After many platform bans, Kuaishou’s “big brother” Simba is back again. On October 14, Simba announced his return through his Kuaishou account and kneeled down on one knee with all his team members to pay tribute to the users.It is reported that Simba will start his first live broadcast after his return on October 19.


It is worth mentioning that in the video announcing his return, Simba bluntly stated that now is the darkest moment for live broadcast e-commerce. Big anchors are in danger, user trust has collapsed, and the media has followed up with verbal criticism. In fact, what Simba said is not unfounded. The live broadcast e-commerce industry is indeed facing the dilemma of "big anchors are in danger".

From Kuaishou Simba’s “sugar water bird’s nest incident”, to Taobao’s Xue Li and Wei Ya being fined for tax evasion, to Li Jiaqi’s “Hua Xizi Incident”, to Douyin Oriental Selection’s “essay incident” and Dong Yuhui’s “cultural person” persona being questioned, and crazy little Yang Ge being fined for false publicity... there are more and more cases of overturning by big anchors.

At the same time, major anchors are also actively seeking changes.

Radar Finance noticed that just a few days before the official announcement of his return, Simba personally visited Fat Donglai and reached a cooperation with Kidswant, which is expected to flex his muscles in the offline physical industry. According to incomplete statistics, Simba is not the only top anchor currently entering the offline physical retail industry. Top anchors or MCN organizations including Crazy Little Yang, Li Jiaqi, Oriental Selection, etc. are also actively exploring offline physical retail business.

Some analysts believe that factors such as the peak traffic of the live broadcast e-commerce industry, the platform's "de-heading" strategy and the anchor rollover incident have prompted top anchors to seek diversified sources of income, while the recovery of the real economy has also provided opportunities for offline retail.

However, the move to offline retail means that anchors need to face more challenges, such as capital investment, supply chain management, inventory control, understanding consumer behavior and habits, and creating shopping experiences. In addition, the heavy-asset model also requires companies to have a long-term vision and a sound investment strategy.

Kneel down on one knee and announce his return, Simba unblocks on the eve of Double 11

"Hello everyone, I'm Xin Youzhi, I'm back." On October 14, Simba announced his return through several videos on his Kuaishou account. In one of the videos, Simba and all his team members knelt down to pay tribute to all users.

In the other two videos, which are divided into upper and lower parts, Simba shared some of his own thoughts with netizens. Simba said that this video would be a bit "dark" because he was locked in a "little dark room" and filmed it.

In Simba's view, this is the darkest moment for live streaming e-commerce. Big anchors are in danger, user trust has collapsed, and the media has criticized them... Simba said that as one of millions of live streaming practitioners, he would like to say sorry to all Internet platforms and all live streaming e-commerce users, and would like to ask everyone to trust Simba and the practitioners in this industry again.

In fact, the signal of Simba's return had been released a few days ago. On October 10, many netizens discovered that the "Live Broadcast Ban" sign on the homepage of Simba's account, which had been banned by Kuaishou platform, had disappeared. At that time, an insider close to Xinxuan Group revealed that the live broadcast function of Simba’s account had indeed been unblocked, and Simba would conduct a live broadcast on Double 11 this year.

The reason why Simba was recently banned from the live broadcast function by Kuaishou may have originated from the dispute between him and the crazy little Yang Ge, the top streamer of Douyin live broadcast.At that time, the two had a conflict over the different mechanisms used to carry the same brand of hairy crabs, which gradually turned into a war of words between the two top live broadcasters.

As the war intensified, Simba also extended the focus of the dispute from hairy crabs to broader content. For example, Simba broke the news that Lu Wenqing, the co-founder of Three Sheep, was caught and sentenced for fraud, and also suggested that Lu Wenqing and Xiao Yang teamed up to send a girl to prison. In addition, Simba also pointed out that the Three Sheep team has problems in quality inspection, after-sales, compensation attitude, etc., and hinted that Xiao Yang's business model is imitating his own.

During the confrontation between the two sides, Simba even used a trump card and used 100 million to pay three sheep to their consumers. Even Luo Yonghao commented on this, "This trick is really powerful. I have learned from it. I feel like the other party can't take it no matter what. I admire it."

Although Simba's move put Crazy Little Yang in a dilemma, something unexpected happened. On September 11, Simba, which was originally scheduled to start broadcasting at 8 p.m., failed to appear as scheduled. The homepage of his Kuaishou account showed that the live broadcast function had been blocked.

Radar Finance noticed that the timing of Simba’s return coincides with the start of the Double 11 promotion.It is worth mentioning that this year’s Double 11 war is known as the “longest Double 11 in history.” Different from the previous Double 11 promotions that usually started in late October, this year some e-commerce platforms have ignited the Double 11 war early to October 14.

However, Simba did not join the live broadcast battle immediately after his return. Instead, he chose October 19 for the first battle of his return. According to media reports, Xinxuan also sent Simba’s apprentice Dandan to participate in the Double 11 promotion. It is reported that during the period when Simba was banned, Dandan lived up to expectations and carried the banner of Xinxuan. Especially in the special live broadcast on September 21, she achieved a total sales of 1.442 billion yuan with her excellent ability to bring goods.

