**Is it difficult to be a virtual anchor with overseas live broadcasts?**
*Overseas live broadcast e-commerce seems to be showing a stalemate of applause and unpopularity.*
Judging from the development trend, live e-commerce has been known as a battleground recognized by all parties. With the launch of TikTok e-commerce in Indonesia and the United Kingdom in 2021, a number of traffic platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc., have also opened the function of live broadcast and delivery.
Since the beginning of this year, European and American live e-commerce platforms including Talkshopliv, Popshop Live, Whatnot, etc. have successively obtained large amounts of financing.
But in the short term, live broadcast e-commerce has not shown the effect of making money, so that some people in the industry made a sound of persuading them to quit . Recently, the conflict between the Chinese boss of TikTok’s e-commerce business and the British employees has been rumored in the circle. According to the Financial Times, the TikTok Shop appears to be unattractive in the UK, operating at a loss, with many live broadcasts generating zero sales, and some employees complaining that the targets they have been set are unrealistic .
For most sellers, face-to-face communication and transactions with overseas users through overseas live e-commerce are indeed far beyond their ability in the short term. Unfavorable foreign languages â??â??+ Chinese faces + jet lag have become a cross-border gap in front of sellers.
Then, along with live broadcast e-commerce, now the hot development of virtual anchors, its three advantages of “AI automatic translation + virtual face + machine never sleep” , will it help sellers to break through the live broadcast e-commerce applauded and unpopular? Dilemma? “Seller’s Home” asked many friends in the industry who are engaged in virtual anchors and TikTok e-commerce to get a glimpse.
01
Virtual anchors are trending
“Flower Xiaoxi”, “purslane”, “Tang Xiaomei”, “Stella”, “Xiaomei”, “Ou Xiaomi”, “Dongdong”, are these names unfamiliar to you? Can you guess which virtual anchor they are from?
Since 2020, virtual anchors have begun to appear in e-commerce live broadcast rooms and gradually become larger. In March of that year, “I don’t eat for nothing” started the road of live broadcast and delivery. According to a research report by Guohai Securities, the GMV of this IP’s live broadcast and delivery of goods will exceed 100 million in 2021. Just one month later, on April 17, 2020, the super popular virtual singer Luo Tianyi and the head anchor Li Jiaqi had a dream linkage, which pushed the popularity of virtual anchors to a new high.
A year later, in May 2021, the fake AYAYI appeared on Xiaohongshu. Overnight, AYAYI successfully attracted 40,000 followers, and its first post was read by nearly 3 million. Many users praised its fidelity in disbelief. On September 8 of that year, AYAYI officially became Ali’s No. 1 digital employee .
Other e-commerce platforms are not far behind. “There is a girl named Xiaofang, who is good-looking and kind…” During the Double 11 last year, Kuaishou launched the virtual anchor “Guan Xiaofang” , co-hosting with the anchor “Guan Fang” of the prototype Kuaishou shop.
During the Winter Olympics in February this year, Ali launched Dongdong, the second virtual employee after AYAYI, to sell Olympic licensed products full-time in the Taobao live broadcast. Almost at the same time, “Xiaomei”, the virtual anchor of JD Beauty, also appeared in over 20 live broadcast studios of YSL, L’Oreal, Kiehl’s, etc. to bring goods.
According to “Seller’s Home”, ByteDance is also working hard to create its own official virtual person, which will be released soon .
In addition to e-commerce platforms, many brands and MCN institutions have also launched their own virtual anchors in the past two years . It is understood that in 2021, there will be more than a thousand virtual anchors on Douyin e-commerce live streaming, with the highest single-game sales of nearly 10 million yuan, and the highest viewing rate of over one million. At present, the #virtual person# topic on Douyin has more than 130 million views .
“At this stage, more than 600 merchants are already trying our virtual anchors, and more than 200 are being broadcast every day.” In March this year, Alibaba researcher and head of digital human technology Bruce Lee told the “Daily Economic News”. In April, Taobao announced the three major directions of live broadcast marketing in 2022, and even identified virtual anchors and 3D scenes as the incremental market for live broadcast.
