abandon people, they don't say hello.
In 2003, the haze of "SARS" was not over. An 18-year-old girl from Lujiang County, Anhui Province, Huang Wei, and her boyfriend came to "Dongbi" and rented a 6-square-meter store to start their business.
(Title picture: Wei Ya was broadcast live in Fuping County, Shaanxi Province. Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
Ups and downs, 13 years later, "Via" appeared.
The girl in this southern town never thought that she would get these honors: "Commissioner of the All-China Youth Federation", "National March 8th Red Flag Bearer in the Fight against the New Crown Pneumonia Epidemic", and "2020 National Poverty Alleviation Award Dedication Award".
Everywhere in life knows what it is like, it should be like Feihong stepping on the mud.
35-year-old Huang Wei desperately grabbed the "sleeves" of the times and raced against time to make "Weiya" leave a mark in the tide of live e-commerce.
Twisted clockwork
"A good-tempered person can't live broadcast." Wei Ya's requirements for quality are almost harsh and never compromise.
Late at night, Xidian Memory Cultural and Creative Town, Chaoyang District, Beijing.
In the darkness, Wei Ya’s MCN agency "Humble Search Culture" was brightly lit.
At about 30:30, Wei Ya waved goodbye to the fans in the live broadcast room and took a sip of the water in the thermos.
The "smoke of gunpowder" in the live broadcast room has temporarily dispersed.
In the past 5 hours, the live broadcast room was crowded.
Rows of mobile hangers full of clothing, packed with boxes on the floor, almost no place to stay.
The staff walked through it skillfully and got the products accurately.
"Five, four, three, two, one, come on, follow the link!" With each product on the shelves, Wei Ya shouted these words in her trademark hoarse voice.
A live broadcast is like a well-coordinated evening party-products are quickly put on the shelves, and quickly sold out, and new products are immediately relayed.
Three or four people in front of the camera handed over their clothes and displayed collocations, and the team members outside the camera were also running at a fast pace.
Assistants watch the process and deliver products, and seven or eight people sit in front of the computer to link, communicate with businesses, and confirm replenishment.
Even the company’s yard was full of various express boxes, and merchants across the country sent goods in hopes of entering the live broadcast room of Via.
In the past two years, live streaming has ushered in a major explosion.
In front of the mobile phone screen, a "new world" is growing.
From the live broadcast room on the first floor to the office on the second floor, within a few minutes, people kept handing Wei Ya documents and products.
A row of sample clothes hung in the corridors of the company, and Wei Ya had to choose a style when she saw stitches.
Finally sat down, more than 20 people gathered around her, and people kept offering food for tasting.
A list of products that record the selling points and trial evaluations of the products is on the table.
The two tables are put together, and they are piled with all kinds of food.
These are the winners after three rounds of screening out of thousands of registered products.
Behind the screen is a product selection team of more than 300 people. The evaluation scope ranges from merchant qualifications, brand negatives, to blind product testing. The company also introduces a third-party quality inspection agency.
The last level is Via.
She has a veto.
Wei Ya draws a hook in one hand and holds food in the other, while talking on the phone with the head of the food department in Hangzhou to communicate details.
Only the products that are ticked can finally enter the scheduling pool and wait to be broadcast.
"Why do you want to change a brand, do you think this is delicious? I don't think, everyone come and eat." Wei Ya's "shell" made the staff on the side speechless.
Here, everyone can freely express their opinions on product selection, thereby affecting the retention of a product.
"A good-tempered person can't do a live broadcast." Wei Ya said, her requirements for quality are almost harsh and she never compromises.
The review and selection will continue until six or seven in the morning.
Some employees joked: "We are off work to catch up with the morning peak."
Times flew around, and Wei Ya seemed to have an invisible clockwork on her body that was being twisted all the time.
When happiness comes knocking
The story of Huang Wei becoming "Via" is a story of grassroots struggle and counterattack in the standard sense
Huang Wei at that time was not Wei Ya.
She and her boyfriend rented a rental house without a toilet in the suburbs of Beijing, and they were calculating how to save money every day.
Taking a bus without air conditioning can save 1 yuan; a spoonful of rose-flavored fermented bean curd coated on a 2 yuan omelet is a meal; a TV set is borrowed from the canteen at the intersection...
Huang Wei understood very early that there is no shortcut in life.
They are racing every day-a speed race with updated clothing styles, a race against tens of thousands of competitors, and a race in their own lives.