The live broadcast industry is changing, and everyone is in danger of big anchors?

Radar Finance noticed that Simba’s statement that “the big anchor is in danger” was not just talking nonsense.

For example, Simba himself was deeply involved in the "sugar water bird's nest controversy". And by further extending the timeline, we can find that some of the top anchors who were once famous in the past have now bid farewell to the stage and retreated behind the scenes.

Dating back to November 2021, Taobao's top anchor Xue Li was heavily fined 65.5531 million yuan by the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau's Inspection Bureau for tax evasion. Xue Li is not the only anchor on the Taobao platform to have tax evasion issues. In December of the same year, Wei Ya, who was regarded by the outside world as the "first sister" of Taobao Live, also "disappeared" from the live broadcast room she had worked so hard to manage due to tax evasion incidents.

At that time, the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau of Zhejiang Province found that between 2019 and 2020, Weiya evaded 643 million yuan in taxes by concealing personal income, fictitious business conversions, and false declarations of the nature of the income, and other underpaid taxes of 60 million yuan. In the end, Weiya was required to pay back taxes, add late payment fees, and impose fines totaling 1.341 billion yuan.

After Wei Ya "farewelled" to the live broadcast room, Li Jiaqi became an unrivaled top anchor among Taobao anchors. Although Li Jiaqi was not shrouded in the cloud of tax evasion like the first two, the "Huaxizi Incident" that broke out last year caused Li Jiaqi to encounter a crisis of public opinion, and many fans chose to quit their followers. Even though Li Jiaqi later apologized tearfully in the live broadcast room, many netizens still did not buy it and bluntly said that he was "floating".

Then focusing on the Douyin platform, Dongfang Selection has carved a bloody path on this platform with its unique style of knowledge promotion. However, this live broadcast room, which Yu Minhong regarded as a life-saving straw during the "double reduction" period, has been pushed to the forefront of public opinion many times. For example, Simba once questioned Dongfang Zhen’s profit of selling grilled sausages as high as 70%, and questioned its follow-up progress in handling the “wild prawn incident”.

In December last year, the "little essay incident" that caused a huge uproar brought the internal problems of Oriental Selection directly in front of the public. In the end, Sun Dongxu resigned as CEO of Oriental Selection, and Dong Yuhui also chose to "fly solo" a few months after Yu Minhong opened his independent live broadcast room with Hui.

After Dong Yuhui's "solo career", the controversy over Dongfang Selection did not end. Even Dong Yuhui himself could not escape the "curse" of the big anchor. In a recent live broadcast, Dong Yuhui made many serious factual errors when recounting the deeds of Marie Curie. He claimed that Marie Curie discovered uranium, invented the X-ray machine, and donated her Nobel Prize in Literature during the war. In the process of live broadcast communication with celebrities such as Chen Sicheng and Li Juan not long ago, Dong Yuhui was also questioned about "daddy sound" and "awkward chat".

Crazy Little Brother Yang, who is also the anchor of the Douyin platform, finally paid a corresponding price after Simba declared war with him: because in the process of bringing the goods "Hong Kong Meicheng Mooncakes", it constituted false and misleading business promotion behavior, and in the process of bringing the goods The "Australian grain-fed beef rolls" constituted false commercial promotions. The Hefei City Joint Investigation Team plans to confiscate illegal gains and fine a total of 68.9491 million yuan on the three sheep, and order them to suspend operations within a time limit for rectification.

Before the turmoil of Crazy Young Brother has completely subsided, Douyin anchor Dongbei Yujie was recently given an administrative penalty of confiscating illegal income and a fine of 1.65 million yuan for false or misleading commercial promotion of the sweet potato vermicelli she carried.

Online layout encounters bottlenecks, "Simba people" flock to offline entities

Radar Finance found out that before being banned this time, Simba had been banned from the platform many times. In December 2020, after the incident of Simba selling fake bird's nests was exposed, Kuaishou banned Simba for 60 days.

In October of the following year, Simba accused Kuaishou in the live broadcast room of giving traffic to anchors who were acting and selling goods instead of himself, and was banned from the platform again. In March last year, Simba was banned by Kuaishou for another 48 hours for accusing Kuaishou of indulging emotional anchors to create false popularity and false data, and to deceive the elderly.

Time flies and comes to April this year. Simba’s extreme remarks in the live broadcast once again brought him trouble. Kuaishou platform banned multiple of his accounts. However, the controversy came to an end on the eve of the 618 promotion with Xin Xuan’s apology and the unblocking of Xinba’s account. Now, looking again at Simba's return from lockdown, it is not difficult to find that there is an aura of déjà vu.

In fact, the relationship between Simba and Kuaishou is both subtle and complicated. On the one hand, Xinxuan’s anchors have created huge sales for the Kuaishou platform and have become an indispensable source of income for the platform. Naturally, Kuaishou cannot easily give up this “money tree”. On the other hand, the platform’s over-reliance on a certain anchor is obviously not conducive to its long-term development. Therefore, Kuaishou has also been intentionally or unintentionally “cutting down the vassal” in recent years in an attempt to reduce its dependence on the Simba family.

