Station B's e -commerce second dimension, love it, hate it, can't do without it

Author | Yu Yu

Edit | Tang Fei

"Station B has the confidence through the improvement rate and controlling operating costs. In 2022, the operating loss rate of NON-GAAP (non-recognized accounting standards) in 2022 narrowed year-on-year. The timetable given by Fan Xin, the chief financial officer of the month B station.

However, after the announcement of the first quarter, with the increasing revenue growth of 30%, the net loss at Station B reached 1.65 billion yuan, a year -on -year increase of nearly 90%.

Originally, the outside world had expectations for the financial report of station B. On June 8, the stock price of station B rose nearly 20%, and the closing of the market broke through 230 Hong Kong dollars per share.

Since the headquarters of Station B is located in Shanghai, which is affected by the epidemic, the performance communication meeting is expected to wait until the second half of the year before the second half of the year.

You know, Station B has been losing money for seven years, even in the past four years, the loss has expanded 9 times. CEO Chen Rui clearly proposed "cost reduction and efficiency" at the 2021 financial reporting meeting. From the perspective of the first quarter, it may be too short. It is not easy to achieve a profit and loss balance in 2024.

1. High cost, increase income slow

The first quarter financial report showed that the revenue of station B reached 50.54 billion yuan, an increase of 30%year -on -year. This is the lowest year -on -year increase in the number of revenue in the past three years, which is 700 million yuan compared with the fourth quarter of last year.

While the revenue growth slows down, the cost is high. Operating costs increased by 40%compared with last year.

In terms of splitting, of the four major business segments, the proportion of live broadcast and value -added business accounted for the highest proportion. But this has also become a direct reason for the high cost of station B.

In the first quarter of this year, station B gave up the owner of more than 2.1 billion yuan. This made Station B fall into a dilemma. On the one hand, the most direct method of cost reduction and efficiency may be to reduce the division of UP master. Starting in April, some media reported live UP owners' platform creation incentives reduced by 80%; on the other hand, if the platform division is greatly reduced, the risk of the UP owner may be. Community is more likely to directly lead to decrease in user stickiness.

In addition to the live broadcast and value -added business with the highest revenue ratio, the game has become the second largest pillar of station B. In contrast, it can be found that the revenue of mobile games at its peak once exceeded 80 %. The capital market once joked that B station was wearing the coat of an interesting community, but it was actually a game company.

After winning the exclusive agency right of "Fate/Grand Order" (Fate/Grand Order "(" FGO ") in 2016, it contributed more than 5.6 billion yuan in three years. Essence

The Sweet Station B has never given up on the layout of the two -dimensional game in the past two years, but the success of "FGO" is difficult to copy. Instead, the company has added a lot of costs.

This year, station B acquired a number of game studios in one breath. This has caused redundant personnel and rising research and development expenses. In the first quarter, Station B invested more than 1 billion yuan, exceeding one -third of last year. In order to reduce costs, in May this year, Station B was opening a new round of layoffs. The severely disaster-stricken area was the game business. The overall layoff ratio of the game business reached 20%-30%.

If the live broadcast and value -added business and the game business have caused high costs for the expenditure end of the station B, the weak growth of advertising and e -commerce makes the company feel pressure on the income end.

In the first quarter of 2022, advertising, e -commerce and other businesses revenue were 1.041 billion yuan and 603 million yuan, respectively, with a year -on -year increase of 46%and 16%, respectively. The growth rate of these two business revenue in the same period last year exceeded 230%.

At the financial report, the management of station B explained the situation. Due to the volatility of macro -environment and the repeated epidemic, the entire advertising industry was negatively affected, and it was in the stage of stopping or delaying and reducing budget reduction.

In recent years, station B's e -commerce business has maintained a good momentum, and revenue exceeded the 1 billion mark in the fourth quarter of 2021. However, due to the control of the epidemic and the limitation of logistics in various places this year, the delivery of merchant products is difficult. Since March this year, it has affected the performance efficiency of the product to a certain extent. This not only causes users to not receive the goods, but also directly affect the willingness to place orders. Station B also provides services such as postponed delivery and automatic refund for users who are affected.

2. E -commerce cannot be separated from the second dimension

In the context of the game business scenery and the difficulty of live broadcast and value -added business, the e -commerce business is most hoped to share the revenue of the advertising business. In 2017, the revenue of e -commerce business accounted for only 3%. In 2021, the revenue of e -commerce and other business revenue from station B was 2.8 billion yuan, an increase of 88%year -on -year. The proportion of revenue also expanded to 15%quickly, even in the first quarter of the epidemic impact, e -commerce revenue accounted for 12%. Continuous high -speed growth shows that the e -commerce business is very promising.

As a "two -dimensional" community, in 2017, Station B launched the "member purchase" self -operated e -commerce. Obvious two -dimensional brand.

Screenshot of the Page of station B membership

However, what really allows the e -commerce business of station B is a platform of "magic reward" a blind box lottery. According to media reports, the prize pool of Magic Awards includes "super god funds", "European emperor models", "hidden models" and "ordinary models". Users only need to spend money on ordinary blind boxes. "Super God" with a market price of tens of thousands of yuan. In addition, when users are rewarding the blindness box, if you encounter a product you do n’t like, you can choose a platform recycling function. However, the rule of recycling is that the platform returns the original price of 80%of the magic crystal, so that users will continue to draw a blind box without refunding the money directly. This also means that consumers not only cannot get back the fee, but Station B also collects 20%of the liquidated damages, and at the same time allows consumers to continue to smoke the blind box.

