Top Kuaishou Live Streamer Xinba Caught Selling Fake Products
Kuaishou top live streamer Xinba (辛巴) sold fake bird’s nest to his followers and is now under investigation.
Recently we wrote about Xinba’s ambition to achieve over 8 billion RMB during Double 11. He made it, with total sales of 8.8 billion RMB during 11.11. But now Xinba’s future is up in the air after losing the trust of his followers. A famous influencer caught Xinba’s team member selling fake Bird’s Nest supplements which turned out to be only sugar water. Although it wasn’t Xinba selling the product, it was his team member. Plus, Xinba repeatedly denied the claim and tried to cover it up. Xinba is one of China’s top e-commerce live streamers, making this scandal a serious offense. The fact that it is a health/food product makes it even worse.
What is edible bird’s nest?
Chinese people love having bird’s nest. They believe this supplement can improve a person’s immune system and help a person look younger. It has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past year as Chinese consumers are putting more faith in traditional health and beauty products.
Because of its production process, bird’s nest is expensive. For example, top brand Xiao Xian Dun’s (小仙炖) Tmall store sells 45 grams of bird’s nest for 100 RMB.
How the Scandal Unfolded
On October 25, a member of Xinba’s live streamer family (aka his team) Shida Piaoliang (时大漂亮) sold bird’s nest at the price of 17.2 RMB for 100 grams. Compared with the price at Xiao Xian Dun, you know how cheap this bird’s nest is. Not long after, on November 4, people started posting on social media, saying the bird’s nest he sold was actually sugar water.
At first, Xinba was very angry and scolded some WeChat official accounts for making this up. The turning point came to November 19, when a KOL Wang Hai (王海) published a Weibo post saying Xinba’s bird’s nest was indeed sugar water. Wang built his following by finding and revealing fake products so consumers trust his findings. In the next 3 days, Wang posted nearly 30 Weibo posts on the topic.
On November 22, Xinba responded to the accident but by that time, things were out of control. Not only were people talking about the bird’s nest, many consumers were also saying that other products that they bought from Xinba’s team, such as toothpastes, mooncakes, down jackets, all have problems. People’s attention on this scandal was exploding.
On November 27, Xinba made his fourth response. This time, he apologized to consumers while crying on a livestream. Right now Xinba’s team is being investigated by the government and Xinba might be sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The Impact on the Bird’s Nest and Live Streaming Industries
Bird’s Nest Industry
Fake bird’s nest has always been a big issue. This is why the top brands place a lot of emphasis on promoting the extreme measures they go through to ensure quality control. They even create special codes and labels allowing consumers to check to make sure they purchased authentic products. This incident may cause some consumers to stop purchasing bird’s nest. However, that isn’t likely. I think that this scandal will actually help the top brands such as Xiao Xian Dun gain a stronger foothold in the market as consumers will turn to the well-known and trustworthy brands, even if that means paying more.
Live Streaming Industry
As for the ecommerce live streaming industry, this scandal is sure to bring about some repercussions since it involved one of the largest streamers in the industry.
It is hard for a live streamer of Xinba’s level to ensure that each and every product is high quality. He sells thousands of products in a live stream and has a large team of streamers streaming on his or her behalf. But selling fake products is unethical and he needs to be held accountable.
Ensuring high quality is possible. For example, Top streamers Viya and Austin Li have become so successful partly because of their stringent measures to check every product they promote. Both of these streamers have large teams dedicated to testing out products. They know that if they feature sub-par products and lose the trust of their followers, their careers are over.
Xinba promised that he would pay customers who bought his bird’s nest three times the amount of money they paid. This amounts to over 60 million RMB in total. Yet this will not bring back the trust that customers had in his personal brand. To make matters worse for Xinba, the scandal was covered by CCTV (China Central Television). This state run news outlet is regarded as the official mouthpiece of the government. By them covering this scandal, they made a much wider audience aware of it.
It is likely that we may see more regulations for the streaming industry, particularly around food and health supplements, as a result of this scandal.
Find out about Xinba’s punishment and new live streaming regulations here.
Read more:
Why Top Live Streamer Xinba’s Scandal Had Little Effect on Kuaishou’s IPO
