To write this article, I have been watching Kuaishou every day recently. Through this article, you will gain a complete understanding of merchants' operational experience in selling goods, how to find带货 anchors, and the current state of selling goods in the Kuaishou ecosystem. Since last year, Kuaishou has been vigorously supporting formal e-commerce, making it an important platform for merchants to sell goods. Coupled with Kuaishou's deliberate benchmarking and PR campaigns, there is even a saying in the industry that Kuaishou's selling capability surpasses Douyin's. For merchants, as long as they can sell goods, they invest with 120% enthusiasm. However, many merchants are unfamiliar with the Kuaishou platform itself. How exactly should you operate to sell goods on Kuaishou? This article excerpts the dry goods from a conversation between group member "怪木西西" and a Kuaishou live-streaming girl, with partial modifications, to share with everyone. This Kuaishou anchor's company primarily deals in personal care and cosmetics. The average order value ranges from 11.9 to 99.9 yuan. The main focus is live-streaming sales, with both full-time and part-time staff. Full-time anchors broadcast 4 hours daily, while part-time anchors broadcast 2 hours daily. The company has already set up a series of matrix accounts on Kuaishou. -01- Team Configuration Each live-streaming group consists of three people:
The anchor sells goods during the live stream; the live-stream assistant handles after-sales, price changes, product delivery, and managing the product listings on the small yellow cart; the live-stream operator is responsible for finding suitable big anchors to engage in ranking battles (打榜). For promotion, we advertise like this: "Go to major platforms and see, the facial mask originally priced at over 800 yuan is now only 80 yuan." -02- Live-stream Operations Here, I'll focus on the live-stream operator: Where does traffic in the live room come from? There are three directions: First: accumulate content; Second: run official ads, purchase live-stream promotion; Third: ranking battles (打榜). Users who come from purchased live-stream promotion are numerous and increase followers, but they don't buy products because these users enter based on the live-stream cover, which often uses enticing images, leading to high randomness. For content-based follower accumulation, if it's videos of beautiful women, there's a high chance of attracting followers, but they are all male fans with no purchasing power, unless your content is extremely targeted. However, in most cases, even with good content, you can't drive sales because people aren't there to buy; they're there to watch your funny videos or skits. This explains why many advertising agencies and MCN companies cultivate pan-entertainment influencers with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, yet when they venture into e-commerce, they see no sales. Fans acquired through ranking battles are very targeted. For example, if I find a big V who is a handsome guy cooking in a rural area with 200,000 followers, his audience is mostly female. To become the top ranker in his live room, it only costs 300-400 yuan. There's an unspoken agreement in live rooms: if I rank first, the anchor will definitely say, "Give the top ranker a follow," or "Connect with the top ranker." If it's a connection with the top ranker, the anchor will give you 5 minutes to sell goods in his live room, and the big V will also help you sell. After 5 minutes, he moves on to the next person for a connection. Of course, ranking battles carry some risk, so before engaging, you must evaluate: Are this big V's followers our target audience? How much does it cost to reach the top rank? This needs to be estimated in advance. This explains why some people on Kuaishou don't have great works, have few works, and the few they have are all product introductions, yet they still make money and have many followers. It's because of ranking battles + live streaming. -03- The Cost and Logic of Live-stream Ranking Battles To some extent, ranking battles are equivalent to advertising investment. With 300 or 400 yuan, your product might go viral. You can follow the Kuaishou account "爱笑的雪梨" (Laughing Snow Pear); she often connects with others to help sell goods. How much does it cost to get on the ranking? You can observe during her live streams. Route: Store (goods) — Selling account (salesperson) — Connection account (brings people in). On Kuaishou, stores can be: Kuaishou Store, Taobao, Tmall, Pinduoduo, Youzan. (Youzan is the most common.) The selling account mainly does live-stream sales, selects products, and finds accounts to connect with/rank battle. The connection account focuses on video content and live streaming; they don't