In five years, Pinduoduo has increased the number of active buyers to 683.2 million, with a rolling GMV of 1.2687 trillion yuan in the past 12 months and a market value of over 100 billion yuan.

However, live streaming e-commerce, which has been promoted for more than half a year, does not seem to have improved . Apart from the "10 billion subsidies", it has not become an effective weapon to drive the platform's GMV and monetization rate to a new level. Pinduoduo live streaming , that’s it?

Recently, there have been many articles about Pinduoduo's live streaming, some praising it and some criticizing it.

Those who applauded the applauses mostly praised Pinduoduo for taking a unique development path of live streaming e-commerce that is different from Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou. It does not create internet celebrities, does not compete for GMV, and does not set benchmarks. Instead, it regards live streaming e-commerce as a tool to promote sales conversion, or an entertainment product that extends users' online time, thereby increasing the platform's value.

Those who are pessimistic about the situation believe that Pinduoduo's live streaming e-commerce, which has been working hard for more than half a year, has now entered an awkward situation. It has neither helped Huang Zheng realize his "Disney" dream, nor allowed users to find happiness from live streaming like the games they are good at. It has also not been able to truly attract enough merchants to pay attention to this tool and use live streaming as "customer service +". Whether in terms of professionalism, focus, or entertainment, there is a lot of room for improvement.

As an industry media focusing on short video/live streaming e-commerce, the editor made a special 10-day experience of Pinduoduo's live streaming. This article summarizes the current status of Pinduoduo's live broadcast from the aspects of live broadcast entrance design, classification of broadcast entities and live broadcast style characteristics, and discusses with you the opportunities to join Pinduoduo's live broadcast (the article is long, if you only want to know about the opportunities to join Pinduoduo's live broadcast, please jump to Part 4 of this article).

Live broadcast entrance design

Judging from the design of the live broadcast entrance, Pinduoduo's live broadcast can be said to be relatively invisible. It does not appear in the "Four Heavenly Kings" position on the homepage and occupy a prominent space like Taobao, nor does it devote more public domain traffic to live broadcast sales on the recommendation page like Douyin.

At present, there are 6 live streaming entrances in Pinduoduo, all of which have certain entrance folding, among which the relatively obvious ones are:

• Above the "Chat" channel in the bottom menu of Pinduoduo, there is an entrance to "Live Broadcast in the Same City", where users can choose the live broadcast room they want to enter. From the ranking of live broadcasts in the same city, it seems difficult for the editor to find a clear ranking pattern. The number of people online in the live broadcast room, the amount of live broadcast interaction, and even the actual distance from the anchor will affect the probability of the anchor being recommended ;
• Above the "Follow" channel, you can enter the live broadcast room of the anchor you follow;
• After clicking on a product, you can see a live streaming “floating window” on the right side of the product details page;
• On the homepage, search list, and recommended product list, a "Live" label will appear before the store's product name;

In addition, there are 2 more hidden entrances:

• Search for "live broadcast" in the product search bar to enter the live broadcast red envelope square where you can "watch live broadcasts and grab cash red envelopes." Users not only need to follow the anchor, but also need to invite a friend to successfully help before they can grab the red envelope. This means: if the user is new, the anchor can achieve the goal of attracting new users at a very low cost. Let's do a small calculation. If the red envelope is 10 yuan, and 10 new users follow and invite friends to successfully help, then the host's attention cost can be as low as 50 cents. Just imagine: among the major Internet platforms, what kind of traffic is cheaper than this cost? ;
• In addition to "Follow and Grab Red Packets", Pinduoduo has also set up daily tasks of "watching live broadcasts" in game products such as "Duoduo Orchard" and "Duoduo Ranch". You can get water drops by browsing live broadcasts. On the one hand, it can divert more traffic to the live broadcast square; on the other hand, it can also convert more deep game users into live broadcast users, further increasing online usage time.

