Singles Day sales to get tremendous lift from livestream events, as U.S. retailers play catch-up

alibaba also worked to make live commerce a key highlight of singles' day. sellers were incentivized to participate: livestreaming merchants reaped traffic. alibaba also invested in a spate of promo events, like livestreaming the annual gala and eight-hour fashion show.

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

“A major trend going forward will be elevated livestream experiences,” said Alibaba Group Vice President Yu Feng, who oversees content e-commerce at Taobao. “More and more consumers have adopted livestreaming as a way to shop. It has become an irreversible trend and, at the same time, an increasingly competitive space.”

Already the norm in Asia, Coresight Research predicts that the livestream shopping market is poised to reach $6 billion this year and $25 billion by 2023. In the social media space, Facebook, TikTok and Google-owned YouTube are turning to e-commerce and affiliate marketing as another means of monetizing content creators, whose videos garner hundred... See more