2019 Bilibili product operation analysis report!

bilibili, also known as Bilibili or simply B Station, was created in June 2009. It has developed rapidly within a decade and has become the first ACG community in China, gathering a large number of two-dimensional culture enthusiasts. As the influence of the website continues to expand, the user group is no longer limited to ACG enthusiasts, but has moved from a niche to the mainstream. Bilibili has gradually developed from an initial two-dimensional community into a comprehensive barrage video website with PUGC as its content production model.

However, in this era when advertising revenue is the main source of income for video websites, Chen Rui still sticks to his promise that "Bilibili will never have advertisements." Having lost advertising as a source of revenue, although Bilibili has more than 100 million active users, its income and expenditure are still in a loss-making state. The growth of its main revenue gaming business has hit its ceiling, but the cost of gaming operations continues to rise, leading to wider losses. However, in the long run, high user stickiness and loyalty are still B's most valuable assets. B needs to constantly adjust and optimize the share of revenue business and form a new content e-commerce system. This article will analyze Bilibili from four aspects: products, market, users, and functions, and put forward some optimization and improvement suggestions.

Operating system: EMUI 9.0.0

Software version: 5.40.0

Experience device: Huawei P20 pro

Experience time: 2019.5

Table of contents

1. Product Analysis 1

1.1 Product Overview 1

1.2 Product Status 1

1.3 Product Direction 5

1.3.1 Version update record 5

1.3.2 Direction prediction 5

1.4 Product Function Structure 5

2. Market Analysis 8

2.1 Industry Environment 8

2.1.1 Policy environment8

2.1.2 Economic environment 9

2.1.3 Social environment11

2.2 Market size13

3. User Analysis 14

3.1 User portrait 14

3.1.1 Gender Ratio14

3.1.2 Age ratio 14

3.1.3 Regional Proportion14

3.1.4 Educational Background Distribution15

3.2 User Type 15

3.3 User Usage Scenarios 15

IV. Functional Analysis 16

4.1 Watch video function 17

4.2 Watch live broadcast function 20

4.3 Shopping Function 25

V. Summary 27

1. Product Analysis

1.1 Product Overview

Product name: Bilibili

Product type: Comprehensive barrage video community, pan-two-dimensional community

Product slogan: Bilibili – (゜-゜)つロCheers~

Product positioning: cultural and entertainment community for young people

Product introduction: Bilibili is a comprehensive bullet screen video website where professional video creators (up masters) upload various videos and attract and retain users through video content to form a PUGC bullet screen video community. Bilibil currently has video sections such as animation, TV series, domestic creation, music, dance, games, technology, life, entertainment, ghost animals, fashion, etc., and has opened business sections such as live broadcast, game center, and peripherals.

1.2 Product Status

According to the first quarter 2019 financial report released by Bilibili in May 2019, Bilibili's total revenue for the quarter reached 1.374 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 58%, exceeding market expectations. The net loss was 195.6 million yuan (approximately US$29.2 million), an increase of 238% from the net loss of 57.8 million yuan in the same period last year. It can be seen that Bilibili's revenue growth rate is very obvious, but its losses are also expanding. The author believes that the increase in sales costs, operating costs, including marketing expenses, caused by business expansion has led to the expansion of Bilibili's losses.

Data source: Bilibili 2019Q1 and full-year financial reports

In terms of user numbers, this quarter, Bilibili's average monthly active users exceeded 100 million for the first time, reaching 101 million, a year-on-year increase of 31%. The average monthly active users on mobile devices increased by 39% year-on-year. The average monthly paying users were 5.7 million, a year-on-year increase of 132%. The average monthly paying users of mobile games reached 1 million, a year-on-year increase of 23%. The number of daily active users of Bilibili also achieved a remarkable breakthrough, reaching 30 million for the first time. Compared with the past few quarters, the average monthly active users in the first three quarters were 85 million, 92.7 million and 92.8 million respectively. Overall, monthly active user growth is strong.

