Chinese e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu to jump on ‘shoppertainment’ trend with live-streaming
- Xiaohongshu will launch live-streaming features early next year to better engage with consumers
- Live-streaming is part of the growing “shoppertainment” trend in China’s e-commerce industry, where platforms meld entertainment and shopping
Chinese social commerce platform Xiaohongshu will launch live-streaming features early next year, the latest in a stream of e-commerce sites that have implemented the feature as a way to better engage with consumers.
Xiaohongshu – also known as Red – aims to help over 100,000 content creators on its platforms gain more than 10,000 followers in the coming year, said Xiaohongshu community director Ke Nan at the conference. The live-streaming feature will first be rolled out as a test feature before an official launch next year.
E-commerce live-streaming has taken off in China, with merchants using the medium as a way to show off their wares and directly interact with consumers. During this year’s Singles’ Day festival, Alibaba’s Taobao Live raked in 20 billion yuan (US$2.85 billion) worth of transactions within the 24-hour period. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
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Another popular e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, the third largest e-commerce platform behind Alibaba and JD.com, debuted its first live-streaming session late last month in a signal that the company could also be adding the feature to the platform soon as a way to drive growth.
The e-commerce live-streaming trend, which originated in China, has also found its way to markets overseas. In Southeast Asia, e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada also offer the feature.
However, this shopping trend has yet to take off in markets like the US, where live-streaming – mainly on social platforms like Facebook Live or Twitch – tends to be used primarily for functions like communication, gaming or entertainment rather than e-commerce.
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