Before the winter vacation of 2024, students majoring in e-commerce (JD.com Oriented Training) of Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Science and Technology ushered in a live practical training class.
The entire teaching arrangement lasted nearly two weeks. In the first four days, teachers from the cooperative companies provided theoretical training to the students. In the next eight days, the students formed a team, sat in the live broadcast room, faced the mobile phone camera, and actually started their own training on the short video platform. Live practice.
In recent years, with the rise of live streaming e-commerce, there has been an increasing demand for talents with live streaming e-commerce skills. More and more colleges and universities are offering majors related to e-commerce live streaming, and more and more students are joining the profession after graduation. this industry.
However, when live broadcast e-commerce enters campus, how to cultivate qualified live broadcast e-commerce talents and take effective measures to standardize and guide its development? This presents both opportunities and challenges for higher vocational colleges.
Take live e-commerce classes on campus and generate benefits
For these students majoring in e-commerce at Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Science and Technology, a few days of practical training is very different from sitting in the classroom and listening to lectures, or participating in e-commerce-related vocational skills competitions, especially For those students who have never actually tried live broadcasting, practical training is "more practical" and "more tailored to the needs of the platform."
A live training course is over, but the post-editing work is not over yet. The instructor commented from the side: "Why are you using this material in every group? This sweater is not suitable with the down jacket. It steals the spotlight. Why don't you change the accessories."
"The rules of the platform are constantly being updated, and our speaking skills are also constantly being updated. Many of the rules are different from those in normal competitions." Zhang Hui, a student in this major, said after the last practical training class.
She and her team completed 8 transactions in the 45-minute practical training session.
"What these students have learned can already produce benefits." Wang Ping, director of the business management department of the college, told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily with emotion.
According to Wang Ping, the e-commerce major of Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Science and Technology was established as early as 2003. The main job positions are e-commerce operations, business data analysis, supply chain management, new media marketing, etc. From 2018 to 2019, this major was selected as the backbone major of the Ministry of Education’s Higher Vocational Education Innovation and Development Action Plan (2015-2018) and the “characteristic high-level” backbone major (group) of Beijing.
In fact, the popularity of live streaming e-commerce began in the past few years. With the rise of live streaming e-commerce, market demand continues to grow, and vocational colleges have opened e-commerce majors to cultivate e-commerce talents with professional knowledge and skills. At the same time, some schools have also begun to pay attention to the teaching and practice of live broadcast e-commerce.
The "2023 China Vocational Education Quality Annual Report" mentioned the example of Zhejiang Industry and Commerce Vocational and Technical College. In 2022, the school trained 397 students with entrepreneurial aspirations. During the "Double 11" period, the school's innovation and entrepreneurship e-commerce service platform established a "Double 11" team composed of 35 students, which helped a local Ningbo company complete sales of 100 million yuan.
"When I graduated from high school, e-commerce was very popular, and live streaming was also very popular at that time. I wanted to learn it, so I chose the e-commerce major." Zhang Hui's impression of several well-known anchors is , they are all very good at talking, they can even talk non-stop, and they all speak very fast.
"It turns out that I have watched a lot of videos and learned what it should feel like to be in front of the camera, but you will only feel it when you are actually sitting in a live broadcast room and strangers come into the live broadcast room to see you. What is it like? Theoretical things are all told to you by others, but in the real first practice, you may not even be able to express yourself." After these few days of practical training, Zhang Hui has learned a lot. reward.
“Some people will ask some weird questions as soon as they come up,” said another student Li Fang. “As for the product, if I don’t know much about the product, I will be very nervous and I will stutter if I can’t react. , I became even more nervous when I stuttered."
In this regard, the instructor's advice is to let them "check out" their peers' live broadcast rooms more often, ask some tricky questions, and "see how their peers respond."
Regarding how to live broadcast, these e-commerce majors need to learn more than just words and rules. Their professional courses include "Visual Marketing Design Technology", "Big Data Internet Marketing", "E-Commerce Precision Operation", "E-Commerce Website Planning and Construction", etc.
They also need to take editing courses, learn computer knowledge, and even learn tips for shooting products. The students placed the products on rotating chairs and illuminated them with a beam of light, so that the products would appear in their most attractive state under the camera. They also need to cut an orange open in front of the camera and squeeze the pulp so that the juice overflows enough to arouse the buyer's appetite.
For students, if they want to truly enter the live broadcast e-commerce industry, they have to learn more than they think.