Data source: Bilibili 2019Q1 and full-year financial reports

As the user base continues to expand, the stickiness and activity of community users are also growing. The average daily usage time of users increased by 5 minutes year-on-year to 81 minutes. The average daily video playback volume reached 510 million times, and the average monthly interactions reached 1.4 billion times, an increase of 93% and 361% year-on-year respectively. The core group of the community - formal members who passed the 100-question community exam - grew 39% year-on-year to 49.3 million in the first quarter, and their retention rate in the twelfth month was as high as 80%. The reason why the activity of the Bilibili community is constantly increasing is that Bilibili has created a pan-entertainment community with video content based on the theme of the second dimension, which has firmly grasped the users of Generation Z (people born between 1990 and 2009). 82% of Bilibili's users are from Generation Z, ranking first on the list of APPs preferred by Generation Z.

Data source: Bilibili 2019Q1 and full-year financial reports

Specifically in terms of revenue structure, Bilibili's revenue is mainly composed of three core businesses: games, live streaming and value-added services, and advertising revenue. Games are Bilibili's main source of income, accounting for 64% of total revenue. Among them, the game "Fate/Grand Order" is the main source of revenue for Bilibili, accounting for nearly 60% of Bilibili's revenue. Bilibili does not have video patch ads, but by combining the platform's advantages, it has developed an information flow advertising system suitable for Bilibili. From the revenue share, we can see that Bilibili is highly dependent on games, and its revenue structure relies on a single business, which leads to increased risks. Since the game FGO has reached a mature operation stage and cannot significantly increase revenue, the growth of the game business has stagnated. Therefore, it is imperative to reduce dependence on the gaming business and develop a diversified and balanced revenue structure.

Data source: Bilibili 2019Q1 and full-year financial reports

Data source: Futu NiuNiu

According to the 2018 annual financial report, the overall trend of the proportion of B station's gaming business revenue has been declining, while the proportion of live broadcast, value-added services and advertising business has increased. The company's revenue structure has become less dependent on a single business and is developing towards diversified and balanced development. The company's senior management expects that in the next two to three years, game revenue, live streaming and value-added services, and advertising business will account for 50%, 30% and 10% of the company's business structure.

1.3 Product Direction

1.3.1 Version update record

1.3.2 Direction prediction

It can be seen from the iteration of version functions that Bilibili attaches great importance to user experience. On the one hand, it continuously optimizes the audience's viewing experience. On the other hand, it optimizes the mobile submission function for up-masters, making it convenient for up-masters to share high-quality content anytime and anywhere. At the same time, Bilibili has also optimized the sharing function and enhanced the connections between users to create a community with a good atmosphere. It can be speculated that in the future, Bilibili will continue to make support for up-masters a key task and encourage up-masters to produce more high-quality content by improving the service system for up-masters. At the same time, Bilibili may have new arrangements in the social aspect, such as cooperating with Tencent to improve the video sharing function in Moments and connect more platforms.

1.4 Product Function Structure

The main services provided by Bilibili include video, live broadcast, game, community, and membership shopping. The overall business function structure is shown in the figure below. The characteristic of Bilibili is the real-time comment function floating above the video, which fans call "bullet screen". This unique video experience allows the Internet-based bullet screen to transcend the limitations of time and space, construct a wonderful synchronous relationship, and form a virtual tribal viewing atmosphere, making Bilibili a cultural community with great interactive sharing and secondary creation.

2. Market Analysis

2.1 Industry Environment

2.1.1 Policy environment

Bilibili was originally positioned as a two-dimensional vertical community, and its target users were ACG fans who had a strong demand for anime and two-dimensional culture. With the continuous development of Bilibili, its user base has expanded from the core 2D population to the general 2D population, and the scope of content services is also constantly expanding. Due to the lowering of entry standards, the influx of a large number of new pan-two-dimensional up-loaders has led to a mixed quality of video content. Although there are many positive, healthy and sunny works, there are also up-loaders who upload pornographic, violent and bloody videos in order to gain traffic. Due to the omissions in B station's review and supervision of video content, these vulgar videos have seriously affected the growth of young people.

On July 20, 2018, CCTV specifically criticized in its editorial program that there are a large number of vulgar videos on Bilibili, including but not limited to pornographic content, incestuous elements, spoofs, etc., which are detrimental to the physical and mental health of the audience. Bilibili has been included in the national list of companies that must make rectifications within a certain period of time, and its mobile client has been removed from the entire network for a month. In response to this, Bilibili officially issued a statement responding to the situation, saying it would seriously reflect on itself and make corrections. On April 12, 2019, Cai Xukun Studio sent a lawyer's letter, stating that there was a large amount of content on Bilibili that seriously infringed Cai Xukun's rights, and that it had a high number of clicks and a wide range of dissemination, posing a very bad impact. Cai Xukun’s spoof videos on Bilibili have been spread wildly, and some of them have gone beyond the scope of being funny and have become naked "cyber bullying." In order to cater to the public and attract more traffic, Bilibili has remained silent on the "evil deeds" of up-masters.

