EAST BUY, having parted ways with Dong Yuhui, has yet to emerge from its growing pains. The company recently released its fiscal year 2025 financial report (June 1, 2024 - May 31, 2025), the first annual report following Dong Yuhui's departure. The results show that EAST BUY's GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) and performance on the Douyin platform were impacted to some extent. Meanwhile, the company has intensified its membership operations and new customer development on its App and WeChat mini-program channels, with its self-operated product portfolio exceeding 700 items.
Over the past three years, relying on both "streamer-driven" and "product-driven" strategies, EAST BUY has experienced confusion from overwhelming traffic and found itself caught in public controversy due to its firm choice to "de-emphasize top streamers." Compared to simple reliance on top streamers, focusing on products brings more certainty but also places higher demands on the company's supply chain capabilities.
**Performance Takes a Hit**
The long-term impact of Dong Yuhui's departure is evident in EAST BUY's financial report. Data shows that in fiscal year 2025, EAST BUY's continuing operations generated net revenue of 4.392 billion yuan, down 32.7% year-over-year; annual profit was 6.19 million yuan, compared to 249 million yuan in the same period last year. EAST BUY stated that excluding the financial impact of the disposal of Yuhui Tongxing, the net profit from continuing operations in fiscal year 2025 was 135.4 million yuan, up 30% year-over-year. In terms of gross profit, the comprehensive gross profit margin of the company's continuing operations increased from 25.9% in fiscal year 2024 to 32% in fiscal year 2025.
During the reporting period, at the specific business level, EAST BUY's paid GMV from all sales channels including Douyin, Taobao, and its own applications declined from 14.3 billion yuan in the same period last year to 8.7 billion yuan. Among these, the Douyin channel, which accounts for the majority of GMV, saw a reduction in paid orders during the reporting period, falling from 180 million orders in the same period last year to 91.6 million orders.
In July last year, Dong Yuhui officially left EAST BUY, and the live streaming account "Yuhui Tongxing" achieved independent operation. This change caused dramatic fluctuations in EAST BUY's stock price. The day after the information was announced, EAST BUY's stock price plummeted 23%, with market capitalization evaporating nearly 3 billion Hong Kong dollars in a single day. Meanwhile, Yuhui Tongxing's follower count surged rapidly within a year. As of press time, the Yuhui Tongxing account has 30.917 million followers, exceeding EAST BUY's main account's 28.183 million followers, becoming a formidable competitor. Previously, addressing the traffic impact after Dong Yuhui's departure and investor doubts, New Oriental founder Yu Minhong stated, "Within my foreseeable scope, it's impossible for EAST BUY to have another streamer independently establish a platform."
Additionally, after Dong Yuhui's departure, EAST BUY has also faced the impact of other streamers leaving. In June this year, popular streamer "Dundun" reached the end of her three-year contract with EAST BUY, and due to different personal development aspirations, she officially left EAST BUY to pursue her own business. EAST BUY stated that in the future, "Dundun" will continue to cooperate with EAST BUY as an honorary product recommendation officer.
**Holding Traffic Control**
Compared to other live streaming agencies like Meione, Xinxuan, and Qianxun, EAST BUY's relationship with its streamers differs significantly. Li Jiaqi, Xinba, and Viya are not only the biggest IPs and traffic centers of their respective companies but also hold significant internal positions, even serving as company founders. However, Yu Minhong has been cautious and restrained about traffic dependence on super streamers in EAST BUY's overall planning.
"The emergence of a major internet celebrity like Dong Yuhui was actually an accident," said Jiang Rong, e-commerce expert and senior consultant at Dalang Think Tank. Throughout Dong Yuhui's rise from obscurity to internet fame, Yu Minhong's strategy has consistently been to "put eggs in different baskets," continuously working on supply chain and self-brand products. She believes that the impact of celebrity streamers leaving on EAST BUY's performance precisely shows that Yu Minhong was right in "de-influencing." If a company relies solely on one or two people, its business cannot be sustainable.
In August 2022, EAST BUY launched its self-operated App, primarily promoting EAST BUY's self-operated products, including agricultural products, leisure snacks, daily household items, and other categories. In the same year, EAST BUY launched its mini-program mall and integrated with video accounts. By July 2023, EAST BUY began live streaming on its App, with Dong Yuhui appearing in the "EAST BUY Member Store" live streaming room on EAST BUY's WeChat mini-program mall for product promotion.
