Chinese Double 11 （双十一） is around the corner, every year on 11th November in China, it’s a very large-scale online and offline shopping festival. The Covid crisis accelerated Chinese consumers to even further shift shopping online.
The Internet changed people’s lifestyles, and large E-commerce platforms, such as Taobao, TMall, JD, and more, already formulated a very mature online shopping system, more convenient and attractive for people to join this shopping trend.
Since live streaming is very popular in China, all Chinese social media platforms started to lunch their own live-streaming channels. It has become a normal way to use as a shopping channel, creating a popular shopping culture and habit among Chinese online shoppers.
Let’s dive into this Double 11 shopping culture in China and how live streaming works, associated with social media platforms and E-commerce platforms.
Live streaming is a shopping trend where live streamers, often times KOLs, broadcast in real-time with products they are selling on different social media and E-commerce platforms. Viewers can then immediately purchase that item from an embedded link.
Live streaming platforms E-commerce in China
Taobao
Alibaba launched Taobao Live in 2016, it has since seen significant growth in popularity and success. As of 2019, reported over 20 billion yuan in sales transactions, with over 20 billion GMV on Double 11 Festival and over 100 million GMV generated by 177 top live streamers, such as Li Jiaqi and Weiya.
But unfortunately, the live streamer Weiya was blocked by all Chinese platforms due to her behavior of going about tax evasion. Currently, Li Jiaqi is the most well-known live streamer in China. According to the news, millions of people entered his live stream channel and the sales transactions were more than 10 billion RMB on the day of Double 11 in 2021!!!
Tmall
Tmall is a comprehensive shopping site associated with Taobao, it’s an upgraded version of Taobao and also shared the same app with Taobao and belongs to a part of Taobao. It is more focused on B2C business model and only allows companies to settle into its platform. So, the live-streaming model is also the same as Taobao. The Double 11 sales in Tmall also have attracted great attention every year. Sale transactions will be broadcast live on a huge electronic screen scene and also has a live show on 11th, November.
JD
JD found in 1998 and the founder is Liu Qiangdong. So far, it’s also a national online shopping and logistics platform in China. It’s the same as Taobao and also has its own live-streaming channel. According to the sales transactions record, JD had about 350 billion RMB in sales on the day of Double 11 in 2021.
Live streaming Chinese social media platforms in China
In order to make distinctions in China’s giant live streaming pool, it’s crucial for businesses to be well prepared and make a good choice of live streamers. Therefore, with the craze of live streaming in China, more than 100 professions have switched to live streaming. For now, a “triangle” was formed in the camp of live streamers: KOLs, celebrities, and business people, they start to target the social media platforms, such as Douyin, Weibo, WeChat Channel, etc., except for E-commerce.
KOLs (Influencers), the main objective is to sell goods. They are more experienced and sophisticated in the procedure and bring high infectivity to viewers, motivating viewers to make a purchase impulsively.
Douyin (Chinese version Tik Tok)
As a Chinese national social media app, almost everyone in China has a Douyin account. And the main user group in Douyin is the young generation. Normally, people use Douyin to post videos, and pictures to share their own daily life and favorite things or start a live steaming to show some specialties. such as Sing, dancing, or related entertainment.
Livestreams are one of the rising trends in social commerce. Users are able to interact with the live streamer (usually a KOL) by asking questions and directly purchasing products that are advertised in the live stream
Weibo is another social media (Microblogging) platform in China where users can post, share content, and find information on the latest trends and news. It is extremely popular in China with 523 million active users and 224 million daily active users as of 2020.
In fitting with the rise of live-stream popularity in China, Weibo has created its own live-stream platform called Yizhibo live. This is another Livestreaming opportunity for brands to connect with Weibo influencers to promote their services and products.
On Weibo, brands can link their content to their Taobao stores and users can bind their Alipay accounts to their Weibo accounts, making transactions on the site fast and accessible with just one click.
WeChat Channel
WeChat (Video) Channels launched in 2020 and are WeChat’s answer to the rising trend in the market demand for short-video platforms. WeChat Channels can include a link to your WeChat OA, meaning you can further promote brand awareness.
This is also a kind of a revolution as it continues to bring in answers to how can WeChat ecosystem be more open: Users can have the freedom to check suggestions and are able to see which content their network likes and subscribes to.
Until now, people also can make live streaming on it and viewers can directly interact with the live streamers, and send questions, and comments on the live streaming interface. And the brands also can attach their products to it, people can have an immersive shopping experience with one click.
Summary
Nowadays, live streaming already become an important shopping trend in China. Especially when some festivals, traditional holidays, and Double 11/12 such kind of shopping carnivals comes in China, Consumers can get exclusive deals during live-streaming sessions because live streamers, and brands often give out coupons or free gifts. Viewers can buy at a lower price than they buy in stores, and get their hands on special products. It’s a worthy marketing method the brands should be investing in.
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