In terms of operating model, Bilibili mainly relies on up-masters to produce sufficient content, and ghost animals, as an important part, continue to exert influence in the community. While making the audience laugh, Bilibili should also improve its content supervision mechanism and create a positive and healthy community atmosphere. Since last year, Bilibili has focused on strengthening the construction of its website review team, more than doubling its review staff. At present, Bilibili has established two review centers outside of Shanghai, and has continuously strengthened the "Discipline Committee" mechanism and strengthened the self-inspection and self-cleaning functions.

At the same time, under the positive guidance of radio and television, Bilibili produces and disseminates main-theme and positive-energy video content to build a more positive youth community. Bilibili has launched a large number of online learning courses, covering a wide range of learning content resources with novel and lively formats, creating a new social learning platform. According to relevant statistics, 18.27 million people studied on Bilibili in 2018, which is twice the number of college entrance examination candidates in 2018. The "study with me" learning live broadcast has become the longest live broadcast category on Bilibili, with a cumulative live learning time of 1.46 million hours and a frequency of 1.03 million learning live broadcasts.

From the above relevant information, we can see that: by strengthening content review management and actively leading public opinion to spread positive energy, the Bilibili community under official supervision will surely develop in a more positive direction.

2.1.2 Economic Environment

As the two-dimensional market continues to heat up, "two-dimensional" consumption is also becoming more and more vigorous. According to iResearch Consulting, in 2018, the scale of domestic two-dimensional users was nearly 350 million, the number of online animation users reached 219 million, and those born after 1995 accounted for nearly 50% of the total users. The "two-dimensional economy" spawned by a huge fan base is also predicted to be the next trend. As Chinese Internet users become more accepting of ACG culture, many game companies and content companies believe that ACG has become mainstream culture. At the Tencent Animation Industry Cooperation Conference in November 2015, Cheng Wu, Vice President of Tencent Group and CEO of Tencent Pictures, proposed the concept of "two-dimensional economy". In the future, the potential of the two-dimensional economy will continue to be released.

Data source: iResearch

As a social networking giant, Tencent upgraded the brand of its QQ Comics, launched it again under the name "Wave Planet", and personally built a two-dimensional ecosystem. Alibaba has created original IP animation products through Youku and launched a two-dimensional novel collection campaign through Alibaba Literature. Baidu promotes Tieba through the two-dimensional world. In addition to BAT, there are other Internet giants paying attention to the two-dimensional culture. ByteDance acquired "Banciyuan" and invested in the animation production company "Shengying Animation". NetEase incubated the GACHA community, and iQiyi also launched an animation channel and an independent animation APP "iQiyi Animation". These big companies have been competing for the two-dimensional group in different ways, creating great competitive pressure on Bilibili.

Data source: iResearch

Introducing investment from large companies can transform competition into cooperation, enable the coordinated development of the two-dimensional industry, and jointly build a "pan-entertainment" ecosystem. In October 2018, Tencent invested US$317.6 million in Bilibili and increased its shareholding ratio to 12%; in February 2019, Alibaba acquired a stake in Bilibili through its wholly-owned subsidiary Taobao China, with a shareholding ratio of 8%. Bilibili and Tencent have started cooperation in the content field, including the production, procurement, and investment in the upstream and downstream of the two-dimensional ecological chain such as animation and games, which can form a synergistic effect. The cooperation between Bilibili and Alibaba is to solve commercialization problems through e-commerce. Many 2D users are willing to pay for 2D peripherals. With the help of Taobao, a huge platform, more people will be able to see the economic potential of Bilibili in the future.

Data source: iResearch

2.1.3 Social environment

The main users of Bilibili are concentrated in Generation Z and those born after 1985. Generation Z is a unique generation that has benefited from rapid economic development, with generally good material conditions and education levels. They are also "Internet natives" born in the Internet boom. According to QuestMobile data, as of October 2018, Generation Z accounted for more than 30% of all Internet users and contributed nearly half of the growth rate of mobile Internet. They are the indigenous people who created the Internet from scratch, have a true Internet mindset, and enjoy the diverse entertainment and social interactions brought by mobile Internet technology. Their life needs also largely drive consumption upgrades.