▲Pinduoduo live streaming entrance design ▲

Live broadcast form and mode

After looking at the entrance design, let’s study the live broadcast format. Many people may ask, what other forms of live streaming does Pinduoduo have? Aren’t they all live streaming e-commerce? The editor tells you, no.

Pinduoduo does have entertainment live streaming. From my personal experience, it is very similar to the Kuaishou live streaming 3-4 years ago. It has talent live streaming, interactive live streaming, etc., and there are no special restrictions on anchors to add WeChat.

However, unlike Kuaishou’s early live broadcasts, the live broadcast room is not as popular as Kuaishou’s entertainment live broadcast room, and users are not enthusiastic about giving rewards. Basically all talent and entertainment anchors will add some low-priced and practical goods to their shopping bags in order to enrich their own monetization paths by bringing goods.

▲Entertainment live broadcasts on Pinduoduo, from left to right: guessing songs, talent shows, gossip and fortune ▲

Because there is no specific data, after roughly browsing thousands of Pinduoduo live broadcasts, I came to a rough conclusion : entertainment live broadcasts account for less than 1/10 of Pinduoduo's live broadcast volume, and most of them are e-commerce live broadcasts.

Looking specifically at the live streaming model adopted by e-commerce live streaming: store live streaming is the main method (that is, the host introduces the products on sale in the little red box to users one by one based on the interaction in the comment area and the request for "explanation"), accounting for more than 80%. The live streaming scenes are often very simple, and there are often no background boards, fill lights, beauty lights, etc. Live streaming at home, in factories, and in stores is very common.

▲The live broadcasts of small and medium-sized businesses on Pinduoduo are: live broadcasts at the factory, at the source of goods, and in the store ▲

Relatively speaking, the small number of active brand store live broadcast rooms are better in terms of anchor appearance, professionalism and live broadcast room scene layout, and provide better user experience.

▲Brand live broadcasts on Pinduoduo, from left to right: Juduo, Blue Moon, Little Lajiao ▲

In addition to the "store live broadcast" mode, common e-commerce live broadcast modes of Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou, such as "expert mode" and "flash sale mode", are very rare in Pinduoduo.

Analysis of the reasons: The reason for the lack of the former is that the products on Pinduoduo are mainly white-label products, and the profit margin itself is thin (mostly within 20%). The commission and pit fee that can be given to influencers are very limited, so it is difficult to attract powerful and experienced influencers and institutions to settle in;

The reason for the lack of the latter is also affected by the former. As the platform lacks high-traffic influencers, it means that there is a lack of anchors who can truly negotiate with brands, making it impossible to form price barriers and create a live broadcast room with sales exceeding 100 million yuan in a single show.

Although the "expert mode" and "flash sale mode" are less common in Pinduoduo, the gambling mode and bargaining mode that still exist in e-commerce live streaming are common in Duoduo's live broadcast rooms and are more developed. From the perspective of the categories of goods brought/sold, the sales are mainly jewelry and jade products.

The data found that compared with the women's clothing and daily live broadcast rooms, where the number of viewers ranges from hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, the popularity of the jewelry preferred live broadcast room promoted by Pinduoduo often reaches millions, such as Jingchuan Jewelry, Myanmar Jade, Bracelet World Jewelry, etc.

Analysts believe that compared to mediocre live broadcasts of stores that professionally introduce limited SKUs, the gambling and bargaining modes featured in jewelry and jade live broadcasts are more entertaining. The products are limited or even scarce, the hosts’ hysterical introductions and shouting, and hundreds of thousands of people competing for speed to grab the products, can all enhance the recognition and entertainment of this type of live broadcast, and the content is more anticipated and watchable.

In addition, live broadcast models like base walks and production site live broadcasts, which rely on industrial belts and sources of goods, are also very common on Pinduoduo, mainly selling agricultural products, fruits/fresh products, and clothing, shoes and bags.

Livestreamers vs Brand Livestreamers

After introducing the mainstream live streaming modes of e-commerce, let’s take a look at the typical anchors on Pinduoduo.

