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Live streaming with goods overseas is cold?

Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:47 am
by samrobin
According to a report from the Financial Times a few days ago, TikTok has temporarily abandoned plans to expand its live streaming business in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Last year, TikTok decided to take the lead in promoting its e-commerce business in the UK, and as its first region outside Asia, there is no doubt that ByteDance hopes to expand its e-commerce business in the European market.

According to people familiar with the matter, TikTok originally planned to launch live streaming services in Germany, France, Italy and Spain in the first half of this year and expand to the US market later in 2022. However, this plan has been cancelled due to "hitting a wall" in the UK.

In addition, a TikTok insider said, "The market has not yet emerged, and the awareness and acceptance of live streaming by ordinary consumers is still very low, and it is still in Special Database its infancy," the above report wrote, although TikTok has provided subsidies and Cash rewards are offered to encourage brands and influencers to sell through the platform, but many TikTok Shop livestreams aren’t doing well.

At the same time, according to a previous investigation by the media, TikTok’s e-commerce team in London experienced a large number of employee departures, mainly because of “complaints that the company’s leadership has generally adopted a 'radical work culture'”.

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Not long ago, the UK has launched the world's largest four-day-a-week pilot program, involving 3,300 employees from 70 companies, and will continue for six months with the same salary and workload. In fact, in the UK and other European countries, employees and many companies have their own thoughts on "better balance between life and work". And as the Financial Times said in a related report, the radical entrepreneurial spirit is a departure from the typical loose office culture in the UK.

In fact, the conflict in work philosophy also appears between TikTok and the influencers it cooperates with.

According to several TikTok influencers, the reason for abandoning the project in recent weeks was mainly due to salary reductions, as well as limited inventory and shipping issues, which led to abusive comments from some fans. More importantly, TikTok prefers the direct sales model.

To put it simply, TikTok does not directly hold inventory, but purchases goods from third-party suppliers, places orders, and distributes them directly to customers to reduce warehouse costs. And it adopts the same "good quality and low price" approach as domestic live broadcasts, trying to benefit consumers with subsidies and discounts, but on the other hand, it harms the interests of suppliers and leads to conflicts between platforms and brands. exacerbated.

This just shows that although overseas local brands also hope to reach young consumers through TikTok, they are not willing to reduce prices.

For now, TikTok's promotion of live streaming business in the European and American markets requires more localized thinking, from culture to consumption habits, as well as supply channels, price strategies, and other aspects. And according to relevant media, half of the goods sold by TikTok in the UK are sent from China. But perhaps relying heavily on domestic cross-border e-commerce is far from enough to make it have too many advantages in live streaming.

However, there is currently no live broadcast delivery in the European and American markets. It is not only TikTok that has encountered difficulties, and it is not only ByteDance that is coveting this market. As early as 2019, Amazon launched "Amazon Live" similar to QVC style (the largest TV shopping company in the United States). And when it was launched, Danielle Bailey, executive vice president of L2, a business information and consulting company, pointed out that "Amazon's live broadcast and brand stores...look more and more like Tmall."