zhang dayi, the “no. 1 taobao influencer”, closed her online store after ten years. where will the e-commerce influencers go?
2024-09-20
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zhang dayi, the once-popular "no. 1 taobao influencer", is now facing the closure of her stores.
on september 19, zhang dayi disclosed on her personal weibo that she would close her taobao store "my happy wardrobe" which had been open for 10 years, but would continue to sell clothes. all new products would then be transferred to the taobao "black label store" with higher prices and quality.
zhang dayi wrote about starting a business out of interest, going public, getting tired, and thinking about the industry. for example, "e-commerce development brings opportunities and challenges, and celebrity e-commerce is suitable for small and beautiful businesses." she also said that she experienced "a stage where she couldn't switch platforms and didn't dare to switch platforms," and revealed the particularity of the clothing category.
beijing news shell finance reporter observed that as of press time on september 20, "my favorite wardrobe" still had 12.39 million fans.
looking back at zhang dayi's career, she was once the top seller of women's clothing on taobao. her success not only brought her great commercial benefits, but also injected momentum into ruhnn holdings, the once "first internet celebrity stock". however, with the continuous changes in the market and the intensification of competition, ruhnn holdings gradually lost its former glory. two years after ringing the bell on nasdaq, it was delisted with a 70% reduction in market value.
missing the opportunity of live streaming e-commerce, high return rates and overstocking rates have made the women's clothing business increasingly difficult. traditional celebrity e-commerce mainly relies on the influence of influencers and their ability to bring goods, but with market changes and intensified competition, this model is obviously difficult to cope with complex market competition.
"revenue does not represent profit", influencer e-commerce faces transformation difficulties
beijing news shell finance reporter observed that zhang dayi's taobao store "my happy wardrobe" currently has 12.39 million fans, five gold crowns, monthly sales of more than 90,000 items, and more than 70,000 positive reviews in half a year, ranking "top 2 (second place) on the korean casual women's clothing store list".
the homepage of zhang dayi’s taobao store “my happy wardrobe”.
september 24 will be the last time the store will stock new products. customer service revealed that zhang dayi's team will continue to operate the black label store "the vever" in the future, and the category will still be women's clothing but with a higher price positioning.
zhang dayi wrote that she had gone through a stage where she couldn't and didn't dare to switch platforms. she believed that the meager gross profit margin of the clothing category could not support various operating costs. if she switched platforms, it might result in losses and the return rate would be higher than that of taobao.
several women's clothing merchants also told the beijing news shell financial reporter that the return rate and inventory backlog of women's clothing are a consensus in the industry. the return rate once reached 60% to 80% or even higher. "the return rate of women's clothing has increased year by year in recent years. it may have been 20% a few years ago, but now it has become about 70%," said a guangdong clothing wholesale owner.
zhang dayi also said that the core value of celebrity e-commerce is small and beautiful, with flat management. only when celebrities do front-line work can they truly achieve healthy profits while meeting the needs of fans. once the company becomes bigger, the hidden costs will become higher and higher, and revenue does not represent profit. "unless celebrities do everything on the front line like in the 2014 era, celebrity e-commerce will go downhill."
ruhnn holdings' delisting is an important turning point; 4g popularization and live streaming divide traffic
in 2011, ruhnn holdings ceo feng min and chen sijia founded the taobao women's clothing brand "libelin", and zhang dayi, the "rayli girl" at the time, became its brand model.
in 2014, ruhnn holdings successfully incubated zhang dayi, the first generation of internet celebrity, and created the then "phenomenal" taobao store - wo huan xi's wardrobe. 2014 is therefore widely regarded as the "first year of internet celebrity economy", and zhang dayi has become the representative of this new economic force.
on "double 11" in 2015, my happy wardrobe became the only c store (personal store) to be included in the women's clothing rankings across the entire platform; on "double 11" in 2016, my happy wardrobe became the first women's clothing store on taobao with sales exceeding 100 million yuan; in 2016, zhang dayi opened a cosmetics store on taobao, and set a sales record of selling 20,000 lipsticks in 2 hours on the first day of opening; at the taobao live festival in 2016, zhang dayi drove a transaction volume of 20 million yuan in two hours.