The popularity of domestic virtual anchor applications has also attracted capital to invest. According to statistics from third-party institutions, in January 2022 alone, the number of financings in the virtual human field exceeded nearly 100, with a financing amount of 411 million yuan.
02
Cross-border e-commerce live broadcasts are hard to find anchors
Compared with the popularity of virtual anchors in domestic e -commerce, it is currently difficult to find virtual anchors in cross-border e-commerce .
“Seller’s Home” has asked a large number of TikTok service providers and sellers for this purpose. Except for a few institutions that have been involved in investment or their own research and development, and entered the exploration stage, most cross-border e-commerce institutions and sellers have not used virtual anchors .
The reason for this is that, in the eyes of industry insiders, China, as the birthplace of live broadcast e-commerce, has entered a period of shuffling for live broadcast e-commerce development, while cross-border e-commerce live broadcast has just sprouted . The needs of anchors are naturally different .
According to the respective financial reports of Alibaba and Kuaishou, the GMV of Taobao Live in 2021 will exceed 500 billion yuan, and the GMV of Kuaishou e-commerce will reach 680 billion yuan. According to the forecast of Netease, the GMV of Douyinâ??s live broadcast is expected to exceed one trillion in 2022.
With such a huge volume of domestic live broadcast e-commerce, regardless of platforms, brands or MCN institutions, the first thing to consider is safety and control . In recent years, events such as Langweixian’s departure, Li Ziqi’s equity dispute with Weinian, and Weiya’s tax evasion have highlighted the uncontrollable risks of the anchor. As the virtual assets of enterprises, virtual anchors are of course full of certainty.
In addition, as long as it is people will be tired. The anchor work has the characteristics of high intensity and long time. To maintain the popularity of a live broadcast room, three or four anchor relays are required. The ability and personality charm of different anchors are different, which will make the attractiveness of the live broadcast room fluctuate greatly. In contrast, the never-tiring feature of virtual anchors is quite advantageous .
At the same time, virtual anchors naturally have digital attributes and eye-catching topic effects, which are also a major driving force for the layout of domestic parties.
Compared with mature domestic live broadcast e-commerce, cross-border live broadcast e-commerce is still in its infancy, and the problems of anchors are also prominent, but the problems encountered are completely different from domestic counterparts .
For most sellers and domestic institutions, they certainly do not have the ability to carry goods through cross-border live broadcast . According to the research of “Seller’s Home”, there are currently four mainstream live broadcast solutions on TikTok e-commerce. One is unmanned live broadcast that was often used in the early days of domestic live broadcast, and the other is project-based cooperation with overseas bloggers and Internet celebrities . One is to hire people and train anchors by yourself , and the other is to cooperate with MCN agencies to broadcast and operate on behalf of them .
If domestic institutions and brands are worried that the anchor will be uncontrollable in the later stage, then the anchor of cross-border e-commerce live broadcast is an uncontrollable factor from the beginning. An industry insider who specializes in the European and American markets said, “From the perspective of TikTok UK, Chinese and black anchors are easier to find, but their ability to attract traffic is not good. As long as white anchors are used, traffic will increase by at least 15% , but white people are willing to do it. There are very few anchors, and at the same time, white anchors are difficult to manage, the broadcast is more casual, the duration of the live broadcast is difficult to guarantee, and they are not very interested in bringing goods, so they can only cooperate in the way of project cooperation and sharing .â?
Even in the Southeast Asian market, which is more accepting of live broadcast e-commerce, the anchor ecology is completely different from China. Chen Shichun, head of Bogu’s Southeast Asia MCN agency, told “Seller’s Home” that anchors in the Philippines and other places have low costs and are enthusiastic about live broadcasts , but they will leave work on time and can only broadcast live during work hours from 9 to 5 in the morning.
03
Who is blocking the way for virtual anchors to enter cross-border e-commerce?
In this case, why not use a virtual anchor?
“Seller’s Home” researched and found that there are three main obstacles: policy, cost and technology maturity .
