Kuaishou still cannot be separated from Simba.

Before the start of the 618 e-commerce promotion, much of Kuaishou's popularity came from Simba. Before the 618 promotion, Simba again angrily criticized Kuaishou during a live broadcast, resulting in a one-month ban. However, just one day before the promotion started, the two sides shook hands and made peace, with Simba apologizing to Kuaishou and Kuaishou unbanning Simba's account. It is obvious to those with discerning eyes that neither side could afford to miss this wave of popularity to boost their annual sales performance.

But unexpectedly, the conclusion of Kuaishou's 618 promotion still stemmed from Simba. According to media reports, on the evening of June 23rd, Kuaishou e-commerce sent a live broadcast invitation to Simba Xin Youzhi, "to put a perfect ending to Kuaishou's 2024 618 promotion."

Today (24th), Xin Youzhi responded to Kuaishou e-commerce through the official account of Xin Selection, stating that due to health reasons, he would not be able to host the live broadcast personally and would instead be represented by Xin Selection's anchor Dandan. He would also attend the scene to provide support.

Simba criticized Kuaishou again.

Everyone knows the love-hate relationship between Simba and Kuaishou, which is like an old woman's bound feet cloth, both smelly and long. But nowadays, the communication between the two needs to be conducted through official channels with loudspeakers, indicating an unspoken understanding. This time, it was equivalent to Kuaishou extending an olive branch, which Simba received but did not fully accept, once again subtly criticizing Kuaishou. The word "criticize" has a meaning of embarrassing someone face-to-face.

Simba's confidence comes from his and the Xin Selection team's ability to sell goods. Xin Selection Group revealed that as of June 18th, Xin Selection arranged 229 live broadcasts during the mid-year celebration, with a total of nearly 40 million orders and a total popularity of 428 million in the live broadcast room. According to statistics, during the 618 period, Xin Selection had 10 live broadcasts that exceeded 100 million yuan and 37 live broadcasts that exceeded 10 million yuan. Among them, on May 25th, Xin Selection's founder, Simba Xin Youzhi, kicked off the 618 premiere with a total sales volume of 1.427 billion yuan.

In addition to top anchors like Simba, Dandan, Shi Dapiaoliang, and Zhao Mengche, 15 vertical anchors also achieved sales of over 10 million yuan per session. Furthermore, Xin Selection announced the performance of its own self-operated brands. During this 618 period, Xin Selection's self-operated brand, Jianfeng Shike, launched multiple popular products, selling over 1.11 million products in a single live broadcast session, with sales exceeding 75 million yuan.

Although the overall performance is not as good as the same period last year, it is still the most outstanding group in the current market. Simba proudly said, "We should not be afraid of others' strength, but should maintain our own traffic and serve Xin Selection users well enough."

Even though Simba's influence in selling goods is still strong, he has repeatedly expressed that he doesn't want to continue. For example, during the "war of words" with the platform in April, he said with "grievance" that "Kuaishou doesn't need me" and regrettably announced that he would "retire." During the first live broadcast of 618, Simba said, "There will be fewer and fewer live broadcasts in the future, and I plan to let Xin Selection get used to not having Simba through ten live broadcasts."

It should be noted that although the information conveyed to the outside world is the same, "Kwai does not need Simba" and "Simba does not have the habit of election" are problems at different levels.

In terms of the former, it is not that Simba cannot live without Kwai, but that Kwai needs Simba too much. In the past, Kwai has been trying to "decapitate", which can also be understood as "de Simba", to promote the ecological diversification of platform e-commerce, so as to reduce dependence on Simba.

In the past few years of "de Simba", Kwai has mainly done two things: one is to cultivate other super head anchors; The second is to support small and medium-sized anchors or store anchors. The former is to reverse one batch and support one batch. For example, the Sanda family and the card army among the early Kwai "six families" were all impacted to varying degrees, and the rising stars such as Taiyuan Laoge quickly emerged. The latter is what Kwai has been doing in recent years. They have always stressed that Kwai does not cap the support for small and medium-sized anchors. Recently, Chen Tianhua, vice president of Kwai e-commerce and business leader of talent, said that in the first quarter of this year, the scale of Kwai mid waist talent GMV increased by 40% year on year.

However, based on sales data, the influence of mid-range anchors has not yet reached a significantly prominent level. According to the data of the new list, in 2023, Eggs and Simba will still be the top 1 and top 2 of the Kwai list with a record of more than 10 billion yuan of goods in the whole year, with an accumulated amount of nearly 30 billion yuan, which is almost 1.5 times the accumulated amount of goods carried by the other eight anchors.

Moreover, Simba may seem to have a close relationship with the platform on the surface, but in reality, the ties between the two sides have deepened. Just last month, Simba announced the establishment of a short video live streaming sales company and established the "slicing distribution" business as the strategic focus for 2024.

