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Text｜Wu Wenwu, New Product Finance

Zhong Xuegao has been forced to execute again. It seems that the story of selling sweet potatoes through live streaming to pay off debts has failed. Live streaming has not been able to save this internet celebrity brand, and Zhong Xuegao’s situation is still not good.

01 Zhong Xuegao was forced to execute again

"Xinpinlue Finance" noticed that on August 5, the former internet celebrity ice cream brand Zhong Xuegao was on the hot search again, but this time it was not about live streaming to sell sweet potatoes, but the topic of "Zhong Xuegao was forced to execute more than 5.42 million yuan."

According to reports from Southern Finance Network and other media, Tianyancha legal litigation information shows that recently, Zhong Xuegao Food (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Zhongmao (Shanghai) Food Technology Co., Ltd. added a new information on the person subject to execution. The execution target is more than 5.42 million yuan, involving a contract dispute case, and the executing court is the Shucheng County People's Court.

Information from Tianyancha also shows that Zhong Xuegao Food (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. currently has information on 5 persons subject to execution, with the total amount of execution exceeding 18.4 million yuan.

At the same time, what is even more pessimistic is that Zhong Xuegao also has a consumption restriction order and equity freeze information. In fact, Zhong Xuegao’s consumption restriction order has long been reported by the media and was even a hot topic at the time.

In April this year, Sina Finance CEO Deng Qingxu wrote on Weibo that after Zhong Xuegao founder Lin Sheng was "restricted from moving", he took a green train to Beijing overnight.

It was during this live broadcast between Lin Sheng and Deng Qingxu that Lin Sheng first stated that he would sell sweet potatoes to pay off his debts. Later, Lin Sheng repeatedly stated in public that he would sell sweet potatoes to pay off his debts.

In this way, selling sweet potatoes to pay off debts became Zhong Xuegao's new direction. How to sell sweet potatoes? The answer given by Lin Sheng and Zhong Xuegao is: live streaming.

On May 28 this year, Lin Sheng appeared as scheduled for the first time in the "Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin" live broadcast room to sell goods. The goods sold included Zhong Xue Gao's ice cream, soy sauce and other foods, and of course sweet potatoes.

However, what made netizens complain at the time was that Zhong Xuegao was still taking the same high-end route in selling sweet potatoes as it did in selling ice cream, and the price of 5 kilograms of its sweet potato products was 42.9 yuan.

It was from then on that Zhong Xuegao started the road of selling goods through live streaming to pay off debts. At the beginning, Lin Sheng and Zhong Xuegao's live streaming to sell goods was quite a topic, and selling sweet potatoes to pay off debts became a traffic point.

Zhong Xue Gao is in trouble, but its founder Lin Sheng did not just give up like other internet celebrity brands. Instead, he is trying to find a way out and a breakthrough, which is worthy of praise.

02 Live streaming to sell sweet potatoes failed to save Zhong Xue Gao

When Lin Sheng and Zhong Xuegao started live streaming to sell sweet potatoes to pay off their debts, it made quite a splash on the first day of the show and was very topical, but the market has paid less attention to it since then.

The Internet has memory. The last time Zhong Xue Gao's live streaming became a hot topic was on June 27. On that day, a white-clad anchor in the "Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin" live studio was introducing the product quickly when his body suddenly shook uncontrollably from side to side. His arms subconsciously supported the table, but his body soon lost balance and fell down.

At the moment of falling down, the anchor was still reciting the lines quickly, but his voice was tired and dazed. The anchor suddenly fainted at that time, bringing the number of people in Zhong Xuegao Lao Lin's live broadcast room to 108,000.

Overall, in the live streaming e-commerce industry, there are very few voices, hot searches, and media reports about Lin Sheng and Zhong Xuegao. The story of Zhong Xuegao live streaming to sell sweet potatoes to pay off his debts is just a lot of noise but little results.