Meanwhile, EAST BUY has accelerated expansion of channels beyond Douyin. In October 2023, EAST BUY first launched its membership system on the App, both to retain loyal users and strengthen consumer stickiness, and to gradually build its own private traffic pool. By December 2024, EAST BUY actively tried WeChat's new gifting function, with the WeChat store's GMV exceeding 5 million yuan on New Year's Eve, and the proportion of young men increased from the usual 40% to 57%. This means that apart from the impact of streamers like Dong Yuhui, the decline in order volume on EAST BUY's Douyin channel is also related to its expansion into more channels. In fiscal year 2025, more orders shifted to the EAST BUY App, with GMV from the EAST BUY App accounting for 15.7% of the total, up from 8.4% in fiscal year 2024. Meanwhile, the number of paid members increased to 264,300, compared to 198,600 in the same period last year.
It's understood that over 60% of EAST BUY's self-operated product sales come from shelf channels, including Douyin product cards, Xiaohongshu stores, WeChat mini-stores, and the EAST BUY App. In fiscal year 2025, the proportion of self-operated product GMV on the EAST BUY App to total self-operated product GMV increased from 16.3% in the same period last year to 28.8%.
**Focusing on Self-Operated Brands**
At the end of December 2021, EAST BUY first started broadcasting; in April 2022, it launched its first self-operated product "Golden Pillow Durian." At that time, the self-operated product business was EAST BUY's main focus, aiming to become an "online Sam's Club." However, the sudden popularity of streamer Dong Yuhui temporarily made EAST BUY the center of traffic and public attention. Subsequently, EAST BUY was caught in the "small essay" incident in 2023, and then parted ways with Dong Yuhui, which to some extent reflects how EAST BUY once struggled between "streamer-driven" and "product-driven" options, ultimately choosing the latter under enormous public pressure.
In fact, refocusing on the supply chain direction also reflects Yu Minhong's judgment on the development of the live streaming industry, namely that products have a more lasting lifecycle than people. "Currently, self-operated products have become EAST BUY's main growth driver," said Yin Qiang, EAST BUY's Chief Financial Officer.
It's understood that in fiscal year 2025, EAST BUY launched a total of 732 self-operated products, compared to 488 in the same period last year. Product categories have also expanded from the initial fresh food and snacks to more diversified product lines, including nutrition and health foods, pet foods, clothing, and other self-operated product lines. According to statistics, EAST BUY's self-operated products account for approximately 43.8% of total GMV.
Compared to the previous traffic-oriented approach, EAST BUY has concentrated resources on areas with high visit frequency and stable demand, such as daily consumer goods, food, and household items. Meanwhile, in fulfillment services, EAST BUY launched its first cold chain warehouse in March this year - the "EAST BUY Central China No. 1 Warehouse" located in Zhengzhou, integrating logistics resources and expanding direct express routes.
As of May 31 this year, EAST BUY's self-operated products and live streaming e-commerce team totaled 1,401 people, with 643 people in the supply chain and product team.
"Future competition among live streaming companies will definitely be competition over products, not internet celebrities. To improve performance, the focus is still on products," Jiang Rong said. Live streaming hosts are equally important, and companies need to continuously cultivate new talent and continuously extract and replicate live streaming experience.
However, after "de-emphasizing top streamers," EAST BUY still needs to solve the problem of maintaining a stable talent pipeline of "mid-tier" streamers. Meanwhile, heavy investment in self-operated brand construction not only poses high challenges for balancing cost control and quality but also requires stronger member stickiness to drive profitability. Although EAST BUY has launched a 199-yuan annual membership, there's still some gap from the membership fee-based profit model core to companies like Sam's Club.
"The EAST BUY App has established community forums and reading clubs to enhance user stickiness. These functions can be further strengthened in the future, providing personalized services for different consumer groups and converting target groups into customer assets," said Zhao Zhenying, researcher at the National Engineering Laboratory for E-Commerce Transaction Technology. He believes that EAST BUY can also use big data to analyze customer purchasing behavior and preferences, uncover potential needs, and then integrate resources to build a product matrix. For example, based on consumer demand for healthy foods, launch more customized nutrition packages; based on mother and baby product purchase data, develop related early education courses, selling as many products as possible to the same customer to save market development costs.