The first is policy. A friend who has tried virtual anchors introduced that at present, virtual anchors need to authorize the platform to open OBS permissions to start live broadcasts . It is not possible to start broadcasting with virtual anchors.
” You don’t have to think about entertainment live broadcasts . You can also find a junior to apply for an e-commerce live broadcast, but the junior needs to check the performance of the opened live broadcast room. Basically, only big brands and top sellers may enjoy such an honor .”
He introduced that in order to bypass the OBS permission, there is still a tricky way, which is to display on a large screen and play from mobile to mobile, but this method can easily trigger the platform’s title .
At the same time, he revealed that at present, the platform is more worried about the issue of portrait rights and intellectual property rights for virtual anchors . Judging from the appearance of domestic virtual anchors, beautiful and handsome guys are basically the same model, the difference is mainly in clothing and hairstyle. Once developed, various virtual anchors can easily crash. In European and American countries that pay attention to protecting portrait rights and intellectual property rights, this is a very serious issue. Using existing well-known IP to create virtual people is even more taboo on the platform.
But these are not the key points in his opinion. The key point is that the current technical maturity and cost of virtual anchors are not enough to carry the ambition of cross-border e-commerce.
There are three mainstream technical solutions for virtual anchors at present: pure AI virtual anchors, “real person + virtual human” combined anchors, and human-driven virtual anchors.
The first pure AI virtual anchor is essentially a combination of artificial intelligence + virtual anchor image . In China, it is mainly used to introduce products in a loop by playing and recording during the period when the anchor is off the air, simply answering consumer inquiries, and undertaking midnight traffic in the live broadcast room, so that the live broadcast room will never stop broadcasting. For cross-border e-commerce, this kind of virtual anchor can attract attention in the initial stage, but if the virtual anchor is not accurate enough, it will look like a robot at first glance. After the user’s freshness is over, it will not be able to attract users. It can only be said that it is an upgrade of unmanned live broadcast. edition .
As for creating a high-precision virtual anchor, it will cost a lot of money. Just to create a virtual human image, the market price will be between 500 and 300 million. It also needs to be equipped with high-precision motion capture equipment, live broadcast room, and professional operation team. Taking Liu Yexi, a popular virtual person in China as an example, the production cost of each video is as high as one million.
The second type of “real person + virtual human” combination anchor is similar to the combination of Kuaishou e-commerce anchor Guan Fang and virtual anchor Guan Xiaofang. The anchors with the core goods are still real anchors, and the virtual anchors only play the role of digital assistants and gimmicks . Of course, if this virtual anchor is incubated by a well-known IP, it may be very attractive to overseas users, but this is not an option for the vast majority of domestic companies and sellers going overseas. After a circle, it did not solve the difficult problem of cross-border e-commerce live broadcasters, and it also increased the cost.
The third type of live-action-driven virtual anchor allows anchors who are familiar with the logic of bringing goods and good at English expression to become Chinese people and deal with overseas users in the face of virtual anchors. This is also the development direction that e-commerce industry platforms and leading companies are most interested in. However, in the live broadcast e-commerce scene, which requires real-time interaction between the anchor and the product, the current technology cannot achieve real-time dynamic compensation precision matching. It is easy to have obvious shadows and tearing between the headgear and the person in the middle, and it is easy to be exposed .
In addition, under this solution, the core role is actually a live streamer, and there are still uncontrollable factors . On May 10 this year, a member of Lehua’s virtual women’s group A-SOUL “entered live broadcast hibernation” due to physical and academic reasons, causing heated discussions in the industry.
In addition, the outstanding “Chinese people” in China are also a rare resource . The salary offered by Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places for this position is tens of thousands, and some companies even offer a monthly salary of as high as 40,000. Familiar with the logic of live broadcast e-commerce, as well as overseas users, there are very few “people in the middle” who are good at expressing in English, and even if they are found, it is expensive.
“TikTok e-commerce is currently not making money, and no one is willing to use virtual anchors.”
