The vitality of live streaming is just a low price?

  Our reporter Sun Qiru

  On the evening of the 18th, before the 24-hour settlement time limit given by the two anchors Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, L'Oréal Paris, which was caught in a consumer turmoil, gave a solution to compensate for coupons.

  Although consumers' dissatisfaction with this solution on platforms such as Weibo and live broadcast rooms has not yet subsided, the anchors have continued to conduct daily live broadcasts.

  After a round of twists and turns, some consumers have quietly "discounted" the psychological expectations of the anchor "the lowest price on the entire network".

 The disappearing "lowest price"

  A few days after "Double 11" ended, the two anchors Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi, who set a sales record in the just-concluded annual shopping promotion, held a group to the brand party-L'Oréal Group "war".

  The event was fermented on November 16.

Consumers complained that L'Oréal Paris’s ampoule mask was pre-sold in Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya’s live broadcast room and officially claimed that this was its “biggest effort of the year”.

However, in less than a month, the price of L'Oréal’s own live studio in Paris was more than 100 yuan cheaper than Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi’s pre-sale of 50 pieces of the same mask.

  On the 17th, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya’s live studio issued statements almost at the same time. Both said that if L’Oréal Paris fails to provide a reasonable solution after 24 hours, it will use the bottom-up program to compensate consumers.

Since then, L'Oréal Paris has explained that the consumption disturbance was mainly caused by the complicated promotion mechanism.

  On the evening of the 18th, L'Oréal Paris announced on its official Weibo its solution to the ampoule mask incident, for the purchase of ampoule masks at L’Oréal’s official flagship store during Tmall’s "Double 11" period and the product order reached 999 yuan and did not receive it. For consumers who spend 999 minus 200 coupons, L'Oréal will provide a 200 yuan no-threshold coupon as compensation.

According to previous reports, L'Oréal released Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast pre-sale promotion Weibo, which was re-edited, deleting the words "the greatest strength of the year".

  But many consumers do not buy it.

"With the compensation I got, you still have to continue to spend in your L'Oreal?" "Isn't it okay to refund the difference directly? This has to continue to increase sales for you, which is true." Some consumers commented.

Brand and anchor "wrestle"

  Not long before the L'Oreal incident, the cosmeceutical brand Di Jiating was also recently complained by consumers because of the large difference between the same face mask in the flagship store and the "low price" in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast.

The pre-sale price of Di Jiating facial mask in Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room was 370 yuan for 10 boxes, but then he gave a bigger discount in his own brand live broadcast room. You can buy 5 boxes for around 120 yuan, and the price difference is as high as 130 based on 10 boxes. Yuan.

  In the trilateral game of anchors, brands, and consumers, "low price" is always a key word, and it is also the fuse that triggered the turmoil of L'Oreal and Ti Jiating.

Behind the price comparison and price reduction, while the anchors highlight their bargaining power and influence in the live broadcast room, the game and see-saw between brand merchants and anchors in pricing has a long history.

  It is worth noting that the L'Oreal turmoil not only caused L'Oreal to fall into a crisis of public opinion, but also the reputation of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya as major anchors.

On the Internet, there are many remarks such as "the live broadcast rooms are expensive because the big anchors have too high commissions", "there are fewer brands, so you can save a lot of money" and so on.

  Some people in the industry have pointed out that on the one hand, brands rely on the anchor’s ability to carry goods and use the reputation of the head anchor to increase sales; on the other hand, the brand is also prone to backlash because of this-too much reliance on the anchor’s promotion makes it difficult to form an independent call for the brand. Blindly accommodating the anchor to give up low prices, but also damage the interests of the brand.

Due to the high bargaining power of big anchors, there are even more radical online comments that the big anchors are "monopoly."

  However, the accusation of the monopoly of major anchors has not been recognized by experts.

Pan Helin, executive dean of the Institute of Digital Economy of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, believes: "It cannot be called a monopoly. This is traffic aggregation. Traffic aggregation must have higher bargaining power. In fact, it is the same as the principle of rushing sales rankings in the past."

 Low-cost "elixir" is hard to last

  “Originally, I came for the idea that I would not buy a loss if I closed my eyes. Now I have to compare prices to insure. What is the point of my time squatting in the live broadcast room?” After experiencing this storm, I often broadcast live on Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya. Ms. Cai, who was lingering around, said helplessly.

  Currently, due to the constraints of the new advertising law, extreme words such as "the lowest price on the entire network" no longer appear in the slogans of major broadcasters.

However, consumers and broadcasters are tacitly aware that the "lowest price" and "best deal" are the primary criteria for many consumers to choose a live broadcast room.

  According to Mo Daiqing, director of the online retail department and senior analyst of the e-commerce research center of the Net Economics, to a certain extent, users pay more attention to prices than the brand (product) itself when consuming in the live broadcast room.

However, the sustainability of live streaming is still in the merchants and brand products themselves. Only when the products are good can they gain the dependence of channels and the trust of users.

  Wang Gao, a marketing professor at China Europe International Business School, reminded that the anchors may have reached a period of transformation.

At present, the outside world cannot judge whether consumers are loyal to the brand and low price, or loyal to the anchor.

"If one day in the future, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya can sell much more than the flagship store for the same product and the same price, then their true value will be highlighted."