The New QVC: Live Ecommerce is the Chinese Behemoth Poised to Take Root in the West
The Signal: The Chinese live-streaming ecommerce market, which took off in 2016, was worth $63B in 2019 and is expected to more than double to $129B in 2020. To put that in context, QVC generated $11B in revenue in 2019.
Last year we wrote about how you can capitalize on this billion-dollar industry, in which live-streams take place within ecommerce platforms like Alibaba-owned Taobao Live. Since then, the industry has been given a boost amid the pandemic as thousands of brick-and-mortar businesses attempted to digitize their sales activities. Taobao Live, for example, saw a 110% year-on-year increase in live-streaming events from February 2019 to 2020.
On the platforms, much-loved influencers and hosts display items for purchase for 3-5 hours during each show. Customers click the link on their phone screen to buy as they watch models or shopping guides testing out products or trying on garments. Much like QVC, ease of ordering and incredible salesmanship of the hosts is the name of the game. The difference is that a click of a button replaces a phone call.
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