Livestream e-commerce, as a new retail business model, has become a new favorite in the industry in the past two years. First, there was the explosive popularity of Taobao anchors like Li Jiaqi and Viya, which became a national hotspot. Then, short-video platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou entered the livestream e-commerce arena, giving rise to major livestreaming IPs such as Luo Yonghao and East Buy. However, after reaching an initial peak, livestream selling has now entered a phase of steady growth. The previous strategies of relying on low prices and top anchors have become less aggressive and more refined, aligning better with business principles, thus ushering in a new industry landscape. This is undoubtedly good news for traditional enterprises. Why? Recently, a reporter from New Distribution interviewed Li Pan, the e-commerce head of Beijing Shenkun Interactive, to discuss several brand cases he has managed. As a leading content e-commerce operation service provider in China, Shenkun Interactive has rich experience in building livestream marketing systems for brands. As the head of the company's entire e-commerce business, Li Pan has deep insights into platform rules, gameplay, and industry pain points.

01

Huiyuan's Transformation: A Time-Honored Brand Rejuvenated

In April this year, Shenkun Interactive entered the Douyin e-commerce track, positioning itself to help brands manage new online marketing channels. At the same time, it set a goal to deepen its expertise in the food sector. Currently, it serves FMCG brands such as Manxiaobao, Jinmailang, Daoxiangcun, Huiyuan, Uni-President's Najie Naxiang, and Luobawang. The choice to analyze the Huiyuan case is twofold: first, it is a brand that Shenkun has recently taken on, so there are fresh data and insights to share; second, Huiyuan is a very representative traditional enterprise, and many traditional brands are conservative about livestream e-commerce, making such cases rare.

Before approaching Huiyuan, the Shenkun team conducted in-depth research on the brand. For example, Huiyuan is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and has launched a brand renewal plan with a new spokesperson; Huiyuan's donation during the Zhengzhou floods earned widespread social praise, particularly winning over younger consumers; Huiyuan's sales on Douyin lag significantly behind those on Tmall and JD.com; and some products in Huiyuan's assortment are well-suited for Douyin sales. Based on these opportunities, Shenkun brought a proposal to Huiyuan and successfully gained the client's approval and a trial opportunity.

Initially, Shenkun did not get the official Huiyuan account on Douyin, which already had over 2 million followers. Instead, they started a small account from scratch to compete with the big one. However, within about 10 days of taking over, the small account achieved a daily GMV of 200,000 yuan with 60,000 followers, far surpassing the big account's 30,000 yuan, impressing Huiyuan and leading them to entrust Shenkun with more responsibility.

When asked about the secret to rapid growth, Li Pan said that livestreaming is not a one-time effort. It involves a test of 100 details; you can only succeed if you get all 100 right. But if you miss even one detail, you will definitely fail.

△ Huiyuan beverage livestream room

Shenkun's team put considerable thought into the livestream room's people, goods, and venue: deep brand understanding, a professional and stable team, analysis and setup of main products, room decoration, anchor selection, and script refinement. In addition, Qianchuan advertising and a dedicated short-video team were important traffic-driving tools that helped the livestream break through quickly.

After the small account achieved success, Huiyuan also handed over the big account to Shenkun. On August 10, Shenkun took over the big account and achieved 280,000 yuan on the first day, reaching 10.38 million yuan in a month. During these two months of operation, Huiyuan's daily peak on Douyin reached 665,000 yuan, with a comprehensive ROI of 27, which is at the industry's ceiling level.

Initially, Shenkun charged a basic service fee plus commission, but now, Li Pan told us, they no longer rely on service fees; they are fully confident in cooperating on a pure commission basis. In future cooperation plans, Shenkun will further explore Huiyuan's search and mall maintenance on Douyin, gradually expanding to full-domain operations.

It is understood that Huiyuan's sales on Douyin account for 10% of its total online sales, and online sales account for 10% of Huiyuan's overall sales, so Douyin sales represent 1% of Huiyuan's total sales. Although it's only 1%, this 1% holds different value for Huiyuan. After a period of operational data feedback and analysis of Huiyuan's overall sales, it was found that for Huiyuan, Douyin is not just an increment; its growth also drives data growth on online platforms like Tmall and JD.com. Why does this effect occur? Li Pan explained that a single livestream on Douyin can bring hundreds of thousands of viewers, which is essentially a free advertisement for the brand. Secondly, the spillover effect from interest-based e-commerce helps brands grow on other online e-commerce platforms.