The story of Huang Wei becoming "Via" is a story of grassroots struggles in the standard sense.
In 2020, Wei Ya will broadcast more than 310 live broadcasts. In addition to countless large and small events, the life of the clockwork has not changed.
Even in her short career as a singer, Huang Wei desperately tried her best to do it for herself.
"A typical Virgo requires perfection in everything." Dong Haifeng, her boyfriend who accompanied her along the way, her husband and company leader, commented on her.
Huang Wei called her career as an artist "Dare to Trial and Error".
Everyday life is boring singing and dancing.
The showbiz is far more complicated than she imagined. She chose to give up not because she was afraid of hard work, but it was not suitable.
Huang Wei doesn't like the uncertainty that "efforts are not necessarily rewarded".
At that time, she didn't have any right to speak from group members to record quality.
One night, she had a long phone call with Dong Haifeng who was in Xi'an.
Huang Wei felt relieved after hanging up the phone.
On the other end of the phone, a sentence of "Come on" made her pack up her bags and rush to a strange city.
Returning to their old business, the experience accumulated by Beijing's "Dong Pian" has made their business in Xi'an flourish.
Starting from a women's clothing store, they expanded to seven stores.
Huang Wei wants to regain the right to speak in life.
Looking back on this life, Huang Wei can always think of the movie "When Happiness Knocks on the Door": Even if a person is faced with a difficult situation, he can at least have self-esteem, dreams and tomorrow.
Leaving the "comfort zone"
"Via"'s life trajectory is to adapt to the changes of the times, and then leave early
Around 2012, online shopping began to rise.
Huang Wei was deeply impressed. A customer tried a lot of clothes in her store, and finally took out his mobile phone, found the same item online, and showed her the price in front of her.
No one can control the tide of the times.
Looking at it now, Huang Wei's life trajectory is to adapt to the changes of the times, and then set off early.
However, at the moment, it takes courage to leave the "comfort zone".
Many people don’t understand. Isn’t it good to keep a physical store?
Is it bad for a stable life?
But Huang Wei and Dong Haifeng still plunged into the e-commerce army.
Huang Wei still remembers that the Taobao store opened on the first day. She originally thought that carefully selected clothes and designed stores could usher in a "good start". Who knew she would be a pot of cold water.
Seeing that all his savings have been smashed in, the shop has not improved.
Huang Wei was anxious, and they asked someone to "learn from".
Took an experienced online store operations director to eat and drink a glass of wine, he said, "strategic loss".
Huang Wei was surprised when she heard that she was losing money.
But the logic of the Internet world is very different from physical stores.
The "teacher" explained that, first use the low price of losing money to offset the sales, and then slowly increase the price. After the cost is covered, wait for the opportunity to occupy the top of the sales list-now called "traffic is king."
They began to explore how to play e-commerce.
Countless "Huang Weis" are floating in the sea of e-commerce.
"The ideal is full, the reality is very skinny." Huang Wei said, many people did not make it to the dawn of the next day.
In 2014, the "Double 11" "Waterloo" almost made her give up.
They underestimated the explosive power of e-commerce, with sales surging 10 million yuan.
However, the original productivity cannot keep up. Fabrics and processing have to be found temporarily, and there is no time for quality inspection.
What followed was returns.
At first it was delivered by a tricycle. Later, the truck was pulled by the whole carriage, and the returned clothes were piled there. "That's all a loss!" They calculated it and lost 2 million yuan.
They had to sell the house to pay off the debt.
In middle school, Huang Wei received a book from her classmates, "The Little Prince" by a French writer.
At first, Huang Wei read "love" from the book.
After many years, she read "Life" again.
"You can't stay growing up, but you can always be a child." Perhaps in Huang Wei's heart, there is always a "child" that she can persevere in the things that others give up a hundred times.
Why she?
Every life experience of Huang Wei has blessed her to become "Weiya"
One day in May 2016, "Via" was officially born.
The scene at that time was like this: the husband and daughter were playing in the living room, and she was sitting in front of the desk in the hotel room, setting up her mobile phone to start broadcasting.
The first time she spoke to the phone screen, she was a bit jerky and stiff, and occasionally got stuck.
The first broadcast was watched by 5,000 people. If you buy a flow of 1 yuan, it is equivalent to 5,000 yuan.
Huang Wei knows that "traffic is king", she tries to broadcast live every day.
The agent Wang Si was still in charge of Taobao live broadcast operations.
