- What is livestreaming?
Livestreaming is a mix of real-time entertainment and seamless shopping. Livestream selling involves a host who demonstrates a product in a livevideo on the social media platforms, in a call with a customer, or via otherchannels, making it easier than ever to watch,interact, and buy. While livestreaming is all the rage right now, even though it’s a newtrend, the format of livestreaming is continuously evolving.
Plus, with the continuous rise of e-commerce, livestreaming is growing exponentially.
- How does the livestreaming work?
Unlike traditional TV shopping programs, livestreamingis more entertaining and requires scripting, including interaction planning andcommunication skills in a limited time to entice viewers and maximize sales. Preparing an engaging and effective script isessential.Follow these five steps to get started:
- Frame
- Thread
- Support
- Scene design
- Time control and themedevelopment
Other helpful scripting tips includesetting up conflicts and transitions and mastering the use of differentlandscapes and photography methods to provide a holistic view to the audience.
- The current market of livestreaming
At present,all major Chinese social platforms-e-commerce platforms are selling via livestreaming. However, Taobao is leading the way when it comes to living streaming, with Douyin comingin second – bothplatforms have the highest daily active user.
Taobao successfully integrated livestreaming with shopping functionality, allowing consumers to make purchases directly. Other e-commerce and social platforms have also added "livestreaming with goods" sections.
The main reason for the high popularity of Taobao livestreaming are the two livestreamers: Li Jiaqi and Viya. From the sales data is can be seen that the average viewing volume and interaction volume of these two live streamers are in the tens ofmillions. Li Jiaqi also livestreamed the highest single sales of 2.858billion RMB.
- Livestreaming trend going from strength to strength
At present,there are live streamers, influencers, and anchors such as Li Jiaqi and ViyaHuang, among others, who sell brands goods through different sales channels andgenerate a large number of sales.
Brands arealso beginning to set up livestreaming after realizing the integral role thatit can play in boosting their sales. You can see the brand section and the livestreaming anchor section on various platforms.
It has been forecasted that the market size of China's e-commerce livestreaming industry will reach 1.2 trillion RMB in 2021.
KPMG and Aliresearch predict that the total industry size will be close to 2 trillion RMB; Guosheng Securities estimates that the market size of China's e-commerce livestreaming industry could reach 6 trillion RMB in 2025.
All of this proves that livestreaming selling is here to stay, and it will only grow over the course of time.
- Some downsides holding livestreaming back
It's not all sunshine and rainbows in the livestreaming world, as every now, and then there are some issues, including:
Falsified sales data: Some livestreamers falsified sales, resulting in a large number of returns after livestreaming, and customers lose trust as a result.
Highcost of livestreaming: The fee of livestreaming is in the form of livestreaming fee + sales commission:the entrance fee of top tier livestreaming hosts is high, and the sales commission of 15%-20% is added for each event above 500,000 RMB. It is challenging to promote small and medium-sized brands given the high fee. The fees for non-central and not famousones and mixed livestreaming range from 50,000 to 100,000 RMB per show.
Insights: highlights that as the market becomes more standardized, the irregular phenomenon and issues in the livestreaming market will gradually reduce.
That being said, livestreaming will continue to evolve with the Chinese consumer's consumption and shopping preferences as well as needs.