Xinba founded Chumen Supermarket with 5 million yuan in registered capital, aiming to escape platform algorithm control, transition to independent retail, and emulate the hard-discount model.
When Xinba named his newly established retail entity “Truman Supermarket,” the name, rich in metaphor, cut through the facade of live-streaming e-commerce's hollow boom like a sharp blade. Amid the external clamor, this was just a piece of gossip about a top livestreamer dabbling in brick-and-mortar retail. But inside the brutal traffic grinder, it was a premeditated hasty escape. The super IP, accustomed to commanding the live-streaming room, has finally come to a profound realization: as long as it remains parasitic within the platform's algorithmic container, it will forever be just a marionette manipulated by traffic.
Over the past few years, the shadow war between top livestreamers and platforms has never ceased. From Kuaishou's efforts to curb Xinba's family traffic dominance to platforms' nationwide push for de-headlining traffic distribution, the bargaining power of mega-livestreamers is being mercilessly diluted. The underlying logic of live-streaming e-commerce has evolved from early-stage individual heroism to a precision-driven distribution of platform will.
When algorithms dictate who trends today and who sells out, a livestreamer's tens of millions of followers are nothing more than a string of numbers that can be throttled or downgraded at any moment. More than anyone, Xinba craves to shatter this invisible algorithmic glass dome.
The Commercial Foundation Surfaces
Following the industrial and commercial pipeline embedded in Tianyancha's data down to the bedrock, the commercial foundation of this escape plan gradually comes into view. Guangzhou Chumen Supermarket Co., Ltd., wholly owned by Guangdong Xinxuan Holdings Co., Ltd., has quietly taken root in Guangzhou with a registered capital of 5 million RMB. Through the business scope, which includes food and internet sales as shown on Tianyancha, Xinxuan Group's tactical pivot is clearly visible.
This 5 million yuan is by no means intended to open a corner convenience store. Instead, it's meant to forcefully channel Xinxuan's massive white-label supply chain into an independent channel completely detached from short-video platform control.
Supply Chain Pricing Power
In the second half of live-streaming e-commerce, the competition is no longer about scripted theatrics screamed into the camera, but rather the supply chain pricing power deeply rooted underground. Xinba has amassed enormous OEM factory resources and bargaining leverage over white-label products in lower-tier markets over the years. However, monetizing these resources relies heavily on the instantaneous pulse of the live-streaming room. If an account faces suspension or throttling, the entire supply chain could face the catastrophic blow of soaring inventory.
Launching a self-owned brand under the Chumen Supermarket banner is essentially emulating the hard-discount model of Sam's Club and Costco, striving to convert fans' fervor for Xinba personally into long-term trust in a channel brand.
Commercial DNA Recombination
Turning a traffic foundation into physical retail shelves is an extremely brutal high-wire act. There is a natural chasm between the impulse-consumption logic of online shopping and the repurchase logic of offline grocery retail. Opening independent supermarkets means Xinxuan must leap directly into the quagmire of site selection, warehousing, fulfillment losses, and asset-heavy operations.
For an MCN institution accustomed to the asset-light business of flipping traffic, this is tantamount to a recombination of its commercial DNA. A registered capital of 5 million yuan is barely a ripple in the vast ocean of asset-heavy retail. At best, it's a pledge of allegiance Xinba is offering to the outside world.
In the movie, Truman ultimately walks through a door to the real world. For Xinba, Truman Supermarket represents the inevitable struggle of top-tier MCNs in an era of peaking traffic. Breaking free from the platform's traffic domestication to take on the hard grind of independent, asset-heavy retail is a path destined to be strewn with thorns. But for super-influencers who could vanish at any moment amid algorithmic shifts, building a fortress with their own hands—however cumbersome—is the ultimate antidote to their anxiety over being zeroed out.
