"Orphan" Live Broadcast Chaos Investigation
The so-called "orphan products" and "last orders" may be second-hand clothes that can be wholesaled for 600 yuan per ton, and some cost less than one yuan.
- The "orphan items" you grab while staying up late watching the live broadcast may be used clothes that others have thrown away.
- Some netizens posted that they saw on the short video platform that the sweater being displayed in the live broadcast room of an "orphan sweater" was exactly the same as the sweater thrown in the recycling bin of the community: "Because this dress has a small hole in it, and it is more and more I threw it away after washing it for a long time.”
- Many consumers reported to reporters that the clothes they bought in the "Gupin" live broadcast room were probably second-hand clothes: the clothes had odors and stains, and some had rusty zippers and traces of sewing. Some people even opened the package and found " There are cockroaches escaping."
- The reporter conducted an investigation and found that the recycling of second-hand clothes in the "Orphan" live broadcast room has already formed a complete gray industry chain.
"Orphan items" in a small warehouse. Photo provided by interviewee
1
The "lone product" in the live broadcast room:
Most of them are wholesaled by packages from used clothes recycling and sorting factories.
"Does anyone want this? I'll give you a number if you want it." Rows of clothes hangers are covered with clothes, even piled on the ground. Although the number of people online from dozens to hundreds is not large, they are actively interacting with the anchor. It is late at night The "lone product" live broadcast room at 12 o'clock.
The anchor will display the clothing in front of the camera, introduce the appropriate weight, and urge the order. Sometimes a popular "orphan item" will have several people "deducting the number".
An "orphan item" is sold very quickly. It only takes about 10 seconds from the time the anchor takes the hanger to the moment it is thrown aside for customers to place orders. This type of live broadcast room is usually marked with words such as "orphan product", "clearance", "factory last order", "9.9 free shipping", "default slight defects", etc., and even the rules of "no return, no exchange" and "running orders to blacklist" are almost the same. consistent. The reporter found that most of these "orphan" live broadcast rooms choose to broadcast live in the afternoon or early morning, and the number of people online ranges from dozens to hundreds.
Xiao Wang (pseudonym), a live broadcast room staff member with experience in the clothing industry, told reporters that when she first joined the company a few years ago, she also believed in the sayings of "factory clearance" and "factory tail goods". Later she learned that they were all second-hand clothes. .
"I didn't even know when I was taking pictures. I tried my best to take good-looking pictures and sort the clothes well..." Xiao Wang showed reporters the sweater product pictures taken for the live broadcast room at that time - sweaters with uniform colors were hung neatly on the On the shelves, they are basically the same as the advertising pictures of new products of trendy brands on the market. It wasn't until Xiao Wang was assigned to hang tag the clothes to be put on the shelves due to lack of manpower, that she discovered that some clothes had obvious wear and tear, pilling, and some clothes also had a clear smell of laundry detergent, perfume, and bleach.
In the small warehouse where the goods were stacked, Xiao Wang discovered "orphan items" all over the floor: dozens of items of clothing wrapped in sheet-like fabric, and colorful sweaters scattered in an open package - these sweaters had been simply ironed, After the hairballs are removed, it will be hung on a hanger, and with a wholesale tag that costs a few cents each, it will become an "orphan sweater" in the live broadcast room. "I asked why they were selling used clothes? They said this is how they are sold in live broadcast studios now."
The colleague in charge of grading the goods also told her that these clothes were all taken from the sorting factory for recycling old clothes in Huizhou, Guangdong, and were wholesaled by the package. I chose the one that costs 3 yuan a piece. The colleagues in charge of sorting the goods select "relatively new" goods from these clothes every day. "If they don't look good, or are too dirty or sloppy, they will be returned to the factory owner."
So what exactly are the "original orders", "last orders" and "orphan items" mentioned by the anchor?
The reporter learned that clothing factories usually produce a certain amount of additional clothing based on customer orders to ensure a sufficient number of qualified products. After delivery is completed, these goods that fail quality inspection and other remaining goods are called "original orders" or "last orders."
