“I have known the chairman of Maotai for more than ten years. I got him drunk last night and asked him to sign a contract to give me pricing power.” In a special live broadcast of drinks in early March, the well-known actor Pan Changjiang worked hard to sell Maotai Lunar New Year of the tiger liquor in front of the screen. As Pan Changjiang spoke, he did not forget to urge the audience to place an order and added: “this Maotai Lunar New Year of the tiger wine, the winery must lose money. The market price has been more than 40000 (a box), and I will sell it more than 20000.” “This kind of wine is produced only once a year. Drink one bottle less. It is very valuable for collection!”
“Now there is no bottom line for live selling wine?” A person close to Maotai told the daily economic news that the so-called Pan Changjiang had known the chairman of Maotai for more than ten years and drunk him with alcohol was basically a naked lie.
Pan Changjiang, a well-known actor with more than 25 million fans on a certain platform, is a self rotating network anchor who has been controversial after selling alcohol and has repeatedly stepped on the edge of the “red line”. Like Pan Changjiang, there are not a few wine selling “online Red” anchors suspected of false publicity. What’s more, they have become a part of the fake wine industry chain.
At the end of February this year, Chongqing police announced that they had cracked a huge case of manufacturing and selling fake Maotai, involving about 100 million yuan. Compared with other counterfeiting cases, this case has a huge amount and novel methods. In order to expand sales, the criminals hired the “net red” anchor to sell high imitation Maotai.
High imitation fake Maotai meets the “net red”, and the huge traffic is becoming a channel coveted by criminals. How about the supervision of live selling? How can consumers avoid being cheated?
live video selling drinks is very deep, and ordinary people can’t grasp
Compared with other ordinary cases of making and selling fake liquor, the huge Maotai liquor making and selling fake liquor case involving 100 million yuan uncovered by Chongqing Police not long ago is of typical significance – this new method of selling fake liquor has been made public.
According to the police, 24 suspect suspects were arrested in the fake Moutai case. 4 production, storage and marketing of “black dens” were destroyed. More than 800 bottles of high imitation Moutai were found, more than 3000 Jin for filling base liquor, 14 sets of counterfeit equipment, 27 thousand sets of packaging materials.
In this case, in order to expand sales, the criminals hired the “wanghong” anchor to produce the video content identifying the true and false Maotai brand liquor, registered multiple accounts on the short video platform for rolling broadcasting, and promoted it after accumulating a certain popularity.
In fact, the chaos of selling wine in short videos and live broadcasts is far more than that.
In March 2021, after being criticized by netizens for selling “golden wine” live broadcast by Pan Changjiang, he recently “came out of the mountain” again. On March 1, a special wine show was held in the live broadcast room.
At the live broadcast, the table was full of Maotai Chinese Zodiac liquor. Pan Changjiang said: “I have known the chairman of Maotai company for more than ten years. Last night, I intoxicated him and asked him to sign a contract to give me pricing power”, “this Maotai Chinese Zodiac liquor in the year of the tiger, the winery must lose money. The market price has been more than 40000 (a box), and I sell it for more than 20000” “Everyone should believe uncle pan, and I won’t let you down. In order to beat down the price, I also put some money in it. The price is only available in Uncle Pan’s live studio. Place an order quickly.”
Pan Changjiang’s remarks were criticized by many people in the Baijiu industry. Some people close to Maotai said frankly to the reporter of “daily economic news” that “there is no bottom line?” This is not the first time Pan Changjiang has tested on the edge of the “red line”.
Last year, Pan Changjiang also contributed an annual hot word – “the turn of Pan Ga” because he sold wine live. Once, during the live broadcast, Pan Changjiang persuaded Xie Mengwei (the actor of Gazi in little soldier Zhang GA) not to sell wine on the live broadcast. He said to Xie Mengwei, “everything on the Internet is virtual. I’m afraid you can’t grasp it, son, because the water here is very deep…” After listening, Xie Mengwei said that he would not sell it “sincerely”. Later, Netizens found that Pan Changjiang had gone to sell wine himself, so they asked Xie Mengwei to persuade Pan Changjiang. Xie Mengwei said: “I really can’t persuade you. Don’t let me persuade you. I can only manage myself well.”
