Recently, several merchants have complained that they spent 50,000 yuan to invite the popular influencer with over ten million followers “Inner Mongolia Old Dog (128)” to live stream sales promotion, but the actual sales were very low, leaving them feeling cheated.
According to a report on the Henan Broadcasting and Television Station’s current affairs program on September 4th, Mr. Tao, a merchant from Heilongjiang, signed an agreement with Jilin Songyuan Tianqiao Cultural Media Co., Ltd., paying a 50,000 yuan space fee and a 20% commission to promote their own beer in the live stream of the Kuaishou streamer “Inner Mongolia Old Dog (128)” (with over ten million fans).
The other party verbally promised that the sales volume could reach 6,000 to 8,000 orders. Mr. Tao stopped selling inventory a month in advance and prepared over 9,000 boxes of imported beer.
However, during the live stream on August 23rd, only 2 people placed orders in total, one for 31 orders and the other for 21 orders. After the live broadcast ended, all orders were cancelled, resulting in only 1 actual order throughout the entire live broadcast, causing the merchant to be left with a large amount of unsold inventory.
Not only Mr. Tao, but Mr. Xue, the general agent of Yalu in Henan, also mentioned that he spent 50,000 yuan to invite “Inner Mongolia Old Dog (128)” for live stream sales. The business promised to reduce the price of shoes from 79.9 yuan to 69.9 yuan; they expected to sell 20,000 pairs, so he prepared the inventory, but only sold 58 pairs in the end!
Mr. Xue stated that now, not only can’t he get a refund of the 50,000 yuan space fee, but he is also stuck with over 1 million yuan worth of goods, feeling cheated.
In addition, a lighter merchant in Yiwu expressed that they participated in 2 slots, spending a total of 100,000 yuan. The other party promised that they could easily sell one or two tens of thousands of orders. As a result, “after the lighters were returned, there were still 68 orders left; after the cigarette holders were returned, there were 23 orders remaining.”
Merchants stated that with so much inventory, all packed up, the losses from product and inventory preparation amounted to tens of millions.
According to reports, several merchants also provided feedback that there were instances of the same ID concentrating on placing and then canceling orders in the live stream, raising suspicions that the influencer’s team may be involved in fake order placing.
According to public records, Jilin Songyuan Tianqiao Cultural Media Co., Ltd. was established on April 27th this year, just four months ago.
In response to this, local relevant departments stated that “Jilin Songyuan Tianqiao Cultural Media” appears to have not completed industrial and commercial registration. The anchor team responded that they have a cooperative relationship with “Tianqiao” and only charge “platform fees,” without making any promises about sales volumes, and that related issues should be handled by a third-party company.
Regarding the data fabrication, the platform mentioned that they have received feedback and are currently conducting further verification.