Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi: Most Famous KOLs Driving Chinese Live E-commerce Viral

In recent years, live-streaming e-commerce is extremely popular in China. During this year’s global shopping festival, at 3 o’clock in the morning on November 11, Wei Ya’s live -stream has attracted more than 43.1 million viewers, while Li Jiaqi, who finished the live stream one hour earlier, had 36.8 million viewers. With the momentum on Chinese social platforms, the direct promotion of Taobao’s official homepage, and word of mouth between relatives and friends, even for people who do not watch Taobao live stream or other ones, it is difficult not to notice the live-streaming event during the “Double 11” Festival.

Social Networks in China & Key Opinion Leaders

Live-streaming e-commerce KOLs represented by Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi are redefining China’s e-commerce and new retail industry. Not only the “Double 11”, but for every live stream, there are countless goods and capital flooding into their live-streaming room, completing hundreds of millions of transactions on a small mobile phone screen. China’s live-streaming is getting viral.

Even Western celebrities are seeking for collaborations with the two leading KOLs in China

Indeed, cooperation with these two KOLs can sell tens of hundreds of units of one product in only seconds. Therefore, brands scramble for partnerships with Li Jiaqi, Weiya, or many other KOLs in China. There is not only the case, even Western celebrities are seeking to work with Weiya and Li Jiaqi.

Wei Ya’s live stream during the Double 11 has invited a special guest. On November 6, Wei Ya and Kim Kardashian connected via Wei Ya’s live-streaming channel and helped the American star sell 15,000 bottles of her own brand perfume. One is a Taobao hot KOL, and the other is an American fashion star. Few people associate them, but Taobao breaks once again the imagination.

Read as well: Full Guide for E-commerce live streaming in China

4 years of Li Jiaqi: from nothing to king of cosmetics in live streams

This Hunan guy, who started his live-streaming business in Shanghai in 2016, is now a “live-streaming king” for cosmetics products in less than 4 years.

In the early days, live-streaming selling was only a subdivision derived from the live-streaming format. The anchors are mainly shopped, owners and models. The product category is relatively single, and the sales performance is more dependent on the traffic effect of celebrities. And what made Li Jiaqi famous was the small videos of lipstick tests in the live clips, which were sought after by many short video platforms. This form was called “live reality show”.

Win-win-win cooperation via live-streams

The number of views and sales have increased significantly, giving the live anchor the right to bargain with businesses on the prices. Many merchants are willing to take the initiative to make profits because they have taken a fancy to the win-win cooperation for its brand promotion + product sales achieved by live-streaming sales.

In the past, selling 100,000 pieces of lipstick may take a month. Now Li Jiaqi can hold a live-streaming sale and complete it in a few minutes.

It is revealed that it is difficult for new brands and new products to have historical data on e-commerce platforms so that they can obtain “historical weight” in the background algorithm by sales volume and user feedback. The live stream can improve their search rankings for these new products and increase the chances of being seen.

Therefore, the merchants will take the operation with live-streaming KOLs as another form of advertising, and attribute the corresponding expenses to anchors and consumers with a discount. This is thus not just a “win-win” situation, but a “win-win-win” mode.

Chinese giant e-commerce market

According to the data published in the 44th “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China” released by CNNIC, as of June 2019, the number of online shopping users reached 639 million in China, with a penetration rate of 74.8%. It is estimated that this number will continue to increase at 6.39% year-on-year, and the scale of online retail transactions reached 10.63 trillion yuan, an increase of 18.1% year-on-year in 2019.

35.3% of China’s retail sales occur online and China represents more than half of the world’s e-commerce. From 2011 to 2019, the country’s e-commerce transaction volume continued to grow. In 2019, China’s e-commerce transaction volume reached 36.8 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.1%.

From the perspective of the structure of China’s e-commerce market segments in 2019, the transaction scale of the B2B industry still occupies a huge share, followed by the retail e-commerce industry. In 2019, the B2B industry market accounted for 66.74% of the total share; the retail e-commerce industry market scale accounted for 28.88%.

China’s e-commerce increase enhanced by live-streams

In the past few years, the scale of live e-commerce has been in sustained and rapid growth. In 2019, the overall market size of live e-commerce was 433.8 billion yuan, an increase of 210% year-on-year, and the penetration rate in the e-commerce market is 4.1%.

The overall volume of live e-commerce in 2020 will exceed one trillion yuan, reaching 1,050 billion yuan, and the penetration rate will reach 8.6%. Live e-commerce is expected to continue to grow rapidly to reach nearly 2 trillion yuan, with a penetration rate of 14.3%.

The development of China’s e-commerce has gone through three stages:

• Graphic presentation on e-commerce platforms
• Short videos presentation
• Live streams

Live e-commerce is booming in 2020 due to the epidemic

Live e-commerce is the result of the renewal and iteration of e-commerce. It is more intuitive and realistic than graphics and short videos. Viewers can interact with the KOL in real-time with a better shopping experience. It is widely welcomed by Chinese consumers.

Live e-commerce began to sprout in 2009, but it was not until 2016 that it started its official development. Taobao Live and JD Live were launched successively that year. After 2019, live e-commerce has entered an outbreak period. This year’s epidemic has further accelerated the development of live broadcast e-commerce in China and saved China’s retail industry.

According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, more than 10 million live streams were held nationwide in the first half of 2020, and nearly 50 billion people watched the live streams. On average, everyone watched more than 30 live broadcasts, which is amazing data.

The giant potential of live e-commerce in China is not only the chance for normal people like Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya to get great success but also an opportunity for brands both in China and overseas to take a lead over competitors.

GMA is an expert in the Chinese market and Chinese digital marketing since 2012. We have worked with many big or small companies from around the world to make their entry into the Chinese market.

Whether it’s about social e-commerce, branding in China, or other services, and no matter what is your budget, we can always work out a cost-efficient strategy for your successful business in China.