Although there are no Viya and Li Jiaqi from Taobao, no Simba and Shi Da Piaoliang from Kuaishou, and no Luo Yonghao and Zhu Guagua from Douyin on Pinduoduo, there are still some fast-growing anchors who sell goods, with "Yunyun" being the most representative.

If you live in Beijing like me, then when you open the "Live Broadcast in the City", you can easily find a @云云 live broadcast room. Her live broadcast room is also growing at a rate of nearly 100,000 views per day, and the peak number of views is approaching 1 million, which is comparable to the number of her fans.

▲Pinduoduo Yunyun Live Room ▲

The editor checked in @Yunyun live broadcast room for 5 consecutive days and found that there are 3 secrets to its success:

1. From the perspective of the products promoted: most of them are priced under 10 yuan, and it is emphasized that merchants are trying to increase sales at a loss to stimulate users to buy. Looking at the 127 SKUs put on the shelves on August 26, the proportion of products under 10 yuan reached 77.9%; in terms of categories, food and beverages, and daily household cleaning products are the most common, and it covers: clothing and accessories, personal care, fresh fruits, small appliances and other categories. The products are mainly white-label, and there are also a small number of domestic brands; in terms of product combination strategy, there are both traffic-oriented products under 10 yuan, and profitable products with less transparent profit margins. Of course, paper towels and cooking oil, as popular products, will appear in the anchor's daily shopping list for a long time;

Second, from the perspective of the layout of the live broadcast room: Compared with many store broadcasts, the decoration of @云云's live broadcast room is more exquisite. The anchor @云云 (not the only anchor) not only appears with makeup, but also has various products that are sold on the live broadcast that day placed behind her. At the same time, the live broadcast room will also choose rhythmic music to create the pleasure of grabbing goods;

Third, from the perspective of controlling the rhythm of the live broadcast: because there are too many viewers, @云云 will explain the product at his own pace, and will strengthen user trust by personally tasting and trying the products. Except for drinking water and going to the toilet, the live broadcast was basically uninterrupted, and the overall live broadcast intensity was very high;

Fourth, from the perspective of traffic-generating measures: In 5 days, Yunyun’s live broadcast room gained 140,000 followers, but it can be judged that her fans did not come from the dynamic traffic she posted on a daily basis, but were attracted through popular recommendations on live broadcasts, issuing cash red envelopes, and other methods. It is worth mentioning that: because there are more standard products in the live broadcast room and the overall average order value is low, the threshold for new fans to be converted into shopping fans and loyal fans is also lowered.

In addition to live streamers such as @云云, brand store live broadcasts have also become an indispensable part of Pinduoduo's live broadcasts. Of course, the brands here include well-known brands (such as the daily chemical brand Blue Moon) as well as some "competitive brands (such as the 3C digital brand Little Chili Pepper)".

Taking @小辣椒直播室 as an example, the number of viewers in its live broadcast room is mostly between 10,000 and 50,000.

From the perspective of live broadcast style, because the number of online people is controllable, products will be introduced based on users' needs for "explanation", and product performance will be demonstrated to everyone through playing games, listening to music, etc., and various comments raised by users will be responded to professionally in real time.

Because the live broadcast lasts a long time, from 8 am to 12 am, Xiao La Jiao's live broadcast room will often take turns to broadcast live, but because the SKUs are limited, mostly below 10, the watchability of the live broadcast content is average, so the popularity of the live broadcast room is also average compared to @云云 and others.

Opportunities for individuals and businesses to live stream on Pinduoduo?

For most brands, faced with the rapid development of Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou e-commerce, whose rules change every day, it seems difficult to consider launching high-frequency store broadcasts on Pinduoduo. From the perspective of the main body of brand store broadcasts, most of them are dealers and distributors, who have opened up live streaming monetization on Pinduoduo through their own exploration.