“This kind of behavior of Pan Changjiang must be playing a ‘marginal ball’. You say he sells fake goods, which should not be, but it is suspected of false publicity. Generally, the official live broadcasting room of our wine enterprises must strictly abide by the requirements of laws and regulations, and we must not do so.” A Baijiu enterprise said.
The reporter of Changjiang Daily News couldn’t be reached for comment.
“There are still some weak links in the supervision of live wine selling.” Baijiu expert Xiao Zhuqing said.
In fact, the relevant departments have taken action to strengthen the supervision of the live broadcasting and cargo industry. Previously, the State Administration of radio, film and television issued the notice on strengthening the management of online audio-visual e-commerce live programs and advertising programs. It is clearly pointed out that the language of online audio-visual e-commerce live broadcast programs and advertising programs should be civilized and standardized, and should not exaggerate, cheat and mislead consumers.
selling fake Maotai is a huge profit, earning more than ten times is a “conscience”
Compared with Pan Changjiang playing a “marginal ball” in the live selling of liquor, criminals have used the live broadcast to sell fake liquor and even targeted expensive famous liquor such as Maotai.
“In fact, selling fake high imitation Maotai online is not that simple. The first thing is that things should be made to confuse the fake with the real.” Ye Guang, a well-known dummy, told the daily economic news.
In the above-mentioned fake Maotai case seized by Chongqing Police, lawbreakers Wei and others also pay great attention to the counterfeiting process. In the process of counterfeiting, new equipment is used to realize the automatic operation of the labeling process, and the anti-counterfeiting chip is highly simulated.
According to the police, Wei and others bought the Maotai Baijiu based liquor from a fan in Renhuai, Guizhou, and purchased counterfeit brand labels, handbags, wine cup boxes, anti-counterfeiting identifier and other packaging materials from Guangdong and Guizhou, and the equipment of the capping machine, packing machine, automatic labeling machine, etc. Filling, packaging and batch production of high imitation Maotai brand liquor.
“In fact, it is not easy to confuse the true with the false. Because there is an anti-counterfeiting chip in the cover of each bottle of Maotai wine, the chip can be traced to identify the true and false. And this chip is disposable, that is, after the bottle of Maotai wine is opened normally, this chip is damaged and basically impossible to be recycled.” Ye Guang said that criminals have made great efforts to achieve a high degree of simulation of anti-counterfeiting chips.
High imitation Maotai is only the first step. When selling high imitation Maotai online, we should pay attention to that the price should not be too low.
“Generally, the market price of high imitation Maotai is different from that of real Maotai, but it won’t be too much. For example, the official price of zhenfeitian Maotai is 1499 yuan / bottle, and the fake Maotai usually sells 1500 yuan / bottle or 1600 yuan / bottle, because selling too cheap will arouse consumers’ suspicion.” Ye Guang said.
As for the cost of high imitation Maotai, ye Guang revealed that it depends on what kind of wine the adulterers use to pretend to be Maotai. “If you take Maotai’s series of liquor, such as Maotai Prince liquor, as an example, it has a ‘conscience’.
”Ye Guang said with a wry smile, because the quality of Maotai Prince wine is good, the cost is hundreds of yuan / bottle. “It is not impossible for some unscrupulous businessmen to even directly take a few yuan or more to pretend to be Maotai.”.
“Selling fake Maotai is very lucrative, even more lucrative than drug trafficking.” Ye Guang said that some people use more than 100 yuan of wine to pretend to be Maotai and sell 1500 yuan / bottle, with a profit of more than 10 times. If you take a few yuan of wine to pretend, the profit can reach hundreds of times. “That’s why Maotai, which makes and sells fake goods, is severely cracked down on every year and every year.”.
According to the reporter’s observation, in addition to some criminals selling fake wine through live broadcast channels, there is still a lot of chaos in live selling wine.
