Social commerce taking larger share of China’s online retail sales as coronavirus pandemic accelerates ‘shoppertainment’

Social commerce sales in China will make up 11.6 per cent of total retail e-commerce sales in 2020 with nearly one-third of mainland Chinese becoming social buyers this year despite weaker consumption sentiment and slower economic growth amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Retail social commerce sales in the country will grow to US$242.41 billion this year and the number of social buyers is expected to reach 357.2 million, according to a report published on Thursday by research firm eMarketer.

“Covid-19 has negatively impacted all economic activity in China, including social commerce, which is why growth in 2020 is half of what it was in 2019,” eMarketer analyst Nazmul Islam said in the report. “The pandemic will be a bump in the road, but social commerce will continue to adapt and grow in China.”

With lockdown and quarantine measures having been imposed across the country to contain the spread of the virus, the pandemic became the catalyst for a major shift to online activities, ranging from remote working and online education to grocery purchasing. As part of that, social commerce – especially live streaming – has become a hot trend with traditional industries, and even tech tycoons, tapping into the new sales channel.

On Thursday Ding Lei, founder and chief executive of Chinese gaming giant NetEase, generated 72 million yuan (US$10.2 million) in sales that included lifestyle products on the company’s separate Yanxuan e-commerce platform, after a four-hour live streaming debut hosted on short video platform Kuaishou.

Gree Electric Appliances chairwoman Dong Mingzhu, known as China’s “home appliances queen”, sold 310 million yuan of goods in a three-hour live streaming event on Kuaishou last month.