Singles Day - breaking down the live-streaming room door

China’s Singles Day is said to be the world’s largest online shopping festival, and with similar “traditional” events dropping every couple of months, have the top live streamers got too much control over what we buy?

Austin Li. Photo from CFP

Austin Li. Photo from CFP

By ZHOU Fangying

 

November 11, Singles Day rolls around again, China’s online retailers are ready with another batch of promotions, reductions, clanging gongs and blaring trumpets. According to consulting firm Bain & Company, around 40 percent of customers say they expect to spend more this Singles Day than last.

On previous Singles Days, retailers have struggled to cope. There are more problems than you can shake a stick at, problems with stock, problems with prices, gifts, publicity, etc. And this year, it’s even more complicated and confusing than ever. The entire event now stretches over weeks with at least two pre-sale events and various new-fangled ideas to convince regular shoppers that they have found the bargain of a lifetime.

Customers’ desires and needs are constantly massaged, stimulated and inflated. Sellers struggle to cope in the iron fists of their heavenly hosts – Taobao, Tmall, Pinduoduo, et al – and are forced to balance, speculate and calculate as never before.

This year promises to be the best ever, as companies feel the need to catch up with “lost” sales during the pandemic panic in the first half of the year. It is difficult to find a merchant who is not flailing about wildly to crest the rising Taobao tide of consumerism.

Viya and Austin Li: the only shows in town

"This year's Singles Day is not about whether the preparation is tough or not, but about one thing and one thing only: Is the product in the live-streaming room?" said ZHENG Yongqiang of makeup brand XWAY. “You can't succeed without Viya or Austin Li."

XWAY is a new makeup brand with only seven products. This Singles Day is their first big investment in live streaming and Zheng’s words are typical of the marketplace

Last year, customers were driven by promotional streams on Tmall and Taobao's homepages. Getting on the homepage meant surviving a trial by ferocious algorithms. This year, get in the live-streaming room is the priority. The most influential anchors such as Li and Viya hold the power of life or death over the brands clamoring at their live-streaming room door.

As a general rule, the most influential live streamers have the best bargains, or at least that is how the story goes.

As Tmall pre-sale events officially started on October 21, most of the best-known live streamers had been on air for hours. According to Tmall’s own figures, sales passed last year's whole-day sales after only 10 minutes. Viya and Li dominated with 149 million and 162 million cumulative views, and combined sales close to 8 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion).

This success lies in the products they are pushing. Between them, they have cornered the quality end of the market, both in international and domestic brands, with guaranteed best prices. So it’s not difficult to understand Zheng’s obsessiveness with the two.

Get in there!

Even if Viya or Li decided to handle your product, it does not mean your e-commerce dreams have all come true.

"Most brands are not even given a date or time when their products will be on the show. Our role is to shut up and cooperate," said WU Gangbin of skin-care brand AMIRO.

On the evening of October 20, Li and Viya each recommended more than 100 products. Some products only got around one minute.

But brands want to fight hard for that one minute. They no longer think about whether they want to get into the live-streaming room or not; the focus is all on how to get in there.

This means pandering to the whims and vagaries of the two super-anchors. They have the final say. There are, of course, many ways of convincing them to cooperate that extend well beyond simply having a good product at a fair price that people might want to buy.

According to Zheng, participating in the shopping festival is somehow like buying XWAY a live-streaming lottery ticket. Hidden dangers lurk in every corner of the room. Not all products are suitable for live-streaming. Lip gloss and makeup remover with instantaneous visual impact do better than products such as foundation, which has high customer loyalty. 

Touched by the presence of greatness

Brands are becoming understandably cautious. A good showing on Singles Day costs a lot. XWAY works with many live-streaming agencies, and if one anchor fails to generate the expected sales, another may do better.

Different platforms will also bring different benefits. In addition to Taobao, XWAY is live streaming on Douyin.

“Douyin is more eager to work with new brands like XWAY,” Zheng said. Sales by some of Douyin's anchors are better than many of Taobao’s. Moreover, Douyin anchors are not laboring under the same burden of self-importance as Tmall’s top names and it is easier for brands to reach acceptable agreements with them.

Even if your product makes it to live-streaming, the standard process certainly does not guarantee success. At the end of the day, or at least in the evening of the day, only the chosen few will ever be blessed by Li and Viya’s charming touch.