“Anchors are not for everyone”
"Nowadays, live streaming is a very common social phenomenon, and live streaming e-commerce services have also become a major in higher vocational colleges, and its positive effect on commodity circulation is objective." Li Zhigang, deputy dean of the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Science and Technology, said that live streaming E-commerce is more popular among young people, and the threshold for live broadcasting is not particularly high. You can probably do a live broadcast with just a mobile phone, which is convenient.
The reality is also true. Live streaming e-commerce is considered to have low entry barriers. It seems that anyone can pick up a mobile phone and join the ranks of anchors. But on the other hand, as employers, companies are lamenting that the supply of live broadcast e-commerce talents exceeds demand, and there is a lack of truly useful and useful related talents.
"Being a live e-commerce business is not just a matter of turning on your phone. There are rules for what you can say." Liu Zheng's company, Yixin Taitong, is an Internet celebrity incubation organization that helps merchants produce content. "Many people with dreams Young people are willing to submit their resumes to us, thinking, 'I'm pretty, I can talk, I can be a host,' but that's not actually the case."
In Liu Zheng's words, it is not that easy to get consumers to click into the live broadcast room and be attracted. Some of the "bayonet-like" competition in the industry is far beyond what outsiders can imagine.
According to Chen Xuhua, dean of the E-Commerce School of Yiwu Vocational and Technical College of Industry and Commerce, live streaming of e-commerce should be a very professional matter. The entire process includes the selection of products supplied by the front end, the warm-up planning before the live broadcast, and the anchor's conversational control during the live broadcast. Interaction with consumers and control of consumer psychology, short video slicing after the live broadcast, secondary distribution, logistics, after-sales service, etc. are "a series of business activities."
He believes that the fundamental issue of vocational education is what kind of people should be cultivated. Everyone wants to be a "million-dollar anchor", but he also feels that this is unrealistic because "anchoring is not suitable for everyone." The entire live broadcast industry is actually divided into different positions such as anchor, assistant broadcast, field control, operation, etc. Students can reasonably find their own position based on their own characteristics and the skills and resources they have mastered.
Chen Xuhua also admitted that there is currently a disconnect between the training of live-streaming e-commerce-related talents and the employment needs of enterprises. The main reason is that many colleges and universities may not have introduced practical live-streaming e-commerce projects into the school's teaching links. "This is The difficulty in teaching is the lack of real scenes of live broadcast." Some teachers may even have no practical experience in live broadcasting themselves.
In this practical training class of Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Technology, some students performed poorly and could not relax in front of the camera. There are also students who are growing rapidly and have successfully received olive branches from companies. Some students directly conducted live e-commerce practice during this winter vacation and went to Pinggu to conduct live broadcasts to help farmers.
"Why are we willing to cooperate with vocational colleges to find talents with professional backgrounds? There is actually a great need for fresh blood and new personnel to enter. The advantage of vocational colleges is that students will have relatively solid basic theories." Liu Zheng's company has been operating all year round Cooperate with the e-commerce major of Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Science and Technology to deeply integrate industry and education to cultivate talents for the "last mile" of live e-commerce. "Only by jumping into the water can you learn to swim. Schools teach more theory, but practice is relatively lacking. This is It has promoted our school-enterprise cooperation and hopes that we can find talents who have knowledge of the industry."
In Liu Zheng's view, the anchors who emerged in the era of "barbaric growth" of live broadcast e-commerce are like those players in the professional basketball league who grew up playing games on the streets. However, the “academic school” of e-commerce will gradually become mainstream in the future. This is because only the academic talent training model can be "scaled" and can consolidate the mainstay positions at the waist and even below the waist of the entire industry pyramid.
"The main goal of vocational colleges in cultivating talents is to cultivate skilled talents that society needs." Chen Xuhua told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily, "Really valuable talents should create wealth for society and help Businesses solve problems."
According to Yan Zhengying, dean of the Entrepreneurship School of Yangzhou Industrial Vocational and Technical College, the live broadcast e-commerce major is closer to the market. In terms of school-enterprise cooperation and the integration of science and education, we should explore models of in-depth cooperation with supply chain companies and use data to reverse the trend. Empower manufacturing companies to transform and upgrade their products, create new consumer demands, build new consumption scenarios, and improve consumer experience. Schools and enterprises can jointly explore talent training, brand building, and market development to achieve longer-term, leap-forward growth. " There’s a lot to be done.”
“The professional construction and talent training related to live broadcast e-commerce in vocational colleges must pay attention to the cultivation of students’ supply chain management and live broadcast product selection capabilities, new media content creation capabilities, new technology application capabilities and data-based operation capabilities, so that they can keep up with the industry. development." Yan Zhengying said.