Bilibili member purchased. Picture source: Weibo

This designer grasping users' strangeness and the rules of small psychology has made Magic Awards the "main force" of station B's e -commerce. Although the financial report does not disclose relevant data, some media quoted news from people inside Station B that Magic Awards once accounted for 80%of the revenue of station B's e -commerce revenue. Essence However, the magic reward is basically the old users. Among them, the recycling function was recovered before the shelves.

Due to the opaque rules of the preliminary draw and prizes, the magic reward triggered huge controversy, and the recycling function was frequently complained.

However, after the magic reward canceled the recycling rules, it caused greater dissatisfaction. The user's Tucao platform changes the function without obvious notification, which will cause a large number of buyers to continue to invest money to make magic rewards without knowing it. The goods that are drawn before the rules will not be recovered.

Picture source: dodowo official website

In addition to the dispute, station B is not a case of unsuccessful success. In 2020, DODOWO Tide Play launched the "Vegetable Elves" series of blind box crowdfunding on the members of the B station. In just 28 days, it raised over 13.9 million crowdfunding and sold 250,000 "vegetable dogs".

However, the popularity of "vegetable dogs" has accidental factors. A cute image and "vegetables are like dogs" are perfectly combined with self -deprecation stalks. In addition, white wine, semiconductor and new energy fund sales are hot and net worth of net worth, which helps them to complete their entire out of their way out. lock up. These accidental factors made the popularity of "vegetable dogs" difficult to copy.

Cai Songsong, the fund manager of Nuoan's growth, laughed at himself

There is no doubt that Station B is China's largest ACG (animation, game, comics) enthusiast interactive community. Around this distinctive user portrait, two -dimensional peripheral products have higher paids than other platforms on station B's e -commerce channels than other platforms. Rate. However, the disadvantages are also obvious. It is very difficult to expand into a full category e -commerce business.

In fact, at the content level, station B has removed the niche label of the "two -dimensional community", which even caused the dissatisfaction between the UP owner and the user. "Station B has changed" is the helpless emotion of many early users. But as far as the e -commerce business is concerned, the second dimension is still the core monetization point that Station B has to recognize.

Cheng also "two -dimensional", defeated "second dimension", who wants to break the B -station b -e -commerce company, loves it, hates it, but cannot be separated from it.

3. Where is the future of station B

In December 2021, the "small yellow car" function in the live broadcast room was tested in a small -scale range, which can support users to complete the operation of ordering shopping directly in the live broadcast room.

Double twelve in 2021, small yellow car function small trial bull knife. The UP main "Moving Gun Dongdonggun" participating in the internal test performed a live broadcast of the goods for 5 hours, and finally GMV (total product turnover) exceeded 1.31 million yuan. From the data point of view, it is still in the water test stage for the live broadcast of ordinary goods.

Although it was impacted by the epidemic in the first quarter of this year and the growth of e -commerce business was not satisfactory, the impact of executives on the epidemic was quite optimistic. Chen Rui believed that the impact of advertising and e -commerce faced was temporary. After June, as domestic anti -epidemic reached a new stage, these impacts would be reduced or even without effect.

After returning to normal, if the e -commerce business of station B wants to bear the heavy responsibility of commercialization, it still needs to find a way to break through the "secondary" imprisonment.

The good news is that the first quarter report shows that the growth rate of users has not slowed simultaneously. As of the end of March, the average monthly active user of station B was approximately 294 million, approaching the 300 million mark, with average daily active users of 79.4 million, an increase of 32%year -on -year. The average daily use of a single user in station B has increased to 95 minutes, a new high.

At the same time as new users pour, the overall use time is still growing, and community stickiness is still there. In other words, the user foundation of commercial monetization is still solid.

Perhaps it is aware of the dilemma facing the e -commerce business. At present, the commercialization of station B is more dependent on advertising, and the new driving force for income growth is a short video. Station B is called Story-Mode. This model not only brings more users to station B, but also has a longer period of time, and is also optimistic about being commercialized in commercialization.

Chen Rui has revealed that Story-Mode's monthly active user penetration rate has exceeded 20%, and the user likes reaches 30%. "This shows that users are accepted and even liked by Story-Mode at station B."

At present, station B has designed an independent information flow for the vertical screen short video -if you click on a vertical screen video and then slide down, you can enter the next vertical screen video, just like Douyin. In this information flow, you can also brush to advertisements and live broadcast. At the performance communication meeting, Chen Rui bluntly said: "The Story-Mode model is relatively mature. There are many industry cases that prove that it can achieve good figures in the realization of advertising and the conversion rate of live broadcast. The practice actually proves this, so we think that Story-Mode will also bring a new increase in commercial income. "

It can be seen that in the context of the user's stickiness and the new growth point of commercialization, the executives are still optimistic about the overall situation of station B, but it is like the conflict of the values ​​of the new and old users after the content side of the content. The problem is that before, station B faces the "long video" dispute, and short videos can be regarded as a compromise of commercial needs. In addition to advertising monetization, e -commerce business wants to become the second curve of commercialization. How to get rid of blind box mode and two -dimensional dependence is a problem that executives must solve.

Reference materials:

[1] "-6.8 billion, Station B's losses increased! Give the timetable for the first time, and have the confidence to make a profit and loss balance after two years! ", Securities Times

[2] "Station B live broadcast business layoffs:" breaking circle "is easy, breaking difficult", Alpha Factory

[3] "Deep Digging B -Station Blind Box Business: Contributed to 80%of e -commerce revenue, Temporary Test on the Edge of Illegal", Sina Technology

[4] "Station B needs to be a vertical screen short video ｜ Long China 50 Analysis", 36 氪

*This article is based on public information, which is only used as information exchange, and does not constitute any investment suggestions

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