SHANGHAI, Sept. 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Irene Tang, CFO of O'Ratings—an independent live-stream monitor, attended 2020 Unique Festival & Awards on July 30th. She concluded the recent development of live-stream shopping in China and gave more insights into the future trend that how live-stream and e-commerce will feed on each other and what are the benefits for marketing.
Livestream is becoming a standard marketing channel in China.
Online live-stream audience in China had a rapid increase of 102 million people between December 2019 to March 2020, and reached 560 million people in total. Because of the massive lock-down caused by coronavirus, people who could not shop offline and those had products overstocked turned to online livestream to reduce the impact of COVID-19. By the end of the second quarter of 2020, there were 589 million audience and more than 582,900 active live stream hosts across different platforms. Live stream is becoming a new media channel to reach consumers.
Live stream can be easy and difficult.
"Compared to traditional marketing, the threshold of promoting products by live stream is not that high," said Irene, "you only need a mobile phone to start your career as a host." She continued, "but growing to a best seller is difficult. You should select products based on who your fans are and what they like, shape yourself into a likeable person and capture your audience by skillful selling techniques." She also mentioned that the difference between platforms could lead to different results. Host on e-commerce platforms could easily attain a high sales volume since his audience came for shopping. Audience on other content platforms were not used to consuming products, but content. So it was hard to change their consuming habit.
Hot products are not always sold well.
"After monitoring over 800,000 shopping live streams, it finds that every kind of product has its own selling cycle," said Irene. According to her, hosts usually sold cell phones every 55 days on average, because the purchasing power of fans were limited. Hosts needed time to wait for the recovery of fans' buying demand. "Snacks are always welcomed," laughed Irene, "host should know how to select products. What his fans like, what his fans need and what price of products his fans buy most, all influence the result of live stream shopping."
Live stream also shortens the link between marketing and suppliers.
"Live-stream shopping is promoting the development of e-commerce industrial chain," said Irene, "especially perishable products can reap substantial benefits." During the coronavirus pandemic, many farmers and small-business owners turned on their camera and hawked their products on live stream platforms when people were not allowed to shop offline. It achieved remarkable success and people who did not have the ability to run an online store well could market their products by their own. They skipped traders and the cost was reduced. "Consumers can buy cheaper products, and suppliers can earn more money," said Irene, "online stores enable business to reach more consumers and live stream makes products easier to get popular."
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