EAST BUY, still navigating its transition period, faces another wave of departures among its core live-streaming hosts. It was confirmed on April 26 that four key hosts—Ming Ming, Tian Quan, Zhong Can, and Lin Lin—have recently left the company. The reasons cited for their departures point directly to changes in the live-streaming environment brought about by new management. In response, EAST BUY CEO Yu Minhong stated during a live stream that he had repeatedly attempted to retain the departing hosts but ultimately respects their decisions.

Behind this personnel instability, EAST BUY is accelerating its strategic pivot from relying on individuals to focusing on products, emphasizing the development of its self-operated goods and proprietary app. In fiscal year 2025, the proportion of Gross Merchandise Volume attributable to EAST BUY's self-operated products increased to 43.8%. Meanwhile, the share of GMV generated through the EAST BUY App rose from 8.4% in fiscal 2024 to 15.7%. Recently, the company also launched a membership promotion offering "2 free years with a 2-year renewal" in an effort to strengthen its membership system.

Although the self-operated product strategy is showing initial success, growth in app-paid members has slowed. Combined with the consecutive loss of core hosts, it remains to be seen whether EAST BUY, which aims to become an "online Sam's Club," can truly break its past dependence on top-tier hosts and successfully transition to a product-driven model.

The "de-anchorization" initiative has recently intensified. EAST BUY's human resources department announced via the company's app community that hosts Ming Ming and Tian Quan would be leaving. The announcement noted that "Mr. Yu held sincere discussions with them and tried to persuade them to stay, but ultimately respected their choice." For long-time followers of EAST BUY, Ming Ming and Tian Quan were not ordinary hosts. As former teachers at New Oriental, they joined the company's transition into live-streaming in 2022 and became key figures in shaping EAST BUY's "knowledge-driven commerce" style, once referred to by fans, along with Dong Yu Hui and Dun Dun, as the直播 "F4." Prior to their departure, Ming Ming primarily hosted sales on the main channel and cultural tourism specials, while Tian Quan focused on the alcohol category.

On April 25, following Ming Ming and Tian Quan, core hosts Zhong Can and Lin Lin also announced their departures. The exit of four hosts within 24 hours marks the largest exodus of veteran hosts in EAST BUY's history. It is understood that all four individuals mentioned difficulties adapting to management changes and operational shifts implemented by the company this year. Ming Ming expressed that after the new leadership took over, the overall live-streaming model and operational style completely changed, making it hard for him to identify with this cultural shift and feeling that he was "pushed further to the periphery."

Last December, EAST BUY confirmed the appointment of Sun Jin, former Vice President of New Oriental Education & Technology Group and President of its Guangzhou school, as the company's Executive President. Public records show Sun Jin joined New Oriental in 2006 and has worked within the system for nearly 20 years. Under his leadership, EAST BUY has further advanced its "de-anchorization" strategy, primarily by expanding the host team and launching multiple sub-channels. During an earnings call in January 2026, Yu Minghong stated that EAST BUY planned to launch over 20 sub-accounts targeting different niches. With a standard configuration of three hosts per account, the host team was expected to expand from 27 to 60 members. When addressing the decline in viewership on the main TikTok channel, Sun Jin noted that while the new sub-accounts caused some分流, overall traffic conversion had improved.

From January 2026 to the present, EAST BUY has launched two seasons of a host recruitment reality show, "The Offer from EAST BUY," to onboard new hosts and has achieved its previously stated team and account expansion goals. The live-streaming style has consequently shifted from "knowledge sharing" to "pure product explanation coupled with promotions." In this environment of continuous team expansion, the直播 formats, schedules, and time slots for veteran hosts like Ming Ming and Tian Quan inevitably had to be adjusted.

The move to reduce dependence on star hosts has been anticipated since Dong Yu Hui's departure in July 2024. Addressing concerns from investors about the traffic impact post-Dong Yu Hui, Yu Minhong stated at a shareholder meeting that, "as far as I can see, it is impossible for EAST BUY to have a scenario where a single host independently establishes their own platform."