Data source: QuestMobile

Generation Z has wider interests and mainly relies on social circles and public accounts to obtain information. They love movies, variety shows, and the two-dimensional world. When I stay at home, I mainly watch TV series, browse my Moments and chat with friends.

Data source: GroupM & New Generation "New Generation Crowd Insight Report"

Generation Z is a generation that loves to pay. They have high purchasing power and a relatively high willingness to consume online. Nearly 70% of Generation Z’s online consumption accounts for more than 40%.

Data source: QuestMobile

The consumption channels of Generation Z are more diversified, and the area where they spend the most money is games, followed by music, reading, sports, animation, and film and television. Paying for "anime" is an obvious indicator. The proportion of those born after 1995 who pay for anime is 10 percentage points higher than those born before 1995.

Data source: City Pictorial and Tencent QQ jointly launched the "Post-95s Interest Report"

82% of Bilibili's users are from Generation Z, ranking first on the list of APPs preferred by Generation Z. Being able to capture the attention of Generation Z means capturing the future user market. Bilibili can attract Generation Z in the following ways:

1. Games are an important form of entertainment consumption for Generation Z and are also the main source of income for Bilibili. Generation Z has a higher preference for games and a stronger willingness to spend on games. They prefer highly collaborative games and will explore the potential social value in them. Games + social interaction will become the entry point to attract post-95s. Bilibili can invest more in online collaborative games and increase the social aspect of the games by collaborating with Tencent.

2. Interests and hobbies are important dimensions that reflect the personality of Generation Z, and they also constitute the content they spontaneously disseminate. Bilibili can further subdivide interest circles in the dynamic module to improve sociality. Users with the same hobbies will have more consistent characteristics, higher participation and willingness to serve within their interest circles. At the same time, Bilibili can build a closed marketing loop around interests, centering on the interests of Generation Z, penetrating the entire process of consumer decision-making, and realizing traffic monetization within interest circles.

2.2 Market size

In the field of two-dimensional community, apps with higher monthly active users include Bilibili, First Bullet, Fuciyuan and AcFun. According to the monthly active users of the two-dimensional community APP in July 2018 by iResearch Qianfan, the monthly active users of the two-dimensional community across the entire network were 63.482 million, and Bilibili accounted for 91.5% with 58.091 million, ranking first in the two-dimensional community industry.

Data source: Analysys Qianfan

In the field of mobile online video, according to QuestMobile data in January 2019, in terms of the monthly average daily active users, which represents user activity, iQiyi APP, Tencent Video APP and Youku APP are firmly ranked in the top three in the industry. The average monthly daily active users of Bilibili APP and Mango TV APP, which ranked second, were 23 million and 21 million, respectively. It can be seen that although Bilibili does not have an advantage in user scale, its user retention rate is higher.

Data source: QuestMobile

3. User Analysis

3.1 User Profile

3.1.1 Gender Ratio

According to iResearch data in March 2019, men accounted for 51.52% and women accounted for 48.48%. The ratio of men to women is equal, which shows that there is no obvious gender bias in Bilibili's business content.

Data source: iResearch

3.1.2 Age ratio

The age of Bilibili users is concentrated under 24 years old, accounting for 40.44%, which shows that the main users of Bilibili are Generation Z. It can be predicted that those born in the 2000s and 2010s will be the main new force of Bilibili in the future.

Data source: iResearch

3.1.3 Regional Proportion

Most of the provinces where Bilibili users are located are coastal provinces, especially Guangdong Province, which has the highest proportion. Coastal provinces generally have more developed economies and rich material foundations. Users generally have received high-quality education and have a stronger demand for cultural entertainment. At the same time, users in these regions are exposed to cutting-edge foreign culture and entertainment earlier and are more tolerant of two-dimensional culture.

Data source: iResearch

3.1.4 Educational Background

According to Aurora Big Data in October 2017, about 54.5% of users are college students, indicating that a relatively high proportion of users on Bilibili have received higher education. Users who have received higher education understand new things quickly and have strong purchasing power. Exploring their consumption habits and providing relevant commercial services will make a huge contribution to Bilibili's revenue.

