What happened
Yu Minhong, chairman of New Oriental Education & Technology Group, gave the opening speech at the 2026 Yabuli Forum summer annual meeting in Chengdu, where this year's theme was 'Enterprise Innovation and Cycle Crossing.'
Yu said East Buy was never a pure e-commerce or streamer-influencer company, but a product company built around self-operated goods. He argued that if it had been solely an e-commerce or livestream business, it would no longer exist today.
Drawing on nearly 40 years of business experience, Yu said price wars and cheap products never bring long-term success. Instead, he said companies should make products clearly better than those of competitors, even if that means charging a higher price.
Why it matters
Yu's remarks reflect an effort to position East Buy apart from the livestream-shopping wave, framing its competitive edge as product quality and consumer trust rather than low prices or influencer traffic.
His 'trust front-loading' idea suggests that winning customer confidence before a purchase can lower both consumer choice costs and enterprise selling costs, a potentially durable model for food and daily necessities.
East Buy's latest annual figures, showing self-operated products accounted for more than half of total GMV, underline how central the product-led strategy has become to its reported performance.
Key facts
Yu Minhong said East Buy is not an e-commerce or streamer influencer company, but a product company centered on self-operated products.
Yu stated that after nearly 40 years of business practice, he found price wars and cheap products never have long-term prospects.
East Buy's testing and quality-control costs exceeded the company's profits in its first and second years, according to Yu.
For the fiscal year ended May 31, 2026, East Buy reported self-operated product GMV of 5.4 billion yuan, about 52.6% of total GMV.
What to watch next
Whether East Buy can keep differentiating through product quality and trust-building as competition in livestream commerce intensifies.
How the company's product–livestream–App membership triangle evolves, especially the role of its membership platform in retaining customers and supporting self-operated product growth.