Anchors Leave East Buy, Yet the Company Is More Profitable Than Ever

Top Anchors Leave One After Another, Yet East Buy Thrives

From Dong Yuhui going solo to launch "Yu Hui Tong Xing" to popular hosts like Dundun departing one after another, East Buy experienced what can only be described as a massive personnel shakeup over the past year. Many outsiders worried that losing its iconic figures would send East Buy into decline.

However, the latest financial report told a starkly different story — East Buy not only avoided collapse but actually delivered stronger profitability. The logic behind this is not complicated: a company built to sell products finally stopped paying an exorbitant premium for "idealism."

A Commerce Company Has No Room for Idealism

Looking back at East Buy's rise, the "knowledge-driven commerce" label was instrumental. Dong Yuhui discussed poetry and history during livestreams, infusing cultural sentiment into e-commerce — a formula that turned East Buy into a cultural phenomenon. But the flip side was that super anchors' high bargaining power and unpredictability always hung over the company like the Sword of Damocles.

When a core anchor's personal influence far exceeds that of the platform itself, the company faces a critical question: are customers paying for the "person" or the "product"?

East Buy answered with action. Rather than maintaining a costly "star anchor" system, it chose to return to the essence of retail — investing in supply chain, product curation, and technology, instead of investing in any single individual.

AI and Digitalization: The Foundation of De-Personalization

East Buy's strategy to reduce anchor dependency is not simply about swapping hosts. It is backed by a clear technological rationale:

• Piloting AI digital human livestreaming. During off-peak hours, AI digital hosts have begun handling portions of livestream duties, delivering 24/7 non-stop sales at a fraction of the cost of human anchors.
• Intelligent product curation and supply chain optimization. Leveraging data analytics and AI algorithms, East Buy has dramatically improved product selection efficiency, reducing reliance on individual anchors' ability to "seed" products.
• User profiling and precision recommendations. Through AI-driven user behavior analysis, the platform achieves more accurate product matching, replacing "people selling products" with "products finding people."

The core philosophy behind this combination of strategies is to shift livestream e-commerce from being "people-driven" to "system-driven." When technology can handle over 60% of conversion tasks, the departure of any single anchor has a significantly diluted impact on overall GMV.

The Decentralization Trend in Livestream E-Commerce

East Buy's case is far from unique. Across the entire livestream e-commerce industry, "de-centralization" has become a shared consensus among platforms and MCN agencies:

• Douyin continues to push traffic equalization, weakening the traffic monopoly of super anchors;
• Taobao Live is increasing support for store-operated livestreams and AI hosts;
• Kuaishou is also adjusting its algorithms to give mid-tier anchors greater exposure.

The industry's underlying logic is shifting: rather than entrusting your fate to an unpredictable "person," hand it to a far more predictable "system." The maturation of AI technology is providing a viable path for this very transformation.

Idealism Exits, Commercial Rationality Returns

Returning to East Buy itself — this company, born out of New Oriental Education, once carried a strong streak of idealism. But the capital markets ultimately care about only one metric: can you make money consistently?

When the cost of "idealism" grows high enough to threaten the company's fundamentals, the rational choice is to let it go. This is not cold-blooded — it is a basic law of the business world.

East Buy has spent a year proving one thing: in the livestream e-commerce arena, what is always replaceable is the person in front of the camera; what is irreplaceable is the supply chain, technology infrastructure, and operational capability behind the scenes.

Outlook: Can AI Truly Replace Human Anchors?

In the short term, AI digital hosts still lag noticeably behind humans in emotional interaction and on-the-spot adaptability. Top human anchors retain irreplaceable value in high-ticket sales and brand collaborations. In the medium to long term, however, as large language models and multimodal technologies continue to evolve, AI anchors' expressiveness and persuasiveness will steadily approach human levels.

For East Buy, the real test is not about who it has lost, but whether it can continue building competitive moats centered on technology and supply chain. After all, in a business built on selling products, the "product" is always the true protagonist.