Data source: Jiguang Big Data

3.2 User Type

1. Uploader

2. Anchor

3. Users who watch videos

4. Users who watch live broadcasts

5. Game users

3.3 User Usage Scenarios

Xiao A, female, 24 years old, is a second-year graduate student at a university in Nanjing. She likes to play Honor of Kings, but her skills are not very good. So in her spare time, she would go to Bilibili to search for videos about King of Glory game skills to learn, and followed many high-ranking game anchors to watch King of Glory live broadcasts. If the anchor she follows happens to be off the air, she will select some new anchors to enter the live broadcast room.

Xiao B, female, 19 years old, is a freshman at a university in Beijing. She is a fan of Lolita clothing, also known as Lolita girl. I usually buy a lot of Lolita clothing and accessories. As a part-time up-host on Bilibili, I often post unboxing reviews of new clothing and how they look when I wear them. Because of her patience in explaining and her generosity in purchasing, she has gained thousands of fans and has also received advertising promotions from some Lolita brands. Not only can she wear beautiful clothes and share them with like-minded people, but she can also make some money.

Xiao C, male, 26 years old, works as a clerk in Fuzhou. He is a homebody and likes to read novels, comics, and watch various videos of pretty ladies singing and dancing on Bilibili. Recently, he started watching live singing videos. The ladies are his favorite type. They are cute, lively, and sing well. In order to interact with the hosts and request songs, he opened a big voyage and joined the hosts’ fleet. He interacts with the hosts every day and sometimes gives gifts, which makes him very happy.

Xiao D, male, 23 years old, just graduated, works as a programmer in an IT company in Shanghai. In his free time, he browses Bilibili. He likes to watch videos about technology and life, and is very interested in technology product review videos. Sometimes, he buys some technology products for enthusiasts based on the recommendations of UP hosts. If he wants to buy some new electronic products, such as mobile phones and computers, he will first go to Bilibili to check out the suggestions of up-loaders in the technology section.

Xiao E, male, 19 years old, a student at a university in Shanghai, a host of the Identity V game, good at playing survivors, and often escapes from the killer halfway across the map. I chose to live broadcast on Bilibili because Identity V is a two-dimensional game, and the live broadcast atmosphere on Bilibili is more intense. Although not many people give rewards, it is also a lot of fun to read the barrage messages and interact with netizens who like this game. Seeing someone join my fleet and give me gifts makes me feel that someone supports me, which gives me a great sense of accomplishment.

Xiao F, female, 15 years old, is a sophomore student in a middle school in Hong Kong. She has loved watching Japanese anime since she was a child. Since she discovered the rich resources of anime on Bilibili, she has been unable to put it down. She must follow the new anime every week and also likes to read some fan creations of anime on Bilibili. In the past two years, I discovered that domestic animations, such as Qin's Moon, Fox Spirit Matchmaker, and The King's Avatar, are very popular. I tried watching some domestic animations and gradually fell in love with them.

4. Functional Analysis

Bilibili has avoided huge investments in PGC copyrights and focused on PUGC content, while coexisting with the UGC content ecosystem. PUGC refers to content created by users with certain professional production and editing capabilities. The creators of these contents are called up masters.

The self-growing closed-loop PUGC ecosystem built by users, UP hosts and high-quality content is the core of Bilibili's operations. The entire content ecosystem is very healthy. It is a positive cycle and self-growth model, so the expansion of new categories and user growth are very fast. As high-quality content attracts users to Bilibili, the community attributes of Bilibili enable the platform's users to be converted into UP hosts to create and share more content, thus forming a self-growing content ecosystem.

From the above, we can see that although Bilibili is still making losses, its highly sticky users are still its most valuable asset, giving it the confidence to continue expanding its business. At the same time, up hosts are an important part of the closed-loop ecosystem. Bilibili should continue to regard supporting creators as one of its most important tasks. Therefore, the author analyzed the main usage scenarios of users, including watching videos, watching live broadcasts, and shopping functions, from the perspectives of viewers and up-masters, and put forward some suggestions for optimization and improvement.

4.1 Video viewing function

User video viewing path diagram

As soon as you open the B station software, you will enter the recommendation interface on the homepage. The recommended videos are mainly based on the user's viewing history, the up-masters and tags they follow, and current hot topics. When users swipe down, 10 new videos will be refreshed in the recommendation. Click "Just saw this point, click to refresh" below the 10th video to refresh the video, and the video will be refreshed again.