First of all, the famous wine is shoddy. This kind of liquor is often shown by the seemingly famous faces of ” Kweichow Moutai Co.Ltd(600519) town liquor”, “Feitian Maohe liquor”, “Maotai original liquor”, “aged Maotai liquor”, “Guizhou Prince liquor”, etc.
Secondly, sell the marginal or OEM liquor of the group as the core brand liquor. As we all know, Maotai Group and Wuliangye Yibin Co.Ltd(000858) group have Feitian Maotai, puwu and other core brands respectively. However, in addition to the core brands, there are also some marginal brands and even branded wines. Some wine anchors often use this information gap to steal concepts and say that the wine of marginal brands is the wine of core brands.
Finally, false publicity and disorderly price bidding. For example, in Pan Changjiang’s live broadcast, he claimed that the original price of Maotai lunar new year tiger wine was more than 40000 yuan (a box), equivalent to more than 6600 yuan / bottle. In fact, the price of Maotai lunar new year tiger wine is quite transparent, and the market price is about 4500 yuan / bottle. The wine in Pan Changjiang’s live broadcast is equivalent to 4799 yuan / bottle. Even if he sells the so-called “preferential price”, he can still make a lot of money from it.
webcast may be able to sell some wine, but the participation enthusiasm of large wine enterprises is not high
According to Xiao Zhuqing’s observation, at present, more middlemen sell wine by using webcast and short video, and less wine enterprises end up in person.
“From the perspective of our enterprise, the live studio can indeed sell wine, but it’s not easy to make money. Although you can sell some wine by spending money on some traffic, you can’t see how much money you can make.” A Baijiu enterprise leader Zhang Ming (pseudonym) told reporters.
“There are not many big anchors who can really sell wine in the live broadcast room. Because unless it is a head anchor, it won’t have much advantage in price.” Zhang Ming added.
\u3000\u3000 “For the core head liquor enterprises, they have high requirements for price. You can’t carry out low-cost promotion because it will touch the interests of other offline dealers. Offline dealers are the main channel of these liquor enterprises. Even if you find an online celebrity anchor, if you just give him a relatively normal price, his delivery ability is not as strong as expected.” Zhang Ming said.
In fact, for Baijiu enterprises, apart from considering the Wuxi Online Offline Communication Information Technology Co.Ltd(300959) problem, the balance between the online platforms has begun to be more involved.
“A very simple question. Consumers will definitely buy it on jd.com, tmall.com or other platforms. If the live studio is very cheap, it will not be good for the brand in the long run. It will disrupt your whole price system.” Zhang Ming said.
“Generally, liquor enterprises still have their own emphasis. For example, on jd.com platform, one or more drinks may have a price preference; on tmall platform, another or more drinks may have a price preference; on the live e-commerce platform, only one or more drinks will be put for price preference.” Zhang Ming believes that for wine enterprises, at present, online live broadcasting is actually becoming an “ordinary” channel.
In fact, Moutai, Wuliangye Yibin Co.Ltd(000858) , Fenjiu and other famous liquor companies all have short video accounts, but the discount of Baijiu brands in official live broadcasting is not large. The price of some medium and high-end products in the live broadcasting room is even dozens of yuan cheaper than the offline price. According to Wuliangye Yibin Co.Ltd(000858) annual report, its online revenue was less than 2 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for less than 3.5% of the company’s total revenue.
“Now the live selling of liquor is not the core single product of large liquor enterprises, such as Feitian Maotai and puwu. It is more the OEM products of famous liquor factories, or the last order. These OEM products are opaque in price and have a lot of room for operation. Consumers often think they have made a profit, but they may not.” Xiao Zhuqing said.
However, Xiao Zhuqing also believes that selling wine through “online Red” live broadcast is also an opportunity for some channel providers with supply chain resources. ” Vats Liquor Chain Store Management Joint Stock Co.Ltd(300755) , jiuxian.com, mingpinshijia and 1919 are also doing live wine selling. They have certain resources and reputation in the industry. Consumers recognize such enterprises, and the probability of being cheated is relatively small.”