"New Product Finance" noted that as of August 5, on Douyin, the number of fans of "Zhong Xuegao Official Flagship Store" was 504,000, the store had zero products, and the last update was March 1, 2024. The number of fans of "Zhong Xuegao Official Account" was 232,000, and the number of fans of "Zhong Xuegao Official Flagship Store Live Room" was 130,000.

The number of fans of the Taobao live broadcast room of "Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin" is 96,000, and the introduction of its store is "Make good products, pay off debts well, and stay together well."

Zhong Xuegao is not outstanding in the live streaming e-commerce industry. It is obviously not able to compare with the top live streaming rooms such as Dongfang Zhenxuan, Yuhui Tongxing and Luo Yonghao. They are not in the same league and the gap is extremely large.

The media also rarely reports on Zhong Xuegao's live streaming sales performance and other related data and news. From the news that Zhong Xuegao was executed again this time, it can be seen that Zhong Xuegao's live streaming sales business is not booming, and it seems that live streaming sales of sweet potatoes failed to save Zhong Xuegao.

Lin Sheng is a marketing expert and has successfully created several ice cream brands. Zhong Xue Gao was once very popular and quickly became an Internet celebrity brand, which indeed proved that his ability is still very strong.

However, things went against expectations. Zhong Xuegao quickly turned from its peak and declined at a speed beyond market expectations. Now the labels that the market can think of about Zhong Xuegao are not internet celebrity ice cream, but wage arrears, execution, debt repayment, consumption restrictions, etc.

03The story of using live streaming to sell goods to pay off debts has failed

In recent years, live streaming has become a panacea for many middle-aged entrepreneurs to transform, start a business or pay off debts. Against the backdrop of live streaming by the whole nation, many entrepreneurs who have no shortage of traffic and topics have been involved in live streaming.

Before Lin Sheng was about to lead Zhong Xuegao to sell sweet potatoes through live streaming to pay off debts, many companies or entrepreneurs had already become popular and risen strongly through live streaming, staging the story of the phoenix rising from the ashes.

The first story is of course about Yu Minhong and Oriental Selection. In 2021, New Oriental fell into desperation due to major policy adjustments in the tutoring industry. It quickly established Oriental Selection and entered the live streaming e-commerce track.

Relying on young anchors represented by Dong Yuhui and a live broadcast model featuring knowledge dissemination, it has quickly risen to become a leading organization in the live broadcast e-commerce industry. It not only created Oriental Selection, but also incubated Dong Yuhui and his Yuhui companions who just left.

The second story is Luo Yonghao, who made a comeback by selling goods through live streaming, and also repaid hundreds of millions of debts through live streaming, performing the "True Repayment Story". Luo Yonghao is definitely one of the representative cases of making a comeback by selling goods through live streaming.

Recently, against the backdrop of the hot events of Yuhui Xingxing leaving Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui resigning from Oriental Selection, Luo Yonghao continued to criticize in the live broadcast room and even commented that Yu Minhong was a "stingy person".

But just when Luo Yonghao was talking about Dong Yuhui's resignation, someone couldn't stand it anymore. Zheng Gang, an investor of Smartisan Technology and Zihui Venture Capital, released a video to "expose" Luo Yonghao.

Zheng Gang of Zihui Venture Capital said that 300 million yuan in cash out of the nearly 400 million yuan came from the assets formed by the shareholders of Smartisan Technology's investment in Smartisan Technology. Using these assets to repay the debt actually means that Luo Yonghao sold the assets of Smartisan Technology to repay the debt.

At present, Luo Yonghao has not publicly responded to Zheng Gang’s remarks, but we can see from this incident that perhaps Luo Yonghao’s live broadcast of selling goods "True Return" is not so perfect. It must have made money, and it also has long-term hot topics and explosive traffic.

Perhaps Zhong Xuegao’s Lin Sheng also saw the market effect of live streaming sales, and wanted to learn from Oriental Selection and turn Zhong Xuegao’s live streaming room into the next Oriental Selection.

