Alibaba Fuses Digital Stores with Livestreaming

In fashion livestreams, viewers can use chat to ask influencers questions about sizing, request close-ups of fabrics, or discuss what accessories would look good with each outfit. Platforms can further enhances this experience by adding features such as bulletins announcing product lotteries when the stream reaches a certain number of likes, or an ... See more

To allow even more businesses to make use of its resources, Taobao Live said that its strategy for 2020 will include training to help more than 10,000 in-store staff become effective livestream hosts.

As offline modes of operations became disrupted by the Covid-19 disease, Taobao Live offered businesses a lifeline to reach vast audiences, including the more than 800 million monthly active users that visit Alibaba’s e-commerce sites. In February, Taobao Live removed barriers and waived service fees for brick-and-mortar merchants to join its platf... See more

Use of the online video platform continued to surge in recent months as brands and merchants impacted by Covid-19, including mall operator Intime and furniture retailer Easyhome, increasingly turned to livestreaming to resume operations.

Platforms like Taobao, owned by Alibaba, and WeChat function as both hybrids of social media and eCommerce platforms, essentially offering users a plethora of services from microblogging, messaging and online shopping, all in one experience. This interconnected economy of services means that live stream shopping is simply an extension of the existi... See more

Livestreaming as a medium is a conflation of a product as well as as a distribution channel. It exists on a spectrum of being pure entertainment on one-side and a new go-to-market strategies on the other, with different kinds of monetisation models for each side. While western startups have centred around the 'livestreaming as product' theme, China... See more