Chapter 314: You don’t mind losing a few hundred million, right?
Song Jiajia said: "They will probably agree, because Douyin's current advertising revenue cannot compare to the revenue from live streaming sales. We keep the most profitable ones in Douyin, and they don't care about those that don't make money."
"But those that don't make money are the best. It's just that they haven't made money yet, so they know it."
When it’s not making money, the video quality is great, but once it starts making money, the video quality is pure rubbish.
No one can remain true to themselves and focus on creation and performance after making money.
And it is obvious that Douyin did not want a competing company to emerge, so it suppressed it.
In this matter, a choice must be made.
Song Jiajia said: "You are the boss, I listen to you."
"You are the general manager..."
"The deputy one doesn't count."
Li Yuan: “…”
In fact, those videos of Jiutian Media have made a lot of money on BiXin.
Almost every high-quality video can receive 200,000 or 300,000 flowers.
It’s just that BiXin doesn’t have any advertisements, while on Douyin of the same level, one advertisement can generate around 50,000 in revenue.
Bi Xin is good for users and creators, but it’s not as violent as Douyin.
Many people who make videos cannot get any advertisements on Douyin, but those who make videos with good content are more likely to receive flowers on Bi Xin.
For top internet celebrities, Douyin offers more ways to monetize and they can earn more.
There is another way for BiXin to monetize currently, that is, entering the mall through an internet celebrity’s personal homepage and purchasing something, and the internet celebrity can receive 1% of the entrance fee.
This is already a subsidy provided by BiXin Mall. After all, this mall has always been selling at cost price.
There are very few products from big brands, so we can only support domestic brands.
He knew that Song Jiajia didn't come here just for this matter, because she had just called and there was still a lot of time to discuss.
Song Jiajia was discussing the operating model of BiXin with Li Yuan.
To put it bluntly, Song Jiajia thinks there is something wrong with this model.
It’s understandable that Li Yuan doesn’t want fakes to exist in BiXin Mall, but she doesn’t understand why there are so few big brands.
"If BiXin wants to follow the Douyin model, I can directly reject Douyin and ask them to limit the flow of fans, and then slowly attract fans to BiXin. The premise is that BiXin Mall has to make a certain profit..."
Small brands need to raise prices and big brands need to be introduced so that both parties can make profits.
Li Yuan did not answer, Song Jiajia continued: "The Bilibili model has been proven to be unworkable. High-quality content is important, but you also need more ways to monetize it. BiXin already has such a good foundation. It can be said that the time, place and people are all right. You have also spent tens of billions on advertising. If you continue like this, users will be happy, but the interests of creators will not be adequately protected, and the content they create will only get worse and worse... Now all the reposting anchors on the Internet have come here to make money, and the audience can't tell who is the original, and secondary creation videos will sooner or later become mainstream..."
At this time, Li Yuan finally spoke up and said, "I am not going to change the BiXin Mall, and I will not change the entire BiXin model either."
"Then I will go sign an exclusive agreement with Douyin."
"Okay, that's settled."
"What are you...looking for? Do you think that if you don't make money, others will be grateful to you? At most, others will think that you have a conscience. Even most people don't dare to buy things when they see that they are cheap, thinking that the quality is problematic. Why do you focus on those agricultural products all day? How much are agricultural products worth? You have to pay for the shipping costs for each order... And those small brands, even if they sell a hundred orders, the profit is not as high as one luxury product. Who doesn't like luxury goods? Who would buy a product that has no reputation at all?"
For the first time, Song Jiajia questioned Li Yuan's strategy.
"Mr. Song, isn't what you said too absolute? First of all, BiXin Mall also has luxury goods, but we give the profits to those companies and ask them to provide more services. We have implemented those seven-day no-reason refunds, such as the three-year warranty. Even if the manufacturer cannot do it, BiXin Mall will be responsible for it. We are also profitable. As long as the brand quality is good enough, the service funds are our profits."
"It's fine if you lose money, but what's the point if the creators don't get paid? On other platforms, you can earn 20 to 30 points by promoting products, and you can make millions in one night. On Bixin, you work yourself to death, but only for one point..."
