the temptation of blind boxes is magnified in the live broadcast room
2024-09-12
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at 10 o'clock in the evening, in a live broadcast room with hundreds of people, netizens were closely watching the host opening the blind boxes.
there was a pile of blind boxes on the table in front of the screen. the host took out a few packs and placed them in the front. while saying in a loud voice, "i wish the boss win the prize", he quickly cut open the box with scissors.
"congratulations, boss! you've revealed our hidden model!" "send two more boxes to the boss!" as the host took out a small doll made of resin from a sealed paper box, the atmosphere on the scene instantly reached its climax, and netizens kept posting congratulatory messages such as "so good!"
the temptation of blind boxes is being magnified in live broadcasts. a beijing news reporter found that live broadcasts of blind box opening have emerged on platforms such as douyin, kuaishou, and xiaohongshu. it has not only become a new way to bring goods, but has also evolved into "everything can be opened."
the beijing news reporter noticed that in the live broadcast room, blind box products include trendy toys, cards in the fields of sports, animation, coffee, lighters, etc. in order to attract players, the anchor introduced new fancy ways to play, including opening an additional box of the same color, opening a gold box and getting 4 additional boxes, and drawing a hidden box and getting 3 additional boxes. behind the dazzling rules, there is no doubt that it is intended to bring excitement to the netizens in the live broadcast room, so that they will "sell" crazily in the impulse of opening the hidden box.
under the impulse of "small bets for big wins", buyers often pay for cheap goods. at present, the live broadcast room is full of toys as low as 8.8 yuan, but their purchase price is only 30 or 40 cents. despite this, the blind box gameplay has added a lot of gambling atmosphere to the live broadcast room, and also allowed some anchors to earn tens of thousands of yuan a day.
"the strong sense of immersion and ubiquitous emotional value attract many players to the blind box opening live broadcast room." du bin, who runs an mcn agency in zhejiang, said, "with the participation of players, it not only drives the market to be 'overcrowded', but also makes anchors and manufacturers earn a lot of money."
the addictive live broadcast of opening blind boxes
at 12 o'clock late in the night, in a live broadcast room, after watching several rounds of the player's autographed jersey blind box game, liu lei finally couldn't help but place an order.
the rules of the game are very simple. in each round, the host will take out a sealed box containing a player's autographed jersey, and take out 10 cards covering various football clubs and national teams, and hang links from 1 to 10 in the yellow cart. after the player has picked out the card he likes, he will buy the corresponding number for more than 400 yuan. if the jersey opened from the blind box is the card you bought, then you can get the jersey, which normally costs more than 3,000 yuan. if you fail, you will start over in the next round.
"this is a game of luck. although it is impossible to guess it easily, once you bet right, you can make a small profit with a big investment." the jersey that the anchor then opened was not the number that liu lei ordered, but he was still not discouraged and started a new round of betting.
in another live broadcast room selling single-bean coffee, more than a dozen sealed plastic bags were placed on the workbench, and the host was enthusiastically introducing the gameplay to every netizen who entered the live broadcast room.
"for 20 yuan, you can open eight blind coffee boxes." the anchor kept taking out colorful coffees from the bag he had just opened. "if you open a box of the same color, you open one more. if the same color appears three times, you open two more. the game stops when there are no more boxes of the same color."
recently, many blind box live broadcast rooms have emerged on platforms such as douyin, kuaishou, and xiaohongshu, claiming that "you can open the box now and get a chance to get a hidden model." unlike earlier players who placed an order and then opened the box themselves, these live broadcast rooms usually have the host open the box and display the items on the spot after the player purchases it.
