How Livestream selling became the ultimate entertainment-oriented, shopping parties in China
“Darling, it won’t be a party without you.”
带货直播如何成了娱乐形式的集大成者
Call it sales & marketing or personal branding. The Chinese livestream selling trend is becoming increasingly popular. Especially the hosts who are presenting during these sessions, some of them have millions of fans and have generated billions of sales in one night. At the moment, famous people get involved with livestream broadcasting for sales as well, they are internet stars, opinion leaders, idols, actors & actresses, singers, and famous people from all kinds of backgrounds. Hosting the livestream sessions together, they use their personality and humor to simultaneously come up with original jokes. This is the moment that outgoing, witty and likable personalities find their stage. They have truly created a form of entertainment for the mass public in the name of SHOPPING.
Livestream selling history
“Did you watch the mid-year sales show?” is the question of the moment in China, as millions of people went online to watch the recent 616 and 618 livestream shopping gala hosted by various shopping and social media platforms in June this year. If you are wondering what a livestream shopping gala is, let’s take a look at the space of livestream selling development.
Livestream selling is a real-time recording of a sales session, which is hosted on a shopping or social media website & app. It is usually hosted by one or two hosts to sell products and introduce brands to the viewers.
It all started in 2016, the famous shopping platform Taobao launched this method of selling. The idea is to let the viewers have a real-time connection with the hosts who introduce products while having an interaction with the audience. Initially, hosts were selling mostly clothes and cosmetics, as viewers could watch the hosts to try them on. Soon, it became a very popular way to sell all kinds of products. The hosts' personality and their way of interacting with the viewers have become crucial to whether they are going to be successful in selling the products.
In the second half of the year 2016, two early adopters of the concept - Viya the “Star Saleswoman” and Li Jiaqi the “Lipstick King” raised above the rest of the hosts.
In May 2016, Viya started her live-streaming business on Taobao, and only after four months, she made a debut one billion in sales transaction in one night. Li Jiaqi used to work at a cosmetic counter in a department store, where he had gained popularity among the customers and he realized that he had a way to connect with people and convince them to purchase his products. He started his livestream selling on Taobao in 2016, while still keeping his day job in the department store. In 2017, he had more than 100 thousand followers, by the year 2019, this number had increased to over a million.
The number of followers soon snowballed for the Lipstick King. On “11.11 Single’s Day'' in 2018, Li Jiaqi had a sales combat with Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma, and during this Pk, he was able to sell 15,000 lipsticks in in 5 minutes.
Li Jiaqi vs Viya, Picture Source: sohu.com.cn
The extremely popular hosts like Viya and Li Jiaqi realised their power and potential. Soon, both of them set up their own companies and hired professional teams to work for their ever-growing selling machine. To call it a team is an understatement. Take Viya’s “team” as an example, she has three office addresses in China: Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Beijing, where they all have their respective purposes and functionalities. In Viya’s Hangzhou office, she has an entire floor laid out as a high-end department store, showcasing the products she is selling to her followers. Her Beijing office is set up to work with celebrities. She has a total of more than 500 people working for her company.
Sales livestreaming sessions with popular hosts are very entertaining. They are a genuinely enjoyable experience. Enjoying the experience is the key factor that keeps the livestreaming sales business alive and striving. The products are carefully curated, the guests are celebrities with loyal fans, the interactions between the hosts and the guests are thoughtfully planned. The viewers feel like they are watching a lively and fascinating show, where they can get immediate feedback to their questions. As the saying goes, “A successful sales pitch is not a monologue, it is a dialogue.”
As the sales figures start going up non-stop, more famous people start to join in, as they have the advantage to attract more viewers. These people are business stars, actors & actresses, pop stars, singers, opinion leaders, influencers, writers, directors, models, famous people for whatever reason they are famous for. Everyone joins in the party.