sell goods but bring their live room audience to others' rooms during connections. The money the selling account pays for ranking battles is essentially the advertising fee the connection account collects. The Kuaishou account in the image below has 348,000 followers, with 5,450 people in the live room. To reach the top rank, you need 5,776 beans (Kuaibi), which is 577 yuan. Is 577 yuan worth it for 10 minutes of selling in her live room? Selling video In 散打哥's live room (during a connection with 高迪), the top ranker paid 51,200 yuan. -04- The Detours I Took with Off-platform Promotion I (怪木西西) have a silver jewelry factory in Panyu, Guangzhou. We've been supplying several large Tmall stores and international clients in Mexico, Australia, etc., for 7-8 years. This year, I opened my own Taobao store (齐先生纯银饰品). Initially, there was no traffic, so I thought about making videos for promotion, mainly filming the silver jewelry production process. I posted on Douyin, Kuaishou, and 最右 (萌萌哒齐先生). Some videos got over 1 million views, and I sold some goods, but the results weren't great. Where was the problem? I hired beautiful women to stage the jewelry-making process in the factory: First, there was no good script or creativity; Second, my filming and editing were unprofessional (filmed and edited on a phone); Third, and this is key! Without a mature team to create content, you shouldn't focus on video content but instead directly invest in live streaming. I had considered live streaming before, but I didn't know how to get traffic without followers, so I kept making video content, hoping to accumulate followers. The result was a thankless task. The video with 1 million views sold 0 yuan. This is true. I'm just starting out with a Taobao C store. I'm not sharing success stories; I'm truly a novice at live streaming, not from this circle. It was only after chatting with that girl today that I learned some live-streaming tactics. I'm writing down what I've done, the pitfalls I've encountered, and my thoughts to share with everyone. I hope friends doing Kuaishou or live streaming, or other ventures, can communicate with me, connect, exchange ideas, or resource match. Or if you're a veteran in the live-streaming circle, you can guide me into it. I'm truly grateful. -05- Ranking Battles/Shaking Fans (甩粉) Many merchants on Kuaishou lack content creation capabilities, so they hope to accumulate followers through accounts and sell goods after reaching a certain level, but this takes time. Many merchants can't wait, so here I'll focus on ranking battles and shaking fans: Ranking battles/Shaking fans: Typically, you rank in the top 3 of a big anchor, then use the big anchor's connection to shake fans for live-stream profit. It's essentially buying someone else's followers. (As described above.) Previously on Kuaishou, if you ranked first, the anchor would directly call on followers to follow you and place orders. Now, the top 3 rankers get connected directly, and the anchor gives 5 minutes for the brand to sell. Of course, 5 minutes isn't fixed; if you haven't finished, depending on the anchor's mood, you can continue for another 5 minutes, and so on. Kuaishou e-commerce and anchors before VS now On June 30, Liu Yan made her Kuaishou live-stream debut, with reports widely promoting that she sold 15 million yuan of goods in over 3 hours. But in reality, it relied on 13 Kuaishou anchors with millions of followers shaking fans for her. Before Liu Yan's live stream, Kuaishou's top anchors like 驴嫂 and 高迪 promoted her through their own live rooms, shaking fans for Liu Yan. During her live stream, some products sold were from 驴嫂's store. During the live stream, 13 top influencers were present to support, and 老赫晨 even made his first live-stream appearance, causing a stir in the room. For merchants with money, ranking battles are the most convenient method. For individual entrepreneurs and small merchants with limited budgets, the only option is to accumulate followers through content. Although it's slow, such followers have high loyalty and are easy to monetize through live streaming. The key is there's almost no cash investment. What if you have no money, no big brother to support you, and can't create content? Then just wash up and go to sleep. Although the method of buying rankings to sell goods is simple and crude, the final conversion rate depends heavily on the anchor's selling ability and the product itself. Different e-commerce sellers competing for the same big anchor's "top rank" at different times, selling similar products at the same retail price, can see conversion rates differ by more than 10 times. -06- How to Find Anchors with Relatively Accurate Sales/Traffic The most reliable method is to look at their past data. Check their live-room online numbers, ranking costs, fan-shaking data, fan-shaking transaction data, and how well their audience matches your product's target demographic. 