Brands Turn To Live Streaming As China Returns To Work

Taobao Live, Alibaba Group’s livestreaming platform, saw a sharp rise in brand activity this past month as merchants slowly resumed their operations and looked for ways to reach consumers in the midst of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

In early February, livestream sessions on the platform had increased by 110% compared to the same period last year, according to Taobao Live. Driving that growth was the surge of businesses using online tools to maintain sales and engagement with consumers while their physical stores remained shuttered and millions were confined to their homes to prevent further spread of the virus, officially known as Covid-19.

Public facilities, retail stores, offices and schools throughout the country are now cautiously reopening after an extended closure. But virus fears still loom – despite a drop in new cases of infections – and more time is needed to bring economic activities and production levels back to normal.

Innovating Out of Crisis

For merchants across different industries, livestreaming has become an important tool not only to offset the decline in offline business, but also to encourage creativity in marketing and developing customer relationships. This month, Taobao Live users would have seen chefs broadcasting cooking tutorials in restaurant kitchens, real-estate agents giving tours of apartments, celebrities and singers performing in an online concert from their homes, rural farmers promoting their fruits and vegetables and even auto dealers showcasing the interior of luxury cars.

“We want to make it easier for different clients across sectors to make use of livestreaming and help them more quickly resume operations,” said Yuan Yuan, head of content operations at Taobao Live.

Her task force worked closely with other Alibaba business units, such as DingTalk, Tmall, Taobao and Juhuasuan, to connect with more merchants – removing barriers for them to register accounts, as well as providing training and marketing resources.

“The project turned out to be more than a way to support brands. It also helped some discover their potential in livestreaming,” said Yuan. “It was truly impressive to see how nimble and decisive our brand partners were. Their management capabilities helped transform a crisis into an opportunity.”

Brands Go Live

Shanghai-based cosmetics brand Forest Cabin temporarily closed about half of its 337 stores across China due to the virus. Its stores that did remain open found few shoppers. In an interview on Jan. 31, founder Sun Laichun said sales had dropped 90% during the Spring Festival holiday, traditionally a peak season for shopping. If circumstances continued, he estimated a loss of up to RMB30 million ($4.26 million) a month and possible bankruptcy in under two months. But the brand embarked on a turnaround strategy with livestreaming at its center, and in just 15 days, Forest Cabin’s sales surpassed the same day last year by 45%.

The brand trained 1,600 shop attendants on how to host a livestream on Taobao Live and was soon adding some 3,000 new loyalty members a day, up from the typical average of 800 to 1,000 people. Sun, himself, joined in and hosted a two-hour session on Valentine’s Day in front of more than 60,000 viewers. By the end of the session, he had sold nearly 400,000 bottles of camellia moisturizing oil and generated close to RMB400,000 in sales.

While online only represented about 25% of Forest Cabin’s sales before, it now accounts for 90%. “The results were beyond my imagination,” Sun said.