"That's better than scams... Among the current live streaming sales, how many are conscientious? Which one doesn't sign various agreements? The platform price is very different from the actual price."
"You are the richest man, you can have a conscience, but in this world, aren't those who make money without conscience? If users are willing to pay, everyone will be happy, isn't that good?"
"Do you think users are willing to pay? Users didn't know once, twice, and three times? If you treat users as suckers, you will lose them sooner or later. The most important point is that users across the country will lose confidence in consumption..."
Of course, Li Yuan can do it according to the Douyin model. Although he may not be able to beat others, at least it is better than now.
But he is very clear that starting from 2022, the credibility of consumption in the whole country began to have problems. Coupled with the impact of the economic crisis, most people dare not consume.
The tens of trillions of dollars in deposits in banks is proof of this, as is the number of young people traveling on a budget.
Of course, the most direct factor is the online shopping amount.
In 2019, the average annual online shopping amount per Alibaba user was 30,000 yuan, but by 2023, the average annual online shopping amount per user was only 3,000 yuan.
If it weren't for Alibaba's financial support, secretly raising prices, increasing profits on single products, and cutting the leeks of merchants, their stock price would not be their final destination, and it might have fallen even worse.
If you shop online every day and find yourself being cheated every day, if you are a normal person, you will gradually come to your senses.
In order to deal with this situation, businesses have started to use various tricks.
For example, the price of a certain type of snail noodle soup has increased from five yuan at the beginning to thirteen yuan.
Then the prices went up across the entire internet, and in offline stores as well, creating the illusion that this was the price that should have been.
In reality, all the extra money was used as marketing costs.
Who would treat their parents who provide them with food and clothing as suckers?
This is not just an isolated case; it’s a symptom of the entire industry.
Almost every product is facing a big price increase.
Users know they can’t resist, so can’t they just stop buying? I won’t consume!
As a result, the situation became even worse, because after spending a lot of money on marketing, the merchants did not sell enough goods and still lost money. Only those who were responsible for marketing made a lot of money.
For the sake of marketing, those people have no bottom line.
Every day, your nails have vertical lines, which means there is something wrong with your liver. Fortunately, you met me. This product XXX will make you return to normal in three days after taking it...
None of them are afraid of eating dead people!
What is the economy? It is the flow of money.
If everyone is so exhausted that they are unwilling to spend money, even the best foundation will be ruined.
Especially for China's 1.4 billion people, who all rely on the economy for support. Once the economy loses its vitality, the consequences will be unimaginable.
For a product, everyone benefits except the users, who do not get any benefit at all. It is even more unfair than A-shares.
How did Pinxixi become so popular? Low quality and low price, coupled with a marketing campaign that fostered a sense of infatuation.
If it goes public this year, the stock price will triple.
But it won’t be long before they start to reap the profits...the good times will only last for one or two years.
What we can see now is just consumption downgrade, but what we will face in the future is consumption depletion.
After all, most of the consumption is essentially unnecessary, as a person's normal consumption is two sets of clothes a year, food, oil, salt and transportation expenses.
If we push everyone to this point, all capital will be wiped out!
What the hell is GDP? What does it have to do with me? I just know that all your products are taking advantage of me. You organize an event, but the prices are higher than usual.
Li Yuan didn't know what went wrong and why no one was taking care of it.
Various price agreements are flying everywhere, and consumers have no human rights...
Li Yuan is not short of money at all now, what he lacks is a moat.
Even if the economic crisis comes and he can't make any money in finance, he still has projects that can put the funds into motion.
Otherwise, once the economic crisis comes, he will be no different from a waste.
Currently, the income of Bi Xin creators is indeed not particularly explosive. There are only five or six people whose single video income exceeds 500,000.
On other platforms, a video with over a million likes would only earn around 30,000 to 50,000 yuan here.
But what he did was incremental.
There will be more and more flowers, and as the user level increases, it is possible that the revenue from a single video will exceed one million in the future.
The purpose of live streaming e-commerce is to reduce the quantity.