The first time he heard that "Via" was in a "10 hours in a row" event.
10 anchors entered the arena to compete for who can sell the most orders within an hour.
"At that time, everyone was not optimistic about Taobao live broadcast, thinking it was no different from TV shopping." Wang Si said, I just want everyone to see the explosive power of live broadcast.
Wei Ya stood out.
"She thought of a way to match it from head to toe, saving time for changing clothes, including accessories, clothes, and mobile phone cases. All items that appeared in the lens can be ordered directly." Wang Si recalled, this is the line Wei Ya is familiar with the way of getting off the shop.
When the data came out, Wang Si added Huang Wei's WeChat.
"He was very unkind at the time, and asked,'Did you brush the order?" When Huang Wei said this, Wang Si couldn't help but smile.
"I don't know the results. Listening to him, I think I might be quite high." Huang Wei said, but she didn't expect to be the first place, and the sales volume was twice that of the second place.
Wang Si summed up "Why Wei Ya" in a few sentences.
One depends on talent and experience.
The grass snake gray line, Huang Wei's every life experience has blessed her to become "Via".
Offline retail, barrier-free communication with customers; artists, not afraid of the camera; e-commerce, familiar with the needs of online customer groups.
Second, rely on hard work and persistence.
Wang Si said that at the time, everyone was not optimistic about the live broadcast, and it was broadcasted one after another. Wei Ya regarded it as a career and broadcast it every day.
There is also "detail control", not letting go of any defect.
"She is a Virgo and likes to be the best." Wang Si said that the essence of the live broadcast economy is the "fans trust economy."
Once you lose trust, you fall completely.
So the selection is the "lifeline" of the anchor.
Wang Si has seen too many anchors ups and downs.
Some people think that maybe the live broadcast will be cold next year, take advantage of the trend, sell the profitable ones, and leave after earning a vote.
Wei Ya is not, she has insisted since the live broadcast was still "not seen".
Ma Yun said, because I believed, I saw it.
Via won here.
In July 2020, a batch of new professions were released, and "Internet Marketing Engineer" became the official professional title.
In November, the "2020 E-commerce Anchor Job Search Report" released by BOSS directly showed that job seekers who expect to be engaged in e-commerce anchor positions have increased by 110.7% compared with the same period in 2019.
More than 310 live broadcasts a year
If you don’t really love it, few people can stick to it
Once, a young guy in the company found Wei Ya.
"My girlfriend is a fan of yours. She always complains that I am too busy and can't meet people. Can she also come to work in the company?"
Wei Ya said, let her try.
The girl is hired as a live broadcast assistant.
A week later, it was the boy's turn to complain, "She is busier than me".
The busiest person in the company is undoubtedly Wei Ya.
In 2020, she will broadcast more than 310 times.
She opened the itinerary on her mobile phone, and the last month of 2020 was full of activities almost every day, divided by hour.
This does not include live broadcasts that cannot be beaten.
Wei Ya's principle is that the agent does not need to ask her about the schedule, as long as the live broadcast is guaranteed.
Dong Haifeng sometimes can't help the WeChat group whizzing: Can you not be so full?
Wei Ya doesn't need to give an inspirational speech to motivate employees, her dedication is reflected in her practice.
The reporter asked, what kind of person is Wei Ya?
Speaking fast, walking fast, perpetual motion machine, model worker, early flight queen... "She can't be copied." Said the deputy who has been following her Qi'er.
Wei Ya's life is exciting and boring.
Day after day, day and night reversed.
The writer Xu Zhiyuan once asked her in a show, do you not like to travel?
Wei Ya said, I would rather choose to sleep.
"If you don't really love this thing, few people can stick to it." Wang Si said.
In January 2020, the new crown epidemic broke out and people were isolated at home.
On the night of the New Year's Eve, Wei Ya did not rest.
She turned on the phone, put on a mask, and broadcast live at home.
Wei Ya said that there is no traffic on the street, but the live broadcast room is different.
A fan left a message, I suddenly felt the smoke in your live broadcast room.
When the whole city is silent, open live chat and chat, pass through small screens, and everyone keeps warm.
On the back of the spotlight, there is a person who complements individual busyness and group loneliness.
After Wuhan was unblocked, Wei Ya rushed to live to sell crayfish and other specialty products to help resume work and production.
Early in the morning, she had a long queue to eat a bowl of hot dry noodles, and went to the Yellow Crane Tower to take a video for the fans in the live broadcast room.