Click on the video to enter the video playback interface. The playback interface is horizontal. Below the interface are the video introduction and comments. Users can swipe down to see other recommended videos related to the video content.

Optimization suggestions:

1. Streamline the video recommendation mechanism. Through questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews with users, as well as combining my own usage experience, the author found that when users watch videos without specific purposes, most users only watch videos recommended by Bilibili through the recommendation column on the homepage, and hardly use the channels, popular, or film and television columns on the homepage. The film and television column on the homepage overlaps with the film and television classification in the channel, and most videos are only available to members, resulting in a small chance for ordinary users to click on the film and television column. Giving users too many viewing options will make them feel that the interface is cumbersome and the operation is troublesome. It is recommended that only live broadcasts and recommendations be placed on the homepage, and other columns that are not frequently used by users be placed in the right scroll box.

2. Click on the video to directly enter horizontal full-screen playback. After clicking on the video, the playback interface is located in the upper half of the mobile screen. When most users click on a video, they will directly click to watch the video in full screen without paying attention to the introduction and comments under the playback interface. Therefore, it is recommended to simplify the operation steps so that users can directly enter the full-screen playback interface after clicking on the video.

4.2 Watch live function

User usage path diagram for watching live broadcasts

The interactive gameplay of live broadcast is one of the important functions of live broadcast. It is used to increase the interaction between the anchor and the audience and let the audience participate in various ways. It can effectively promote user activity and increase user stickiness. The picture below is the main interactive gameplay of Bilibili at present. Compared with the live broadcast modules in other video products, Bilibili's live broadcast gameplay lacks some more common gameplays.

For the existing anchor PK gameplay, the only forms are dance battle, singing competition or talent show, and the PK time is 5 minutes. The host’s goal is to have as many users in the live broadcast room give gifts as possible to win in each PK, and to initiate as many PK competitions as possible. However, each game has the same format, which can easily cause fatigue to the host and the audience. The total number of PK games, number of wins and winning rate will be recorded on the anchor’s homepage as shown in the figure below.

Bilibili link live broadcast PK record page on the host side

The author suggests adding new gameplay based on Bilibili’s existing live PK gameplay, which can effectively increase the activity of new anchors and enhance audience participation.

1. Add 1V1 competition or team competition in the online game field, such as Honor of Kings, and extend the PK time. The outcome of the PK competition is determined by the outcome of the game. New anchors with lower popularity can gain more attention through their gaming skills. Online game PK competitions allow the anchor to accumulate points for each PK match they participate in. The points correspond to different ranks and rewards. The advantages of this competition system are obvious. It gives the anchor and the audience a clear and intuitive goal. Each PK match is no longer isolated. By setting up rich rewards, the anchor is stimulated to participate in the PK ranking competition. The page where the anchor initiates the game PK is shown in the figure below.

Bilibili link PK match page on the host side

The anchor has two options in the live PK, one is the ordinary live PK method, which is the original live PK, and the other is online game PK. After clicking on the online game PK, the lower side of the screen only supports the matching mode, and does not support selecting a designated anchor for PK. The basic rules of the competition are that the outcome of the PK competition is determined by the outcome of the game. The winner gets 1 point, the draw gets 0 points, and the loser gets -1 point. One week is a season. The anchors who rank high in the PK competition can obtain rewards such as homepage recommendation position, exclusive title, and exclusive title frame. Due to the rich rewards, rewards such as homepage recommendation positions that can effectively attract traffic and exposure are attractive enough to the anchors and can encourage them to participate in the qualifying competition. With the goal of increasing points and ranks, the anchor can take every game seriously, maximize his abilities and attract the attention of the audience.

2. Host a host battle royale competition every month. The battle royale format is a very popular format in the gaming field today. Applied to online PK, in the same game field, each participating anchor obtains a certain amount of initial funds, and then the anchors PK against each other online. The winner gets all the funds of the loser, and the loser loses all the funds and is eliminated, until the last person left gets all the prize money. To encourage the participation of anchors, certain rewards will also be given to the second and third place.

The competition is set to be held once a month, and streamers can voluntarily sign up before the battle royale competition. Before the battle royale begins, a crown pendant will be displayed on the avatars of the participating anchors, as shown in the figure below, to remind the anchors and viewers that they have been selected to participate.