04
The future of virtual anchors
The future is accelerating. “Seller’s Home” is concerned that these developing problems are being solved step by step with the advancement of technology. At present, the commercial viability of cross-border e-commerce using virtual anchors and virtual scenes is beginning to dawn.
It has become the consensus of the industry to reduce the cost of using virtual anchors. At present, the unmanned live broadcast method that is widely used by sellers is expected to be the first to change.
Lin Hongxiang, head of Fengping Technology, introduced that the current virtual anchors are mostly cartoon people , which are unreal . If hyper-realistic virtual people are used, the cost is too high, and ordinary merchants cannot afford them. Even if super-realistic virtual people are used, users can see it at a glance. Not real. Fengping Technology has developed an intelligent virtual human SaaS system , which can realize AI-driven digital live anchors, carry out real-time online live broadcasts, and interact with users in real time.
Qiu Yu, head of MeShop ecology and channels, also introduced that the virtual anchor SaaS launched by MeShop has also opened an internal test, and the live broadcast function is under development .
At the same time, the development and hardware costs of high-precision virtual anchors are also expected to drop rapidly this year. From the perspective of industry insiders, since the current virtual anchor track is still in the early stage of development , all parties are entering, and the industry lacks a unified pricing standard. However, with the improvement of the entire industry ecology, the price will gradually become transparent, and the survival of the fittest will be realized. Such a development process, live e-commerce has just made a visual display for everyone in recent years.
While the cost of virtual anchors is decreasing, they are gradually showing their unique charm and value.
“I believe that virtual anchors and virtual scenes will become the new infrastructure for global e-commerce, just like the logic behind the rise of e-commerce.” He Yutian, CEO of Lequan Film and Television, who just entered the field of virtual anchors from film and television this year, is very determined to According to “Seller’s Home”, virtual anchors and virtual scenes represent the trend of digitalization in the future, and have the development advantages of infinite scenes and marginal costs approaching zero .
Imagine that the anchor of the Mid-Autumn Festival went to the moon to find Chang’e, sold moon cakes by the way, and turned to the coral reef to sell groupers. Is it particularly impactful to bring goods?
In fact, on March 30, this idea has been implemented in China. On the same day, a special live broadcast with the theme of “Future Life” was launched on Douyin. The well-known male model Hu Bing and the virtual person created in his image walked together on the catwalk , shuttled through various scenes such as basketball courts, deserts, art galleries, etc. red eyes.
In He Yutian’s view, the current live broadcast e-commerce achieves one-to-many real-time interaction and instant display compared to search e-commerce , but virtual live broadcasts can achieve thousands of people and thousands of broadcasts by virtue of their technical advantages, and virtual anchors can communicate with each other. Users conduct 1-to-1 immersive companionship communication . “Technology promotes the continuous iteration of e-commerce. In the early stage of e-commerce, people’s needs to find goods are met, so the most important thing in the future is to accompany them .”
At the end of December last year, the virtual human “AI Wendy”, who was officially employed on Tmall, demonstrated this kind of real technology. The virtual person can judge the customer’s facial features through the camera, and retrieve the relevant facial knowledge map and beauty knowledge map from the software cloud database, which can help customers choose suitable lipstick and powder color to achieve sales conversion .
In front of “AI Wendy”, Li Jiaqi’s “Lipstick Brother” Guinness World Record is not guaranteed.
Although the current story of cross-border e-commerce and virtual anchors has just begun to brew, in the face of the wave of trade digitization that has already roared, cross-border e-commerce practitioners must become prepared people as soon as possible.
Can’t see, look down on, can’t read, can’t understand, it’s too late, these twelve-character proverbs have been repeated in the past for new things.
In December 2020, Alibaba’s original protection platform officially launched “Taji”, which can form thousands of virtual models , saving sellers a lot of model photography costs. Merchants of 1688, AliExpress and Alibaba International Station can apply for free. This is the virtual human’s two-dimensional foray into e-commerce.
Can virtual anchors change cross-border e-commerce again from a three-dimensional perspective? let us wait and see.
https://www.sohu.com/a/557842159_121320835