Compared with the slicing business of Crazy Young Brother, it is easy to understand that the launch of this new business is good for the shelf e-commerce that Kwai is developing, and Simba will also get more traffic support from the platform.

Cutting Fan to Kwai is a False Proposition

In a sense, "cutting barriers" is also "de superheading", which is a false proposition for Kwai and Tiktok e-commerce platforms. The true significance of domain reduction lies in holding the control of traffic in the hands of the platform and enhancing its discourse power.

From this perspective, Tiktok has barely achieved the goal of "flowing water is the super leader, and iron beating Tiktok". From Luo Yonghao of the early generation, to Crazy Young Brother, to "Oriental Selection+Go with Hui", and the new one Jia Nailiang, Tiktok, through the algorithm mechanism, has formed a strong interest chain with the super leader.

However, what Tiktok can do is limited. Even if it wants to cut deeper into the upstream of the live broadcast with goods, the most radical action is only when Dong Yuhui leaves the East Selection Studio. It is rumored in the industry that Tiktok has invested heavily in Dong Yuhui to help find an office and guide the live broadcast operation, that's all.

This is because currently, top anchors still have a higher say in the supply chain than platforms. Although content e-commerce platforms are gradually increasing their supply chain construction, compared to top anchors, they still need time to settle, especially the brand's bargaining power.

From the perspective of Cheng Yixiao, one of the important criteria for judging the achievements of Fan Shaping is that Kwai e-commerce can say goodbye to the dominance of Simba, and also meet the pattern of "letting a hundred flowers bloom" like Tiktok.

Obviously, Kwai cannot copy this, which is determined by its platform nature. Kwai is recognized as the best short video platform for balancing public and private traffic, but this also means that Kwai cannot completely tear down the walls of the community to fill the holes in the square.

On this soil, Kwai killed six families with tears and played the card of Taiyuan Laoge. He grew very fast, but he could only draw with Simba's apprentice, which was not enough to balance Simba.

This kind of "bias" has already caused dissatisfaction from Simba. The trigger for the suspension in April was Simba's accusation that Taiyuan Laoge, Ma Hongtao, and others had engaged in endless tinkering with him, and even resorted to forging recordings to spread rumors about him. However, the platform's response to this was unaware. As a result, he denounced Kwai for conniving at emotional anchors, pointing to the "garbage platform" of collecting 500 million yuan of protection fees! He even spoke harshly, wanting to expose the emotional script anchors and dirty behavior of the platform through the media, which will "ruin the platform"!

The reaction behind this is another fact: the growth rate of Kwai is too slow. In other words, Kwai is still unable to foster another "Simba" in the short term. In contrast, according to data from Tmall, as of November 11, 2023, Taobao had generated 58 live streaming rooms worth over 100 million yuan, of which 38 had a transaction value of over 100 million yuan and 451 had a transaction value of over 10 million yuan. After exploring its unique sales style, Xiaohongshu relied on celebrities and socialites to achieve platform live streaming sales of 6.38 billion yuan from October to December last year.

At present, Kwai is trying to integrate the three fields of short video, live broadcast room and shelf to open up the e-commerce link of the platform. The ideal is very full, but the reality is that most businesses in Kwai do not have the systematic ability to carry goods like Simba. According to the data, in Kwai, pure live broadcast businesses account for 20%, pure short video businesses account for 10%, and pure shelf businesses account for 32%.

Simba's Unsolved Problems

Simba may be really tired, but Kwai still doesn't allow him to withdraw from his needs. This also determines that for a long time in the future, the outside world will continue to see scenes of repeated tugs and tugs between the two sides. In this situation, it is also impossible to have the habit of choosing without Simba.

Objectively speaking, it is not a bad thing that Xinxuan does not have Simba. Previously, Simba publicly reprimanded Cat Sister, Zhao Mengche, Egg Egg, and others in his apprentice "Shi Da Mei Li" live broadcast room, and warned: "Cat Sister," Egg Egg ", Zhao Mengche, Shi Da Mei Li, no matter which of the four of you, it would be difficult to" shake your face "in front of me.". When I was benevolent, I treated you like children, but if I wasn't benevolent, I wouldn't care who you were! "

What Xinxuan Group needs to worry about is that Xinba's persona has gradually become ineffective since the "fake bird's nest incident". The more he speaks harshly, the more he pushes up and down, the more he is criticized, and even apologizes. The negative impact on Xinxuan Group is unpredictable, but Simba remains an irreplaceable soul figure for Xinxuan.

Only Simba can solve these problems. To sum up, how to move the team from a grassroots family to a formal enterprise management has always been a difficult problem that Simba has not solved.