In other words, Lin Sheng wanted to follow Luo Yonghao's example and try live streaming to sell goods, build up an image of a person who actively repays debts, create topics, and gain traffic. Who knows, maybe he will become really popular.

Now the trend of live streaming sales has cooled down to some extent. The market no longer believes in the story of using live streaming sales to pay off debts, and live streaming sales is no longer a good way to make quick money and pay off debts.

"Xinpinlue Finance" has previously analyzed that it is difficult for Zhong Xuegao to become the next Oriental Selection. Firstly, it is because Zhong Xuegao missed the golden period of live streaming sales, and secondly, Zhong Xuegao has no explosive point and no good personality.

Zhong Xue Gao was once an Internet celebrity brand, but many negative incidents have occurred and its brand image is no longer redeemable. The personality of Zhong Xue Gao and Lin Sheng cannot convince netizens or make them worthy of likes and purchases.

04There is not much time left for Zhong Xuegao

Now it seems that Zhong Xuegao's live streaming sales did not become popular, and the "Zhong Xuegao effect" did not form again. Zhong Xuegao also failed to become the second Oriental Selection, and did not cause much waves in the live streaming sales industry.

Although the outside world does not know the business data and commercial value of Zhong Xuegao's live streaming sales, judging from the information that he was forced to execute again, his debt repayment path should not be as smooth as expected.

At least for now, the company Zhong Xuegao is still operating, the accounts on major platforms are not updated as frequently, and the live streaming business is still going on. But overall: there is not much time left for Zhong Xuegao.

From the perspective of the overall environment of live streaming e-commerce, Zhong Xuegao has definitely missed the golden period. Zhong Xuegao’s image as a failed internet celebrity in the past also makes it difficult for Zhong Xuegao to become an internet celebrity brand for live streaming e-commerce again.

The live streaming e-commerce industry has entered a deep water period and a normal development period. Everything seems so normal, and selling goods is just a normal online business.

All the major live-streaming e-commerce agencies are adjusting their market strategies, and the top anchors have begun to gradually retreat behind the scenes. For example, top anchors such as Li Jiaqi and Xiao Yangge have long since reduced the number of live-streaming e-commerce shows to explore more businesses.

In the past, live streaming rooms were just a platform for selling goods, acting as a middleman. But now, the leading live streaming sales agencies want to develop in the long run and are thinking about steady and sustainable development.

For example, Oriental Selection has been developing its own products since the beginning of live streaming. Developing its own products requires strong supply chain capabilities, brand premium capabilities, and more importantly, having enough fans and purchasing power.

Dong Yuhui, who just left Oriental Selection, is leading his group Yuhui to explore more diverse forms of live streaming, rather than simply selling goods and becoming an internet celebrity.

For a live streaming e-commerce company, in addition to the basics such as fans and product strength, it is more important to have unique characteristics, explain the products professionally and uniquely, and have after-sales service to support it.

Obviously, Zhong Xue Gao does not have advantages in all aspects. Zhong Xue Gao used to be very popular online, very high-profile and at its peak, but then it suddenly changed its style and took a sharp turn for the worse, surrounded by negative voices. At least in terms of brand value, it is extremely difficult for Zhong Xue Gao to be reborn again.

Zhong Xuegao said from the beginning that it would sell sweet potatoes through live streaming. Although it was a hot topic, it was destined to be difficult to make a splash and become an overnight hit. However, live streaming has become one of the few options for Zhong Xuegao, or it may be a helpless move.

Judging from the current market and consumption environment, it is difficult for Lin Sheng to create an internet-famous ice cream hit like Zhong Xue Gao as it did in previous years amid the wave of consumption upgrades.

"New Product Finance" believes that for Lin Sheng and Zhong Xuegao, live streaming may only be a temporary measure. What is more important is to find a new way out or create the next hit product. However, the market does not have much time left for Zhong Xuegao.

Where will Zhong Xue Gao head in the future? Only time will tell us the answer. But one thing is certain: the only one who can save Zhong Xue Gao is Zhong Xue Gao itself.