There is no doubt that the more advertisements there are, the lower the cost-effectiveness of the product.
Even luxury goods are no exception.
Besides, Li Yuan plans to make his own luxury goods, and Yu Yue has already arranged people to conduct an investigation.
At present, BiXin has many flaws, such as monetization methods, profit model, etc.
But in fact, Li Yuan is cultivating users' confidence in consumption and making them willing to consume on a platform that does not treat them as suckers.
Even if there are financial problems in the future, the consumption level at BiXin will be a guarantee.
To put it bluntly, on other platforms, the more you spend, the more likely you are to be treated as a leek.
The consumption level of diamonds and gold is of no use at all.
Companies willing to cooperate with BiXin all want to make good products. BiXin gives up enough profits to allow manufacturers to control quality.
Instead of letting manufacturers do marketing.
The situation is indeed not very good now, and we are at a disadvantage, but what about in two or three years?
What about in another four or five years?
Consumption never goes out of style, only ideas do.
In the future, BiXin Mall will make money from services.
A luxury item has a factory price of 5,000 yuan and a normal selling price of around 15,000 yuan.
However, BiXin Mall does not make this profit itself, but converts this profit into services.
For example, if a defective product is returned to the customer’s home, we will send a dedicated person to provide after-sales maintenance on the product.
If these functions are used, the company's after-sales staff will earn the money. If these functions are not used, the service fee will be earned by BiXin Mall.
It’s just that there are not many luxury goods now, only a few items, and it is impossible to extend enough services, so BiXin Mall has no profit.
As for those pure commodities, the profit margin of BiXin Mall is only around 10%, which also includes the logistics costs. So overall, some products will lose money, and some products will earn three or four points at most.
Overall, there will be about two points of profit, and one point will be distributed to each major creator.
Of course, now because of special willingness, everyone is losing money, there is nothing we can do about it.
At least one thing is that currently, few people who buy things on BiXin say they are dissatisfied.
Many people place orders with the mindset that the quality will be poor, but when they receive the products, they find that the quality is surprisingly good.
Song Jiajia took a deep breath and said, "Although I don't understand, I also know that even if Bi Xin and Jiu Tian Media collapsed, it would not affect you. Since you can't give me any advice today, I will do it according to my own ideas."
Li Yuan nodded and said, "Okay, don't worry about the model of Bi Xin, but think about how to improve the protection for creators. For example, we can sign an agreement with the creators to provide them with five insurances and one housing fund. It's just that the company's expenses are a little higher, which I can accept."
"You are the most outrageous boss I have ever seen, paying five insurances and one fund for freelancers."
Song Jiajia didn’t know what to say because there were too many creators.
"It depends on the level. For example, creators with monthly income exceeding 10,000 yuan or annual income exceeding 36,000 yuan will be given this guarantee."
"That would mean at least hundreds of thousands of people... After the five social insurances and one housing fund, the average monthly salary would be 1,000 yuan per person, which would be several billion yuan a year."
This is the most insecure thing about freelancing. Once you lose control over your money, you will spend as much as you earn, and you may end up with nothing next month.
However, there is one thing Li Yuan did not say, that is, Bi Xin’s data is very valuable. As long as more and more data is collected, it can be used to feed his large language model.
Currently, the only thing missing for the language model is the data. He participated in part of the overall structure construction and gave some forward-looking hints. The first generation model will be almost ready next year.
There is also the AI painting model, which is also in the data feeding stage.
The initial stage is to generate standard images, which are manually modified for defects to meet the work requirements of the comics direction.
The deeper stage generates a plot video based on the description, which makes it a true AI model.
By inputting a novel, a full-scene video can be quickly generated, which is also recognized by the industry as the most ideal state.
However, Li Yuan has an ultimate goal, which is to directly convert a person's thoughts into images.
This is a series that will be realized in one's lifetime. It has too strong a sense of science fiction and requires progress in the entire industry. There is no hope for it in at least ten or twenty years.
The second stage may still take five to ten years.
"Then boss, you can lose billions just like that, so you don't mind losing a few more billions on me, right?"