"the excitement of opening blind boxes live is much stronger than opening the boxes yourself." zhao na, a post-00s player who has placed dozens of orders in the live broadcast room and spent two to three thousand yuan, told reporters that the exaggerated tone of the anchor during the opening process and the cheers of the audience in the barrage made her particularly "addicted". "whether it's placing an order yourself or watching others open the prizes, when the anchor opens the blind box, there is a kind of expectation that 'a bicycle will turn into a motorcycle'."
the reporter squatted in a live broadcast room of opening blind boxes of lighters and saw that the anchor was busy opening sealed bags of different sizes. as netizens poured in, the atmosphere on the scene was also pushed to a climax. whenever a lighter with exquisite style and workmanship was opened, the anchor would excitedly shout: "brother, this is the treasure of our house" and "the hidden model was actually opened."
in the message column, many viewers frantically posted comments such as "congratulations" and "so lucky", as well as messages prompting some viewers to place orders directly because they were captured by similar "emotional value".
the reporter learned that it is precisely because of the popularity among young people that the live broadcast of blind box opening has exploded. blind box products are no longer limited to the earlier trendy toys and figures. there are not only cards covering sports, animation and other fields, but also various small commodities including stationery, single coffee, lighters, etc. these are packaged in sealed bags and appear in the live broadcast room in the form of blind boxes.
"the strong sense of immersion and ubiquitous emotional value attract many players to the card-opening live broadcast room." du bin, who runs an mcn agency in zhejiang, said, "in order to attract players, more and more anchors are researching more new ways of playing, which has also made this track explode."
some anchors sell goods worth tens of thousands of yuan a day.
"nowadays, opening blind boxes has become a new way to sell goods in live broadcasts, and it has even reached the stage where almost everything can be opened." zhang li, an anchor who runs a live broadcast room for opening blind boxes, admitted that by taking advantage of this momentum, the anchor has successfully made a lot of profits.
zhang li told reporters that she and her friends invested 100,000 yuan to build a live broadcast room a few months ago, and the products they selected were mainly various small plastic toys wholesaled from the yiwu market.
these finger-sized toys, which cost only 30 or 40 cents, were packaged and put into the live broadcast room. they were marked with different grades such as 8.8 yuan, 12 yuan and 18 yuan for 5, 8 and 15 respectively. in order to attract more players' attention, zhang li specially opened up multiple gameplay and rewards. "if you get a gold color, you will get 4 more, and if you get a purple color, you will get 3 more. if you get none of the above colors, you will get 1 more."
every night, zhang li broadcasts for five or six hours. she is in high spirits in the live broadcast room, saying things like "i wish you good luck" and "this will definitely bring out a hidden model" to boost the atmosphere of the whole room, while taking the orders handed over by her assistant and unpacking the bags quickly. what she likes to see most is that netizens place orders crazily under verbal stimulation and the game of playing with small bets for big wins. although some people have won multiple blind boxes in a row because of their good luck, this undoubtedly adds to the atmosphere of the live broadcast room.
zhang li did some calculations and found that the most popular level for customers is 18 yuan, and the average number of toys opened per order is about 20. the purchase price of these toys, labor costs and shipping costs, the cost per order is about 10 yuan. this means that she can make 8 yuan per order. if 100 orders are sold per day, the average daily income can reach 800 yuan. even after deducting the cost of streaming, the profit margin can be stabilized at around 30%. "my profit is nothing. some big anchors can sell tens of thousands of yuan of goods every day."
according to public data, a popular blind box store has monthly sales of around 1 million to 2.5 million yuan, with the number of viewers for each live broadcast reaching 500,000 and average sales of 25,000 to 50,000 yuan per show.
this new and trendy way of playing has spawned more live broadcast rooms and has also prompted a number of manufacturers to start resetting their sales channels to attract business.
li ke, who runs a toy factory in zhejiang, was deeply impressed. the factory's toy sales were dismal earlier. recently, the company re-branded its products as "trendy toys", adjusted the prices, and covered the product shells with opaque plastic paper. after selling them in the form of blind boxes, the company's live broadcast room can sell hundreds of orders almost every day.