Under the "processing with supplied materials" transaction method, after completing the order, there may be cases where buttons and other auxiliary materials have been used up, but there is still fabric left. Some clothing factories will choose to make the best use of the materials and select other auxiliary materials for production. , this category is called "following orders". In addition, the backlog of inventory produced by clothing brands and clothing factories due to poor sales, seasonal changes, etc. is called "inventory."
"Orphan products" mainly refer to clothing that is relatively rare in quantity, with only one or two pieces of each style. In the live broadcast rooms mentioned above, the anchors all said that the "orphan products" they sell come from the factory's "sample orders", "original orders", "last orders" and "last goods".
According to many industry insiders, there are usually a certain number of "sample orders", "original orders", "last orders" and "inventory", and "basically there will not be only one piece", while second-hand recycled clothing "only has one piece" and most of them are " There are signs of wear."
2
Second-hand clothing recycling and sorting factory:
Collect by ton, sorted in detail, can be refurbished. "The cost of disinfection is high."
In a certain area in southwest China, Ms. Qin (pseudonym), who started to get involved in live broadcasting of orphan products three years ago, revealed to reporters that the industry chain for recycling and reselling of used clothes first appeared in Guangzhou. During the epidemic, "recycling-sorting- The live streaming industry chain has developed rapidly.
According to his recollection, in the early days of used clothes recycling in a certain area in southwest China, door-to-door recycling merchants would not refuse the old clothes. They would recycle them at a price of 3 to 8 cents per catty, and then package them at a price of several hundred yuan per ton. Handed over to second-hand clothing recycling and sorting factory.
After that, some orphan live broadcast rooms began to purchase goods from local used clothing recycling stations, and then picked them out on their own after getting them back. Calculating, you can get a down jacket for less than 5 yuan. Some door-to-door recycling merchants have found that direct recycling and resale are more profitable, so they have begun to complete the sorting process themselves. When they come to door-to-door recycling, they will select customers' old clothes and not accept those that are too old; there are also seasonal requirements: only recycling in summer Summer clothes, and winter clothes for winter. Before selling to live broadcast merchants, they will also be classified and priced according to the newness, season, and style, ranging from a dozen yuan to several tens of yuan.
Ms. Qin told reporters that there is also a local business of renovating old clothes. "Someone told me that they recycle all the underwear they wear, and they also renovate dirty clothes..."
It is said that some people will specifically go to high-end communities to recycle, because these communities "will contain some good clothes even if they are thrown away, and they have not been worn much." Ms. Qin said: "I have tried some second-hand (clothing), and the clothes with a price of more than 100 yuan are not as good as them. Many of them are brand-name goods."
Based on the keywords provided by Ms. Qin, the reporter contacted a local used clothes recycler on Xianyu. The other party said that they could come to collect "unified goods" regardless of season at a price of 1 yuan/kg. When the reporter pointed out that the price was too low, When I get at least a few dollars from selling to someone who sells "vintage" (clothes of a period), the other party says, "We only paid 80 cents for 'unique goods', and I will earn you 30 cents." "I have a lot of them in my warehouse." …It’s not as good as imagined.”
After being introduced, the reporter then contacted a sorting factory in Guangzhou with many years of experience. The other party said that it does both export and domestic business, and also accepts clothes recycled from community recycling bins, but "it only takes dozens of tons" and because " To sterilize, the cost is high” rather than accepting “bad clothes”.
On Alibaba and Douyin APP, reporters also discovered many "orphan" live broadcast supply wholesale manufacturers in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Henan and other places. A salesperson from a manufacturer told reporters that their products are classified into fine categories and have many grades, ranging from 600 yuan/ton (equivalent to less than 1 yuan per piece), 3,000 yuan/ton to 20 yuan a piece for windbreakers and sherpa jackets: "There are second-hand goods, new goods, and some last-minute goods mixed in... It depends on your acceptance level. Our customers are also engaged in live broadcasting and have been using our goods for a long time." Some manufacturers also said that they only sell factory goods and store removals. The wholesale price of each piece ranges from ten to tens of yuan.