"I just want to tell everyone that Wuhan is very good now."
Watching the live broadcast is like chasing a TV series with no ending.
Wei Ya said that there are thousands of people behind the phone screen, but I only treat them as one person, a person who chats with me every day.
There was a message saying, "The lipstick is on her teeth." She put her face in front of the camera and arranged her makeup on the screen. After finishing her work, she realized that the scene was all broadcast.
Before the camera, Wei Ya cares more about the truth.
Tears of Village Women
Anchor is a new profession, there are always people who don’t understand, but please have a clear conscience
"Weiya is here!" Cai Yaling, the head of the Nongxuan Persimmon Cooperative in Fuping County, Shaanxi Province, was the first to rush out of the crowd, holding Weiya's hand tightly, tears bursting into her eyes.
Persimmon is a specialty of Buping County.
Persimmons and walnuts from two impoverished villages in the county were creatively blended into dried persimmons with walnuts.
It was originally a good project to promote poverty alleviation of farmers in two villages.
However, due to the epidemic, this poverty alleviation product was unsalable.
Cai Yaling was under a lot of pressure.
When she saw Wei Ya, she seemed to see hope.
The mood that had been suppressed for several months was finally released.
Cai Yaling's tears made Wei Ya more convinced that she was doing the right thing.
After the team inspected the quality, packaging, transportation, logistics and other aspects, Wei Ya started broadcasting.
The villagers collectively watched Wei Ya’s live broadcast and witnessed 10,000 copies of the product sold out instantly.
Wei Ya has a deep understanding of this point that it is impossible to do a live broadcast of poverty alleviation by simply being moved.
In 2016, a typhoon swept across Zhejiang, floods made Taizhou Xianju bayberry unsalable, and the growers were seriously damaged.
"I signed up to participate in the live broadcast to help farmers, but I didn't expect to get a full screen of curses." Wei Ya felt aggrieved.
"For a show!" "Our hometown is even poorer!" "You do charity, you donate money yourself, why let us buy it?" "You are kidnapping morally."...Weiya almost cried during the live broadcast.
During that live broadcast, Wei Ya bought 200 boxes of Yangmei to the fans in the live broadcast room.
Calm down, she began to replay, what's the problem?
"Poverty alleviation products are first and foremost commodities. At that time, the price of bayberry was indeed higher than the market price." Wei Ya said that because of helping farmers, there was no bargaining, so she could only bite the bullet and sell it.
The most important thing is that quality control logistics has also gone wrong, and many of the long-distance bayberry transported to consumers are rotten.
"For the anchor, there are many "pits" to step on in agricultural products." Wang Si said, how to solve it?
First of all, the product must be standardized.
Pears produced in Dangshan County, Anhui Province, Wei Ya and her team went to investigate and found that there was a problem with the logistics of selling pears directly.
However, there are local methods for making pear paste, which can be sold all year round.
However, at that time, every family made their own pear paste, and there was no uniform standard.
So, Wei Ya approached the county magistrate, hoping to have a brand, rather than relying on how much money a live broadcast sold.
The county magistrate immediately called on local enterprises to form an industrial park, and the brand was built in two months.
Buying and selling is also very simple, and good products are the key.
Now this pear paste has become a "net celebrity", and it can be sold into the top five of similar products without being in the Wei Ya live broadcast room.
From the data point of view, in the past four years, Wei Ya has helped poor households sell nearly 600 million yuan in products.
Behind the numbers, there is a more important message: poverty alleviation is not a one-time transaction, the key is to turn products into competitive commodities.
Wei Ya is now bearish on the "curse" on the Internet.
"Anchor is a new profession, there are always people who don't understand, but I ask myself to have a clear conscience."
The live broadcast of Weiya's public welfare poverty alleviation has traveled through Yunnan, Anhui, Qinghai and other places.
This year, she was awarded the "2020 National Poverty Alleviation Award Dedication Award" by the state.
There was a Zaju in the Yuan Dynasty telling a story about Zhang Yu cooking the sea.
Zhang Yu vowed to boil the sea water in order to let the dragon king release his wife who was imprisoned in the sea.
Later, a god sympathized with the immortal law, and the sea was boiling, and the dragon king had to push his daughter out to sea.
Wei Ya's obsession is like Zhang Yu cooking the sea.
With a pot and a fire, she felt that she could also boil the sea dry.