Industry standards, the school is working hard
"Everything can be broadcasted and everyone can be a host." The live broadcast era has arrived. Unknowingly, an emerging industry has been "growing wildly" for several years. As far as higher vocational colleges are concerned, the establishment of live broadcast e-commerce majors was born in response to the industry.
According to Yan Zhengying, currently, nearly 300 higher vocational colleges across the country offer online marketing and live broadcast e-commerce majors, and nearly 61 higher vocational colleges offer online live broadcast and operation majors. This provides a solid foundation for the development of the live broadcast e-commerce industry in recent years. Talent support.
The head of the Department of E-Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce introduced at a press conference last year that from January to November 2023, national online retail sales were 14 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11%. In the first half of last year, the key monitoring e-commerce platform’s cumulative live broadcast sales reached 1.27 trillion yuan, the cumulative number of live broadcasts exceeded 110 million, the number of live broadcast products exceeded 70 million, and the number of active anchors exceeded 2.7 million.
However, precisely because the threshold is not high, chaos occurs frequently in the live broadcast e-commerce industry. Last year, first a well-known anchor caused "public outrage" among consumers due to a comment about price, and then the topic of "college students live broadcasting in the dormitory" sparked heated public opinion.
The "China's Annual Report on Combating Infringement and Counterfeiting (2022)" press conference held by the State Council Information Office on April 26, 2023 also mentioned that during the "Double 11" period in 2022, the China Consumers Association used the Internet public opinion monitoring system to conduct The consumer rights protection situation from October 20 to November 13 was analyzed using Internet big data and public opinion. During the monitoring period, a total of 509,000 pieces of negative information about "live broadcast sales" were collected, accounting for 9.3% of the total amount of "complaints" information.
"The entire live streaming e-commerce industry has developed to this point. After so many years, it is indeed not easy. The development of every new thing will have problems of one kind or another. We hope that more effective measures can be taken to prevent these bad factors and guide the entire industry to be more Develop healthily." Chen Xuhua also told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily.
As early as 2020, the China Consumers Association’s online survey report on consumer satisfaction with live streaming e-commerce shopping mentioned that the most prominent keywords for consumers to “complain” about the current situation of the live streaming e-commerce industry are “exaggeration” and “fake goods” "Too much", "a mixed bag", "wrong goods", etc. The high-frequency words of consumers' hopes and suggestions for the development and standardization of the live broadcast e-commerce industry include "strengthening the quality management of anchors", "raising the entry threshold", "improving the supervision of live broadcast e-commerce laws and standards", "strengthening the fight against counterfeiting", etc.
Li Zhigang mentioned that the industry and the education sector are also discussing whether this industry should set up barriers and whether there should be entry qualifications. "This is controversial." He lamented, "The regulation of the industry may require the joint efforts of society and schools."
Chen Xuhua introduced to reporters Yiwu Industrial and Commercial Vocational and Technical College's measures to prevent chaos in live streaming e-commerce, including the school's cooperation with the Yiwu Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau to develop the country's first e-commerce live streaming special professional ability assessment standards to promote live streaming e-commerce skills talents Cultivate standardization, standardization, and specialization. The school also formulated the country's first professional teaching standards for e-commerce (live e-commerce direction), which were highly recognized by the National E-commerce Vocational Education Teaching Steering Committee.
“First, the formulation of standards can be further improved. Second, the government regulatory authorities can issue a series of normative documents to strengthen the supervision and guidance of the live broadcast industry, platforms, e-commerce companies, anchors, Internet celebrities, etc. Second. Third, from the perspective of talent cultivation, schools should strengthen professional ethics education." Chen Xuhua said.
In addition, the school has clear requirements and specifications for the live broadcast content, live broadcast time, live broadcast behavior, etc. of the settled projects, and guides the live broadcast behavior of settled enterprises and live broadcast students to comply; it jointly carries out live broadcast e-commerce operation standardization activities with the Yiwu Market Supervision Bureau, and promotes live broadcast rooms Display the "Convention on the Legal Operation of Anchors" to guide students to understand the law and standardize live broadcast behavior.
"I believe that the future development of live streaming e-commerce will still be a very good channel for companies to understand consumers, build their own corporate brands, and sell products." Chen Xuhua said, "We need to open majors in online marketing and live streaming e-commerce. , guide students to do truly professional things.”
(Zhang Hui and Li Fang are pseudonyms in the article)
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Zhang Miao intern Ling Ziyi Source: China Youth Daily