3
There is a live broadcast room with a daily turnover of tens of thousands
Industry insiders say
“Real goods can’t compete with second-hand clothes”
With the help of recycling used clothes, the profit of the "orphan" live broadcast room is even higher than that of the real factory clearance.
According to industry insiders, "Gupin" live broadcast rooms have low thresholds and low costs, and "new accounts" can quickly sell goods. Some wholesalers also promise that if they can get a certain amount of money, they can teach live broadcast accounts for free.
Ms. Qin told reporters that an old wool coat that cost 30 yuan can be sold for 300 yuan in the live broadcast room. Ms. Qin’s friend who purchased goods from the recycle bin for live broadcasting once showed screenshots of the background data of Douyin’s live broadcast, with a daily turnover of 10,000 yuan. "No one who is serious about selling second-hand goods can do the job of selling second-hand goods."
Xiao Wang also calculated an account for the reporter: the purchase price of a sweater is 3 yuan, the shipping fee is 3 yuan, the anchor commission is 1 yuan, and other various costs are deducted, even the "loss-making benefit" of 9.9 yuan/piece occasionally released by the boss You will not lose money even if the price is 19.9 yuan/piece or 29.9 yuan/piece at other times, and the profit will be higher. The live broadcast room where Xiao Wang works averages two live broadcasts a day, each lasting 2 to 4 hours, and can sell at least 200 pieces every day.
Xiao Wang's boss is not from the clothing industry. He turned to "orphan" clothing live broadcasting after being introduced by a friend because of the huge benefits. I bought two small rooms, a few shelves, a mobile phone, and a computer in the park, and started the "orphan" live broadcast business.
In addition to live streaming, Xiao Wang also helps with packaging and shipping after the broadcast. If she finds stains on her clothes, she will take the initiative to ask her colleagues how to deal with them, and her colleagues will ask her to wash the clothes and dry them before shipping. Generally, it is simply treated with laundry detergent or laundry spray, or just rinsed with water, without disinfection.
4
Regulatory enforcement is a problem
Second-hand clothes passed off as "orphan products" may constitute fraud
At present, waste textile raw materials and products such as old clothes belong to my country's list of solid wastes prohibited from import. Before the used clothes are exported, the sorted used clothes need to be declared to the health and quarantine agency and undergo health quarantine. Many countries in Africa require test reports to pass VOC certification when clearing customs for second-hand clothing.
Yang Yinghong, secretary-general of the Clothes Reuse Working Committee of the China Secondhand Goods Industry Association, once said in an interview with the media: Among the recycled clothes that can be resold, about 35% of the total recycling amount, of which summer clothes account for about 15%. Autumn and winter clothing account for about 20%.
The "Technical Specifications for the Circulation of Second-Hand Textile and Clothing" released by the China Secondhand Goods Industry Association in 2021 stipulates the requirements for the finishing, quality and hygiene, labeling, tagging, and sales of second-hand textile and clothing. However, the document does not disclose the specific text content. At the same time, the "Technical Specifications for the Circulation of Second-hand Textiles and Clothing" is a group standard and a self-declaration disclosure and supervision system jointly formulated by social groups to coordinate relevant market entities. It has no mandatory normative effect on market entities.
Yang Yinghong told reporters that the current second-hand clothing market is "chaotic and viciously competitive" because there are indeed many problems in its circulation. "For example, it is difficult to trace the source of second-hand clothing, it is difficult to make the processing process transparent, it is difficult to divide after-sales responsibilities, and the supervision department's There is a lack of regulatory basis.”
Fu Jian, director of Henan Zejin Law Firm, said that if second-hand clothes are sold to consumers as orphans, it may constitute fraud, and consumers can claim compensation.
In response to the current mixed situation in the second-hand clothing recycling market, experts suggest strengthening industry self-discipline, formulating industry standards and norms, and regulating industry development; strengthening supervision, establishing and improving relevant supervision mechanisms, and increasing the investigation and punishment of illegal activities in the industry; and strengthening publicity and education. , improve consumers’ awareness and understanding of second-hand clothes, and guide consumers to treat second-hand clothes correctly.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Luo Danni and intern Wu Xiaoqian