After the battle royale game starts, the anchor can click on the match button to find an opponent, and Bilibili will help the anchor match an opponent with similar funds. Viewers can also check the game progress and leaderboard in the live broadcast room.

The final winner of the battle royale competition will accumulate a higher prize money, so it is more attractive to the anchors. In addition to the prize money, the top three can also be given exclusive avatar frames, exclusive titles and other rewards. The fan users who contribute the most gifts during the live broadcast of the game will also be displayed on the leaderboard to showcase the host's best assists and satisfy the fan users' performance psychology. Since the competition is held once a month, it can attract a large number of users to watch in a short period of time, and it can also increase the activity of new anchors, allowing new anchors to quickly accumulate fans. Because the rewards are generous, both the anchors and fan users will take it seriously, which can increase the payment conversion rate to a certain extent.

4.3 Shopping Function

User shopping path map

Now the "content + e-commerce" model has become a new source of revenue for online content platforms. For example, after Li Jiaqi, who is known as the No. 1 lipstick seller, joined Douyin, the number of his Douyin fans has reached more than 23 million, and each of his videos has hundreds of thousands to millions of likes. Through the combination of Douyin showcase and shopping assistant, Douyin can jump lipstick products to Taobao for purchase, as shown in the figure below. During last year's Double Eleven period, Douyin celebrities sold up to 100,000 items in one day, with converted sales exceeding 200 million yuan, which shows the popularity of internet celebrity traffic in driving sales.

The up-host is the producer of high-quality content on Bilibili and is also an important part of Bilibili's operations. Bilibili's exploration of the "content + e-commerce" model is not only important for the future development of the platform, but also has important significance for video creators. Only when creators can obtain more economic benefits on the platform can they focus more on creation, contribute more high-quality works on Bilibili, and avoid the loss of high-follower up-masters.

At present, the shopping function of Bilibili only includes member purchase, and most of the products in the member purchase are cultural peripheral products such as the second dimension, games, and entertainment. It has not expanded into the fastest-selling e-commerce categories such as clothing and cosmetics. Bilibili has many up-loaders with millions of fans and high user stickiness. It should open up the conversion of content traffic to e-commerce and seek more benefits for up-loaders.

The author believes that if Bilibili wants to form a content e-commerce system, it can improve from the following two aspects:

1. Improve the shopping conversion rate of users guided by IP. With 100 million active users, Bilibili's relatively niche two-dimensional culture brings user stickiness and loyalty, but it faces the problem of expanding its e-commerce product categories. According to the data from the "Post-95s Interest Report", Generation Z is not very willing to pay for two-dimensional content, and their main consumption is in categories such as clothing and cosmetics. Bilibili can add cosmetics categories containing two-dimensional elements to member shopping to increase the shopping rate of the general two-dimensional population. For example, add lipstick products to the Magic Rewards category, as shown in the figure below.

2. Improve e-commerce service processes. Bilibili once contacted some up-hosts to open small stores within the site, so that users can shop directly on Bilibili without jumping to external links. However, the sales volume of stores within the site is generally not high, and operating costs will also increase. The reason may be that the purity of the content is broken, or users are not confident in the platform's after-sales service and are not used to purchasing directly on Bilibili. Through cooperation with Taobao, Bilibili can direct viewers to the expert store officially launched by Taobao for up-masters. This move is also to better serve up-masters and provide more complete closed-loop conditions for the vast majority of users who are willing to pay. Bilibili can add the shopping channel logo to the video playback interface, as shown in the figure below. When users play in full screen, no logo will appear. When users click on the screen, a shopping logo will appear. This can reduce users' aversion to commercial content. When the user clicks on the shopping icon, the page jumps to the up-host's Taobao store, and the user can purchase the product on the Taobao app.

V. Conclusion

Bilibili not only needs to continue to hone its business functions in its areas of strength, such as PUGC community and animation series, to provide the best user experience, but also needs to continue to work hard in other businesses with revenue potential, such as live streaming, e-commerce, advertising, etc., and strive to diversify its revenue. In order to make both products and revenue competitive, Bilibili needs to invest more resources in functional modules such as live streaming and e-commerce to improve user experience and expand the user base. Although Bilibili is still making losses, its highly sticky and loyal users are its most valuable assets. For the Z generation with their outgoing personalities, no matter how lonely or misunderstood they are in this world, Bilibili can always give them the greatest tolerance and sense of belonging.