Fun-filled e-commerce boosts consumption

Internet celebrities: Content creators are increasingly making money by promoting products through live-streaming. — China Daily/ANN

ON Nov 6, 2018, Chen Weijie, 30, an online celebrity based in Meizhou village, Guangdong province, South China, sold 160 million yuan’s (RM95mil) worth of products during an eight-hour live-streaming session on Kuaishou, a short video platform. The marathon online sale was almost non-stop, except for short breaks to drink water or answer calls of nature.

Welcome to China’s online world of short videos that is fast morphing into content-driven e-commerce. Here, people such as Chen sell 30,000 toothpastes within one minute, or nearly 100,000 pieces of thermal underwear in about 10 minutes, or 10,000 Xiaomi smartphones during a live-streaming session.