1. If you have sufficient budget and inventory With tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, you can choose top anchors. They have ample commercialization and high follower loyalty, but they will cut prices very low. Big anchors and merchants communicate in advance, then during the anchor's live stream, the merchant pays for ranking battles to sell in the room. For example, in 散打哥's 100,000 Tmall store connection session, the top ranker was an Adidas agent who spent 101,000 yuan on ranking. They sold a shampoo and body wash set (4 bottles) at 49.9 yuan with free shipping, selling 5,500 sets. To recoup the ranking cost, they'd need to earn 20 yuan per bottle, which is clearly impossible. But considering the follower growth on their Kuaishou account and their goal (as stated in the live room, to boost sales and rank first among agents), it might not be a loss. Small tips: However, merchants cooperating with big anchors should be mentally prepared for prices to be cut very low. When I watched 小沈龙's live room, a merchant's Tmall product priced at 368 yuan was cut to 179 yuan, while the same product had been sold for 218 yuan on another big anchor's stream that afternoon. As a result, fans of the other anchor attacked, and the merchant had to refund the difference. 2. If your budget is insufficient Then it's crucial to filter out an anchor who won't waste your money. Generally, anchors who sell well have several characteristics: 1) Content is vertical and abundant; 2) They regularly do live-stream sales themselves; 3) They have strong sales skills, professional knowledge, and understand product selling points. You can look at these two anchors; they are beauty anchors. Although they don't have millions of followers, they are very vertical. Each follower came from their own content, and they also do live-stream sales on Kuaishou. So, for merchants with no money, it's worth trying anchors like these. Talking less is better than actually downloading Kuaishou and seeing for yourself. To write this article, I've been watching Kuaishou live streams every day. So, is Kuaishou suitable for all merchants to sell goods? Of course not! For merchants selling on Kuaishou, the product is crucial. Let's review the product prices of Liu Yan and 散打哥: Liu Yan sold 18 products on June 30, including a 139-yuan vacuum cleaner, 29.9-yuan for three bottles of shampoo, and even 39.9-yuan for three imported toothpaste tubes... During last year's Double 11 e-commerce festival, 散打哥's products included: toothpaste at 19.9 yuan, selling over 100,000 orders, with sales close to 2 million; thermal underwear at 59 yuan, selling nearly 100,000 sets in 10 minutes; and the ultra-high cost-performance Redmi 6 phone at 658.9 yuan, with 10,000 units sold out instantly. Kuaishou users are mainly from third-, fourth-, fifth-tier cities and even more down-market towns. They are price-sensitive and prefer low-priced, high cost-performance products. Therefore, most products on Kuaishou are under 100 yuan, with the main range under 50 yuan, focusing on low-unit-price, essential products like beauty and personal care, clothing, daily chemicals, and snacks. Merchants meeting the above product criteria aren't all suitable for Kuaishou live streaming. I think it mainly suits three types of merchants: 1) Merchants doing business, whose goal is to sell goods and make money. Brand building can be set aside for now. 2) Merchants clearing inventory or selling off excess stock. 3) Brands created by Kuaishou anchors themselves. If your merchant and product basically meet the above conditions, you can try selling on Kuaishou to make money. While many merchants talk grandly about brand and tone, many business owners don't have time for that. They use the simplest methods to sell goods first, make money, survive, and thrive, without worrying about paying employee salaries. In 2018, Taobao Live generated over 100 billion yuan in sales, with a year-on-year growth of nearly 400%. 85 anchors' live rooms exceeded 100 million yuan in sales. In the next three years, Taobao Live will drive 500 billion yuan in transactions. Live streaming is truly a major trend. I suggest everyone learn more about live streaming on various platforms (Taobao/Douyin/Kuaishou) and find the one that suits you best. Many people haven't even seriously watched a few live streams, yet they say live streaming is low-class, or isn't it just TV shopping? They pretend to understand and think they're right. I won't criticize that. Source: Marketing Old Wang (ID: wltx-2015), Author: Keny伟 Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan upon adoption.