To prove the success of Social Commerce as major revenue stream for content creators, China’s Li Jiaqi, a top livestream salesman widely known as the “lipstick brother,” sold US$1.9 billion in goods on the first day of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s annual shopping festival.
By Julian Jackson, CoFounder of ResultX Asia - 25th October 2021
Li, who earned his nickname by trying on various makeup products on his show, pre-sold 12 billion yuan in products ranging from Shiseido Co. lotions to Apple AirPods, according to preliminary data compiled by e-commerce data specialist Taosj.com.
Li’s sales are a record for any show livestreamed on Alibaba’s Taobao online marketplace, according to Taosj.com data.
Livestreaming is part variety show, part infomercial, part group chat — a format pioneered in China that’s grown more popular since the pandemic started. Li’s show Wednesday lasted a marathon 12 hours — the first day of China’s more than three-week “Singles’ Day” shopping binge — and attracted nearly 250 million views, Taobao showed.
“Normally we have about 20 million views a show daily, but we got 250 million today” Li said in a Weibo post.
These numbers demonstrate the growing strength of China’s innovative social commerce sphere in the face of hurdles including ongoing Covid-19 restrictions. The sports eco system is only now just starting to wake up to the potential revenue source for content creators.
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