02

Differences Between New Consumer Brands and Traditional Brands

Unlike traditional brands like Huiyuan, Manxiaobao, founded in 2020, focuses on convenient vegetarian food, with its main product being "Manxiaobao Fat Juice Rice Noodles." When Shenkun took over, they also started with a small account, achieving a daily GMV of 300,000 yuan in 10 days, peaking at 570,000 yuan. Does Manxiaobao have a different approach? Li Pan said that besides the team's diligence (e.g., the small account continues to broadcast daily even when the big account is off), such new brands place more emphasis on advertising, leveraging Qianchuan's user data and precise ad targeting to achieve relatively fast growth.

The traffic channels to the livestream room can be mainly divided into the following:

  1. Paid traffic, through Qianchuan, Dou+, etc.;
  2. Free organic traffic, from system recommendations;
  3. Short-video traffic;
  4. Pan-centralized traffic, from user searches, mall, etc.

The difference between Manxiaobao and Huiyuan is that Manxiaobao relies more on ad placement, while Huiyuan relies more on short videos and organic traffic. This shows that different products and different account positioning may have different focuses and gameplay.

△ Manxiaobao livestream room

What value does Douyin have for brands? Should brands do Douyin livestreaming, and what kind of brands are more suitable? Li Pan believes that all brands are worth entering, just in different ways. In his view, the core reason brands should do Douyin e-commerce is that where users are, brands should be. Brands like Manxiaobao, which started with e-commerce, find it relatively easier to enter Douyin livestream e-commerce. However, for traditional brands like Huiyuan, there are many concerns: how to select products, how to control prices, and how to resolve online-offline conflicts. These are issues that traditional brands need to face and solve, bringing a series of opportunities and challenges in parallel. For traditional enterprises, internal innovation is a matter that affects the whole body when one part is moved.

For well-known traditional brands to enter, they need to make institutional innovations, such as setting up new marketing departments or new retail departments, and the management team also needs fresh young blood. For some small and medium white-label enterprises, entering Douyin is also a rare opportunity. Douyin's algorithm mechanism is media-oriented, helping brands expand their reach, potentially reaching the mass audience all at once, and making it easy to create hit products.

03

Douyin, Kuaishou, Video Account: What Are the Differences?

Different platforms have different recommendation and algorithm logics. On Douyin, good content and good products have the opportunity to be recommended by the platform, expanding from a small circle to a larger one. On Kuaishou, each account is like a small bubble, forming circles centered on "laotie" (close friends) and influencers, with traffic revolving around the same circle. Video Account, on the other hand, is based on relationships between people. Video Account is more like Douyin two years ago; it is still a blue ocean market with great opportunities. Currently, the main issue with Video Account is the lack of high-quality original content.

04

What Opportunities Are There for Distributors to Transform into Douyin E-Commerce?

Now is a good time to enter. On one hand, Douyin has a large user base, and one official account cannot cover all users. Some local distributors' small accounts can help brands cover more users, representing incremental growth. Some distributors even do so well that their sales surpass the official big account. On the other hand, the ceiling for livestream e-commerce is 3 trillion yuan, while online e-commerce businesses like Taobao and JD.com have a scale of 15 trillion yuan. Douyin is currently moving toward this 15 trillion yuan direction. This year, Douyin has shifted from "interest e-commerce" to "full-domain interest e-commerce," opening up the mall business, which is a great opportunity for distributors. Some large, well-known brands are hesitant to enter the mall to protect their online and offline price systems, but distributors can use flash sales and listings on the mall to do things that brand owners dare not do, bringing more revenue to distributors.

Final Thoughts: In the current market environment, full-domain operation is becoming the main theme of corporate marketing. Brand owners and distributors will not easily give up any scenario that can connect with consumers, whether online or offline. First, more and more enterprises are expanding their boundaries, breaking out of their comfort zones, and integrating fragmented channels through supply chain upgrades to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Some brands already have dedicated e-commerce or new retail departments experimenting with new businesses, while others partner with third-party professional agencies. These agencies, like distributors, can be seen as part of channel distribution, with the core goal of helping brand owners sell goods to more consumers. Second, we also see that many traditional distributors are transforming into operation service providers. When facing bottlenecks and ceilings in their regional businesses, they are trying to break through more channels and expand their functions. Douyin e-commerce is a good choice in this regard.

Note: The content of this article only represents the personal views of the interviewee.

PS: If you are interested in Douyin e-commerce topics, you can scan the QR code to apply to join the New Distribution "Douyin E-Commerce Exchange Group."