In the traditional situation, a celebrity will only endorse one brand at a certain campaign. In livestream sales, many brands are being presented. The star guest’s job is to bring in more viewers, the host’s goal is to plan and execute an interesting show for the viewers. A good conversation between them is very important, the selling chemistry is essential. However, how to create the selling chemistry is rather mysterious, it cannot be fully acted or forced. So once it is found, the star couple (CP)* for sales is created.
*CP is two people who have special chemistry while interacting in front of the public while being filmed, causing people to spend the time and watch the two interact. CPs also are popular news materials.
Omni-channel selling process practiced to perfection
To consider online selling as just a conversation, a show, or an interaction, is not giving it full justice. Without the existing shopping ecosystem in China to complete the show, the after-sales process would fall flat. Think about the entire selling cycle, when customers are watching the live streaming, the hosts will present the products, try them in front of the camera, answer questions if there are any. After that, the hosts will drop the link to purchase the products to the viewers. Finally, hosts will start a countdown during which all purchases have to be made, because there are many products to go through, and the night is short.
Customers can make transactions by using one of the many digital payment methods available to them in China. Once that is done, the logistics company will receive the order and work with the local logistic service points to promptly send the products to the customers within a few days. The powerful logistic system in China and the paperless online payment ecosystem can enable the whole system to run smoothly
Bigger and Better Shopping Parties
You probably have already heard of the 11.11 Singles Day. Taobao and its sister company TMall started the tradition in 2009, and fast forward to 2020, the sales have increased from 50 million to 498,2 billion RMB.
Now, more shopping festivals are being created. Shopping and social media platforms are all embracing the opportunity to create their own sales miracle. And they are presenting them in livestream.
Ever since Taobao first launched its live stream services, more than 4000 hosts are now regularly selling there. Other shopping websites such as Pingduoduo, JD, and Suning are also providing hosted services to use their platform to live stream. In addition, social media apps TikTok, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu (Red) are all part of the live streaming sales platform. In the spread of the live stream fever, bigger, fancier and more extravagant events are being created.
Since last year, viewers can also join the mid-year shopping festivals, which start at the beginning of June and last until the 18th of June.
First, JD has shoppnamed their shoppinging event as “618” because 18th of June is the company’s founding date. The JD 618 mid-year sales have already reached 343,8 billion RMB this year.
Picture Source: sohu.com.cn
Their shopping discount celebrations invited many celebrities to provide a whole evening worth of entertainment for its heavily discounted sales night.
A performance from the 4 hours of celebrations, aired on BJ TV. Video Source: Youtube
Other players, such as Kuaishou, presents Kuishou 616 gala night headlining numerous Chinese celebrities.
Picture Source: sohu.com.cn
It is exciting just by looking at the list of performers at the shopping festivals and gala nights. On top of that, the organizers all promise up to millions of discounts for the viewers. These events also offer opportunities for the brands to have dedicated special promotion days. There are lotteries, celebrities’ talk shows, reviews, performances, first timer specials, bulk/team purchase coupons, etc.
Without a doubt, the strategies were executed brilliantly. The performances were colourful and vibrant, the celebrities were shining. It is especially attracting high viewership because of the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic, which forced many people to stay home.
However, this sales master plan doesn’t come without criticism. Even with the collaborations between platforms and TV stations, eventually, people are drawn to these events because of the celebrity effect. Famous hosts have become bigger celebrities themselves, and where the celebrities are, there the attention from the public goes. However, the main reason why these events were organized in the first place, is to make more sales, which determines the style of the content: there are meant to be lots of advertisements. Some viewers have responded that they feel like they are watching advertisements with some performances. And even with today’s array of superstars in China, there are bound to be some repetitive performances with so many events going on in such a short period of time. Plus, people are growing tired of the overly complicated discount systems set by the organizers. Some users have complained that they have to work in their day job every day, and then spend their spare time trying to figure out the discount system, which is inconvenient for many people.
Still, people are excited to see what is going to happen next year in the shopping event space. Because, in the end, everyday life is dull, and a little party never killed nobody.
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