Livestreaming brings change to 11/11
▶ New way to reach wider range of customers around China
Internet livestreaming, a vivid and easy way to reach millions of consumers, is bringing fresh impetus to China’s Singles’ Day shopping carnival, adding value to the world’s largest online shopping event.
There were more than 100,000 livestreaming chat rooms functioning all night since the kick-off of the annual shopping spree on Monday, which is called China’s Double 11 shopping festival, domestic news site jiemian.com reported.
The form, which has been proven to be useful and lucrative for both small boutiques and huge brands, can help vendors sell products within seconds.
A Chinese internet celebrity named viyaaa held rounds of livestreaming on Monday to introduce a wide range of goods including quilts and skin care products, and attracted 13 millions of viewers at 8:30 pm Beijing time. US internet celebrity Kim Kardashian joined viyaaa on Wednesday to warm up the show.
Internet livestreaming boosted transactions of 100 billion yuan ($14.27 billion) in the 2019 financial year of Alibaba, and more than half of Tmall merchants used the approach to promote goods, media reports said, citing data from Alibaba’s financial report.
“It is cheaper to buy products through these live platforms normally,”
Jiao Ning, a Beijing-resident who likes to watch livestreaming shows on Tmall, told the Global Times. “Sometimes there are promotion activities such as limited-time offers, when customers can buy things at very low prices.”
But it is more important that the hosts give detailed explanations of their products, Jiao said.
The new livestreaming approach offers an easy way to reach customers in third- and fourth-tier cities and rural regions, Ding Daoshi, a veteran independent analyst in the internet sector, told the Global Times on Monday. Such show are more vivid than words and pictures and don’t rely on customers’ literacy levels.
National sales carnival
As promotions take more forms and more people participate in Double 11 shopping, analysts said the 11-year-old buying spree has now become a national carnival for both consumers and e-commerce businesses.
The carnival enables consumers
to enjoy the happiness of purchasing, while also generating huge profits for e-commerce platforms and online stores, experts noted after Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba claimed a new 96-second record to harvest its first 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in sales in earlier Monday.
E-commerce platforms offer millions yuan of subsidies to attract customers. For instance, Tmall has a preferential policy of 50 yuan off for 400 yuan worth of products, and this isn’t limited to one store.
“Our store offers coupons for customers to use along with the subsidy of Alibaba’s Tmall,” a customer service employee with a shoe store in Tmall told the Global Times, noting that the current prices of its products are at the lowest level in a year.
“It has become a habit for me to check my daily supplies and replenish them at one time,” a Beijing-resident surnamed Jiang said.
It is not just about “low prices” any more.
The Double 11 shopping festival is more like a national carnival of happy buying, Ding said.
“It is cheaper to buy products through these live platforms normally.” Jiao Ning
Beijing resident