But in fact, as a platform, Pinduoduo has never given up its efforts in the layout of live e-commerce. Specifically, there are three points to summarize:

• In terms of live broadcast IP creation, Pinduoduo has invited celebrities/famous people such as Marbury, Charmaine Sheh, and Wallace Chung to conduct live broadcasts and sell goods. It has also created a benchmark case in which host Zhou Tao made 140 million yuan in her first show, but overall, the splash was not big.
• In terms of brand cooperation, Pinduoduo launched a series of headquarters visits and launched a live broadcast with the theme of "Maternal and Infant Product Traceability Action", visiting factories of Joyoung, Huggies Diapers, Junlebao and other companies to recommend good products to users;
• Looking at cooperation at a higher level , Pinduoduo has also set up "National Pavilions" with a subsidy of 1 billion yuan. Currently open are the Chile Pavilion (mainly selling red wine) and the South Korean Pavilion (mainly selling food and beauty products).

Although the structure of Pinduoduo's main products and profit margins make it difficult for it to become a big anchor, it seems that for small and medium-sized talents/professional anchors, there are good opportunities to join Pinduoduo. It is especially suitable for the growth of amateur anchors (such as WeChat business anchors) who have good looks, sales experience, and community operation experience.

There are three reasons for this analysis:

First, there are still relatively few professional live streamers on Pinduoduo, accounting for less than 20%, so there are opportunities for development;

Second, there are various ways to obtain traffic and they are relatively economical. For example, Pinduoduo users who have been fully educated by "social group buying" are more willing to share and invite friends to help compared to other platforms. This means that the success rate of attracting new users by sending red envelopes is higher, and the process of users waiting for red envelopes in the live broadcast room itself increases their stay time, allowing conversions to happen at any time;

Third, compared with many platforms, Pinduoduo fans have the value of private domain operations . Before the daily broadcast, the anchor can fully utilize WeChat, SMS, attention, PUSH, small circles and other methods to activate users and increase their viewing and repeat purchases.

Therefore, for those anchors who have hit a wall on platforms that focus on "public domain traffic distribution", Pinduoduo may be the next stop for migration. But the premise is that your sales goals and fan goals are not to surpass Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya, Simba, etc. In addition, you can also continuously improve your live broadcast and product selection capabilities, recommend cost-effective products that meet their consumption levels to fans, and enrich their shopping options.

For brands, Pinduoduo is undoubtedly a battlefield for self-broadcasting , especially for brands that have already established a private domain on Pinduoduo. They must remember to seize the opportunity of stock transfer of users' consumption behavior on the platform and improve order efficiency and conversion rate through live streaming.

I spent some time studying the process of Pinduoduo merchants obtaining the live broadcast process. On the one hand, it is through private domain conversion, and on the other hand, it is through advertising (which can be combined with CPM and CPT).

The operation method of private domain traffic is similar to that mentioned above, which is nothing more than sending red envelopes, drawing free orders, or attracting traffic through various channels such as WeChat and attention. In addition, merchants with good performance can also attract new customers by actively participating in platform activities and grabbing public domain traffic.

Unlike Taobao Live, Pinduoduo’s public domain traffic distribution mechanism uses product weight rather than live broadcast room weight. Specifically, there are three basic dimensions: products must be low-priced and high-quality, with a larger proportion of standard products; live broadcast products must have a high conversion rate in search scenarios; and advertising weight.

This is not difficult for brands that have "goods and money" and want to make a big splash on Pinduoduo. When the conversion rate and GMV of the live broadcast room reach certain standards, merchants can also participate in the qualifying competition to capture public domain traffic.

It is worth mentioning that Pinduoduo’s current live-streaming advertisements (such as scene recommendations) are relatively friendly in terms of conversion price compared to mature e-commerce platforms such as Taobao. Merchants can fully calculate the ROI for their advertising to accelerate private domain and conversion.

Once a private domain moat is established, it is possible to promote the popularity of the live broadcast room in the long term and find new incremental sales channels through "traffic products + red envelopes + free orders/lottery/coupons/buy-get-one-free and other welfare distributions" .

Author: Kas Data

Source: CAAS Data (caasdata6)