E-commerce expert Jiang Rong noted that on major live-streaming platforms like TikTok and Taobao, the industry norm is "hosts first, agencies second." Top hosts often start individually, gain user trust through unique personalities or product selection skills, and subsequently build agencies around their influence. "The company culture becomes the host's personal culture, with the agency revolving entirely around the host. This is a normal state aligned with traffic logic," Jiang Rong said. EAST BUY is an exception, having incubated famous hosts like Dong Yu Hui only after the直播 platform was already established by New Oriental. This reverse growth creates a contradiction: the institution emphasizes rules, KPIs, and equitable management, while host culture is inherently personal-centric, requiring the company to orbit around the host's流量—two fundamentally different logics.

The changes at EAST BUY in 2026 extend beyond its直播system's operational logic. In March, the company announced it would open its self-operated products, such as sausages and fresh grain eggs, to external influencers on TikTok for distribution. This move allows EAST BUY's products to circulate independently of its own host system, further weakening reliance on its native hosts. Concurrently, the company is intensifying efforts to lock in customers through membership, recently launching a limited-time "buy 2 years, get 2 years free" renewal promotion. EAST BUY's annual membership is priced at 199 yuan; existing members can pay 798 yuan to renew for four years. Yu Minhong even invited ten members to join an Antarctic trip—nine of whom will be selected from participants in this promotion. By binding products and services to users long-term, EAST BUY aims to reduce the likelihood of fans leaving following a host's departure.

Beyond直播and its app, EAST BUY's first physical store is set to open soon, with plans to expand smart vending machines and offline stores nationwide. Additionally, the company is broadening its self-operated product range, recently holding a health food launch event where it announced that six of its self-operated health products received national "Blue Hat" certification, with seven cross-border self-operated health products to follow.

The new management's intent is clear: EAST BUY no longer wishes to rely on specific individuals to attract traffic but instead aims to support its growth through diversified business layouts. The goal is to build an operational system centered on products, not hosts, thereby eliminating the anxiety and risk of "host IP holding the platform hostage." EAST BUY is seeking more stable and controllable sources of growth.

Whether this product-focused strategy can alleviate traffic anxieties remains to be seen. EAST BUY has indeed found growth opportunities in its short-term strategic adjustments. Fiscal 2025 financial reports show total revenue from continuing operations was approximately 4.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.7%, with net profit plummeting from 249 million yuan the previous year to 6.2 million yuan. However, after excluding the financial impact of the sale of its subsidiary associated with Dong Yu Hui, net profit from continuing operations was 135 million yuan, an increase of 30% year-on-year. The gross profit margin also improved from 25.9% in fiscal 2024 to 32%.

The key driver behind the improved profitability is self-operated products. In fiscal 2025, GMV from EAST BUY's self-operated products reached 3.81 billion yuan, accounting for 43.8% of total GMV. The company launched a cumulative 732 self-operated SKUs, a 50% increase year-on-year, expanding its product lines from initial fresh food categories to nutrition and health supplements, pet food, and apparel. By the first half of fiscal 2026, EAST BUY continued to bet on self-operated products, with their share of GMV rising further to 52.8%.

On the traffic side, however, EAST BUY's performance has faced significant growth pressure since Dong Yu Hui's departure. Interim results for fiscal 2026 show total GMV was 4.1 billion yuan, a continued decline compared to 4.8 billion yuan and 5.7 billion yuan in the same periods of fiscal 2025 and 2024, respectively. The decline was particularly pronounced on TikTok, EAST BUY's primary GMV contributor, where the total number of orders decreased by 8 million compared to the same period last year. Without the influence of a super host, the number of paid members on the EAST BUY App dropped from 264,300 in May 2025 to 240,100 in the six months ending November 30, 2025.

Jiang Rong further pointed out that with rising traffic costs, saturated user growth, and highly fragmented user attention, platform algorithms also tend to discourage dominance by any single entity to prevent user monopolization, making new customer acquisition extremely difficult. Fierce market competition often leads to distortions in institutional management. In the short term, with no new market increments, the only possibility is for some players to outlast small and medium competitors through intense internal competition, potentially leading to even more pronounced dominance by top players.