"we purposely packaged several popular styles as 'hidden styles' and released one or two of them every day to increase the popularity of the live broadcast room. sure enough, many consumers continued to place orders under impulse consumption and gambling mentality." li ke said.
in order to keep netizens feeling fresh at all times, in addition to opening the boxes on the spot, li ke also designed a variety of gameplay, such as "matching" where one gets an extra pack if the same suit is drawn, and "testing your luck" where three packs are given away if the player draws a hidden version, in order to attract regular fans to stay in the live broadcast room every day.
for merchants, this is undoubtedly a win-win situation. the gifted blind boxes may also contain hidden items. users can continuously obtain additional blind boxes opened by the anchor at the price of buying one or two boxes, realizing the fun of "small wins big". this move also pushed the live broadcast traffic and order volume to a climax.
"the core of opening blind boxes is not the product, but the entertainment experience provided to players." li ke made no secret of the fact that if a hidden item is opened, he would feel that he is "lucky" and continue to place orders. if it is not opened, he will have an obsession of "having to open it", "so he falls into the 'trap' set by the merchants and anchors."
players often regret it after they calm down.
the market seems to be booming, but as more and more people enter the industry, the blind box anchors find that this business is becoming increasingly difficult.
"the biggest problem now is product selection. it's hard to succeed without special products or first-hand resources." jiang hua, who only entered this field in june this year, told reporters that after broadcasting a few times, he found that the reality was not as lively as he imagined. it was often the case that there were less than 10 people watching the live broadcast for several hours. "since i entered the industry, i have only sold less than 20 orders, a total of more than 100 yuan."
when browsing the live broadcast platform, the reporter noticed that although there were many live broadcast rooms for opening blind boxes, the products and gameplay were very similar, and most of the channels even came from wholesale markets in yiwu, guangzhou and other places.
"after all, trendy toys are known for their novelty. if the products in your live broadcast room are everywhere, they will naturally be less attractive to players." jiang hua analyzed that he had tried to reduce prices, but the effect was not ideal. after all, the trend of trendy toys is fleeting. if the products are not sold within a few days, it is basically difficult for people to buy them. "now there are still more than ten boxes of toys in the live broadcast room, and no one will place an order even if the price drops to two or three yuan a box."
zhang li also said that after accumulating a certain number of fans, she had considered upgrading the merchandise in her live broadcast room. originally, she planned to choose blind boxes of anime-related merchandise like the big anchors. however, domestic anime ip products are easy to get, but they are usually released in unlimited quantities, which means that anyone can find similar sources of goods. if you choose overseas anime products, it will involve purchasing resources, freight channels and other links to ensure the stability of the supply and get new ip products as soon as possible. "in this way, the cost will naturally increase exponentially."
in fact, although the live broadcast room has fixed fans, more and more players are becoming rational and even choosing to leave.
"many fans will no longer have the same enthusiasm as before after making one or two rounds of purchases, and may not even appear in the live broadcast room for a long time." zhang li told reporters that she had communicated with the fan group many times and learned that in addition to the loss of freshness due to the delay in updating the products, many fans also lost interest after experiencing them.
zhao na told the reporter that she couldn't help but buy things every time she saw such live broadcasts, but she regretted it after receiving the items she bought. "now my home is full of plastic toys, cards, outdated nail stickers and other items. there is nothing that can be used in daily life. basically, they are thrown directly into the cabinet to collect dust, or even thrown into the trash can as soon as they are sold."
many players said in interviews with reporters that they were "cheated" and did not consider whether the items were practical when placing orders. they were just "intoxicated" by the lively atmosphere at the scene, and often regretted it after calming down. "especially after receiving the goods, i found that their quality was extremely poor. i felt that i was too stupid to spend dozens of yuan to buy these things that were originally worth only a few cents." said one player.
jiang hua, who was increasingly feeling the pressure of sales, began to realize that this business was obviously not as good as he had imagined. after thinking for a long time, he decided to withdraw from this market. "if there is no good product, no one will look at it or place an order. as a result, the supply of goods in the early stage was stuck in my hands, and the funds could not be operated, let alone the capital to buy good products. i felt that i was trapped in a vicious cycle, and in the end i could only end up with heavy losses."