Simba, who has been banned and returned many times, has revealed to the outside world more than once that he wants to retire.In August last year, Simba bluntly stated at an event that he has now started the countdown to retirement. In up to two years, he will completely leave the camera and bid farewell to the live broadcast industry.

In March of this year, when Simba once again mentioned the topic of "retirement", he said, "There is nothing exciting for me in the current live streaming industry. Next, I will suspend live broadcasting, settle down for two years, learn artificial intelligence, and then choose a new track to start again after two years."

In May, Simba once again stated that he was ready to withdraw from the network and would use the last ten live broadcasts to say goodbye to fans and the live broadcast industry. "I hope to see you again in another way in the next three to five years." However, Radar Finance combed through public reports and found that although Simba has mentioned his interest in the field of artificial intelligence, his current business layout seems to be more focused on the offline retail industry.

As early as 2022, Simba announced that it would spend 2 billion yuan to build a "Xinxuan Supermarket" in Baiyun District, Guangzhou. Radar Finance used Sky Eye to search and could not find any information related to the brand. According to Times Weekly, it did not find Xinxuan Supermarket’s store address, contact number and other relevant information through searches on multiple life and map software such as Dianping and Amap. An industry insider familiar with Xin Xuan revealed to reporters that the supermarket is actually a live broadcast room scene, not a real offline physical supermarket.

A few days before this official announcement, Simba was revealed to have made new big moves in the field of physical retail. On October 2, Xinba led the Xinxuan senior management team to visit Fat Donglai, which is known as the top Internet celebrity in the business and supermarket industry, and had in-depth exchanges with Yu Donglai, the chairman of Fat Donglai.

A few days later, the listed company Kidswant issued an announcement stating that the company planned to use its own funds to establish a subsidiary through a joint venture with related party chairman Wang Jianguo, director/general manager Xu Weihong, director/deputy general manager/board secretary Shi Guanglei, and non-related parties Xinxuan Holdings, Du Chenpeng, Zheng Jiabao, Yang Runxin (Edan), Zhou Tong, and Xing Lingwei to develop new home e-commerce live streaming retail business, explore the development of offline new retail business, and invest in the establishment of Lianqi Future Company.

In fact, Simba is not the only head anchor who also has plans for the offline retail track. In early 2023, Sanyang Network launched its own brand "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan", but Xiao Yang's ambition for the self-operated brand goes far beyond online sales. According to Xiao Yang, Xiao Yang Zhenxuan also plans to open an offline supermarket business in the future, and only Xiao Yang Zhenxuan's products will be sold in the store, which means that Xiao Yang intends to copy the online store model offline.

In April, ONE Company, owned by Li Jiaqi, opened the first offline store of its IP "NEVER'SFAMILY" - NEVER'SFAMILY coffee shop in Sifang City, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, mainly selling coffee and its own IP products. On the opening day, Li Jiaqi appeared in person and expressed his vision of opening 100 stores.

At the Oriental Selection shareholder exchange meeting held in July, Yu Minhong, the leader of Oriental Selection, revealed that Oriental Selection hopes to rely on 800 New Oriental ground teaching points to explore a model that combines online and offline, and cooperate with New Oriental across the country to open ground service stores, membership stores, and flagship stores.

In September, an insider from New Oriental said that Oriental Selection’s smart retail cabinets had appeared inside the north building of New Oriental’s headquarters in Haidian District, Beijing. All products sold in the smart retail cabinets were Oriental Selection’s self-operated products.

Some analysts believe that as the traffic of the live broadcast e-commerce industry gradually peaks, and as various platforms implement adjustments to the "de-heading" strategy, the lives of top anchors are no longer as easy as before.On the one hand, competition in the field of live streaming is becoming increasingly fierce, and the market is gradually turning to the competition for existing users. Top anchors have to bear higher costs in order to attract more traffic. On the other hand, the frequent rollover incidents of leading anchors have forced them to seek to build more diversified sources of income to enhance their ability to withstand external risks.

At the same time, my country's real economy is currently showing a recovery trend. According to the Ministry of Commerce, from January to August this year, my country's physical retail sales were generally stable. Specifically, among retail units above designated size, the retail sales of convenience stores, specialty stores and supermarkets achieved year-on-year growth of 4.9%, 4.3% and 2.1% respectively. The intertwined influence of the above-mentioned multiple factors may be the key reason why "Simbas" are scrambling to expand into the offline retail field.

However, it is not easy to do a good offline retail business. For "Simba people" who are accustomed to online traffic operations, switching to offline retail means they need to face more challenges. For example, opening physical stores, purchasing inventory, and decorating stores require a large amount of capital investment. Offline retail not only requires them to have strong supply chain management capabilities and inventory control capabilities, but also requires an in-depth understanding of consumers' offline shopping behavior and habits, and how to create a shopping experience in physical stores that attracts customers.

In addition, compared with live broadcast e-commerce, the asset-heavy model of offline retail means that companies need to invest more time and money in long-term strategic planning and investment. This not only requires companies to have a long-term vision and a sound investment strategy, but also requires companies to consider how to obtain sustained and stable returns in the future to support their continued development in the offline retail field.