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our reporter li jing reports from beijing

"live broadcast + e-commerce" is reshaping the new track of the wine industry. with the rise of live broadcast e-commerce, the sales channels and marketing methods of wine products have changed significantly. through live broadcast, wine brands can increase consumers' understanding of brands and products through more real, detailed and vivid product displays and explanations, improve user experience, and promote rapid user conversion in a short period of time. relevant data shows that the sales of douyin's wine category will be close to 40 billion yuan in 2023. liquor accounts for more than 70%, and the growth rate is nearly 100%.

on september 9, at the 13th china (guizhou) international wine expo - "dialogue on september 9" event forum, mou lei, a senior wine marketer and director of fujian zhongrun jiutong, pointed out that emerging channels such as live e-commerce have added a new communication position and sales track for all wine brands, which is a great opportunity. at the same time, we are also facing the problem of how to solve the trust and counterfeit and inferior products of goods. these two may be issues that need to be improved and regulated by the platform and all parties in the short term.

emerging consumption channels

lao hu, a well-known wine kol and the owner of the douyin account "qianbei shao lao hu", live-streamed for one or two hours before the forum started and sold more than 400,000 yuan of guizhou qingjiu. lao hu's main business was originally in the wine supply chain, and he occasionally worked as a live streamer as a hobby. now live streaming has become lao hu's main business.

"traditional shelf e-commerce can only be purchased through customer search. in live streaming e-commerce, the anchors can speak and actively recommend products to users. this is the biggest advantage of live streaming e-commerce." lao hu believes that live streaming e-commerce is relatively more friendly to small brands and white-label merchants, as well as brands of high-quality, cost-effective products that are relatively backward in marketing, because live streaming e-commerce has fast communication efficiency, high efficiency and wide coverage.

data shows that the sales of douyin's alcoholic beverages will be close to 40 billion yuan in 2023, and the growth rate is very high. li yi, deputy secretary-general of the china light industry enterprise investment and development association and the owner of the douyin account "li dabai chats about wine", just did his first live broadcast of selling goods in his life not long ago. he believes that the booming development of alcoholic beverages in live e-commerce is firstly because it happened to catch up with the transition period from the first generation of shelf e-commerce to the second generation of content e-commerce. at the same time, with the advancement of technology, the wine industry is also facing channel reforms, including investment promotion models, marketing logic, logistics and payment systems.

"with the superposition of two waves of trends, the wine industry has shown very good data performance in the live streaming sector, which is particularly prominent in the second-generation e-commerce." li yi said.

there are still many challenges

are there any hidden concerns behind the rapid growth of “alcohol + live streaming” sales data?

nowadays, many wine brands and wineries are gradually aware of the importance of live streaming and have started live streaming or cooperating with live streaming experts. lao hu believes that blindly pursuing gmv (sales volume) is a common problem for many merchants who are new to live streaming.

"advertising can only solve the first-time purchase problem, but not the word-of-mouth and repeat purchase problems." lao hu said that the real meaning of online sales is not to sell a few products, but to spread the brand's word-of-mouth and return on offline market investment. "merchants must be cautious when starting live streaming. they should not blindly pursue gmv (gross merchandise volume), but should look at real transactions and word-of-mouth feedback."

li yi recently learned a new e-commerce term - gsv (excluding return rate). the return rate of some brands' live streaming sales is very high, and some return rates are more than half, or even more. "during the research process, we found that the high return rate is due to some sales routines in the industry, such as the story of li gui and li kui. there are many counterfeit goods and inferior goods in the live streaming sales field. live streaming tells a lot of exaggerated stories in the live streaming room, and induces consumers to make irrational decisions through some rhetoric." li yi said.

"livestreaming should not only promote low prices, but also use some incentives and tricks to make consumers consume irrationally." li yi believes that the content e-commerce platform is a very good communication platform. whether it is livestreaming or short videos, it can export more wine-related culture and brand-related culture to the outside world. "there are hundreds of people and hundreds of mouths. every brand has its own good wine. we need to tell each brand's own story well."

mou lei pointed out that in the development process of "wine + e-commerce", the core issue is still the product quality issue, followed by solving the subsequent after-sales problems and consumer repurchase. "first, all product parties need to ensure the quality of their products. secondly, more platform regulations and regulatory measures need to be introduced. in addition, there must be self-discipline or external discipline to restrain problems such as excessive exaggeration, telling false stories, counterfeiting, and inferior products."

professionals attending the meeting all believed that multiple parties need to use effective means to avoid the problems facing industry development and manage the risks faced in development, so that the "wine + live broadcast" track can become better and better, and at the same time help brands to better communicate and sell.

(editor: wu qing reviewer: li zhenghao proofreader: zhai jun)