the phenomenal internet celebrity economy has also received an olive branch from capital. in 2019, ruhan holdings was listed on the nasdaq in the united states, and zhang dayi became the first chinese internet celebrity to ring the bell on the nasdaq.
after ruhnn holdings was listed on nasdaq on april 3, 2019, its stock price fell below the issue price at the opening. the market was not satisfied with ruhnn holdings' performance, mainly because its financial performance before listing was not satisfactory and it failed to show sustained profitability.
ruhnn holdings once received investment from alibaba and had a certain degree of popularity in the market, but these factors failed to reverse the sluggish stock price.
after going public, ruhnn holdings' financial situation has been the focus of attention. ruhnn holdings suffered substantial losses in both 2020 and 2021. in 2020, ruhnn holdings' revenue fell sharply, mainly due to its over-reliance on top influencers and its poor response to market changes. in 2021, ruhnn holdings' operating conditions further deteriorated, ultimately leading to its delisting.
the delisting of ruhnn holdings is undoubtedly an important turning point in the field of influencer e-commerce. this company, which was once listed on the nasdaq in the united states, was once regarded as a representative and model of the influencer economy. however, as time went by, ruhnn holdings gradually exposed problems such as a single model and insufficient profitability. at the same time, the rise of emerging e-commerce platforms and live streaming sales models has also had a huge impact on traditional influencer e-commerce.
on june 20, 2016, zhang dayi launched her first taobao live broadcast, which attracted 421,000 viewers. without any promotions or discounts, the store's new transaction volume was about 20 million, with an average customer spending of nearly 400 yuan, breaking the sales record of taobao live broadcast.
however, zhang dayi missed the opportunity of live streaming e-commerce due to her misjudgment of the sales model. in the live streaming industry, anchors such as li jiaqi and wei ya were quickly promoted by investors and became the new top streamers. with the popularization of 4g, the benefits of live streaming exploded, and zhang dayi, who became popular in the era of pictures and texts, was quickly divided up.
in this context, zhang dayi's decision to close the phenomenal taobao store was undoubtedly a difficult one. this also reflects the survival dilemma and development bottleneck faced by the celebrity e-commerce industry.
on the one hand, with the diversification and personalization of consumer demand, relying solely on the influencer effect and sales ability has become difficult to meet market demand; on the other hand, emerging e-commerce platforms and live streaming sales models are reshaping the industry landscape, and traditional influencer e-commerce needs to find new breakthroughs and growth points.
according to iresearch, the commercial monetization of the celebrity economy mainly comes from the c (consumer) side and the b (merchant) side. the c side is mainly based on e-commerce monetization, live broadcast monetization, content payment, and derivative sales. the b side is financial support from advertisers and media platforms. at present, the monetization sources of the celebrity economy in my country are mainly concentrated in the two main forces of advertising marketing and e-commerce monetization. according to the main methods of monetization of chinese celebrities from 2018 to 2019, the proportion of monetization in the form of advertising marketing reached 98.9% in 2019, an increase of 12.3% over 2018, and the proportion of e-commerce monetization was as high as 96.6%. other methods such as ip authorization and offline commercial performances (commercial cooperation) have increased in 2019. with the gradual maturity of advertising marketing and e-commerce monetization models and the gradual exploration of other monetization models, the commercial monetization of the celebrity economy will be more diversified in the future.
the research report also stated that with the continuous prosperity of the cultural and entertainment industry, the business model of the celebrity economy, which revolves around celebrities, objects, virtual images and other media, is developing faster and faster. the core data for commercial monetization is traffic and sales. in the future mature celebrity economy business environment, ensuring the authenticity of data will drive all roles in the industry chain to develop in the right direction.
cheng zijiao, financial reporter of beijing news shell
editor: yue caizhou
proofread by lucy
