INTIME’s Sales Associate Livestreaming Program Paying Off Big Time
Over the summer we wrote about Chinese department store INTIME (银泰百货) who had begun collaborating with Alibaba last April to launch the “淘柜姐” or “Tao Saleswoman” plan, in which INTIME sales associates are invited and trained to be live streamers on Taobao.
While this was always a smart move, it’s really paying off now. During this coronavirus period many offline retailers are suffering, but INTIME’s sales associates are busy live streaming from their homes. Some are driving sales, but many of them are using this period as a chance to maintain and develop relationships with both old and new customers, and drive them to visit the offline store once the virus period has passed. Some sales associates featured in the article said viewers have been much more engaged and talkative during this period.
Other than live streaming, sales associates are making use of all the extra time to reach out to old leads, for example one sales associate listed out all her leads that had tried products but did not purchase, then she reached out to each of them one by one and shared Spring Festival discounts, and was able to successfully drive sales among those more price sensitive consumers.
Read more:“无接触购物”火了！银泰“云柜姐”每天三件事：吃饭、睡觉、做直播
Real Estate Agents, Auto Dealerships, Catering, Nightclubs and Even Bookstores are Live Streaming
INTIME is not the only offline retailer using livestreaming, under the current circumstances everyone is getting on the bandwagon…
Livestreaming + Real estate
In January, the number of active buyers in the market was down 27.7% in 1st tier cities, 27.4% in 2nd tier cities, and 19.2% in 3rd and 4th tier cities. Among 1st tier cities, Shanghai and Shenzhen are being affected the most.
Real estate agents have turned to livestreaming. In addition to introducing properties, many are offering discounts for viewers. Can they actually convert though? In one example, the agent’s stream had 80k viewers, among them, 984 people interacted with the live streamer, 75 people clicked to get coupons, 8 people added the agent’s WeChat, and in the end, 1 property was sold.
Livestreaming + Auto Dealerships
BMW live streamed on both its Jingdong and Tmall flagship stores from February 10 to February 16. The livestreaming included introductions of different cars, Q&A and lucky draw. Besides introducing cars, BMW also added many peripheral products with prices ranging from 10 -10,000 RMB.
Livestreaming + Catering
During this period, many restaurants do not offer dine-in service, and are doing takeout only. Some have started livestreaming, introducing their cooking process, showing the store environment and sanitary conditions, and how they are packaging the food.
Livestreaming + Nightclubs
On February 8, a Shanghai nightclub TAXX livestreamed its DJ doing DJing. Within 4 hours, it received over 700k RMB in virtual tips (dashang 打赏) from viewers. On February 9, another famous nightclub called ONE THIRD live streamed. Over the course of the evening, there were more than 1.21 million viewers, and it received 1.93 million RMB in tips.
Livestreaming + Bookstores
Even bookstores are getting involved in this trend, livestreaming about book classification and sharing techniques for how to find a book in a bookstore quickly. Hmn, this one may be a bit of a stretch…..
Read more: 疫情“禁足”期，万物皆可“播”：云蹦迪、线上售楼处、直播逛书店、直播卖餐…
Xiaohongshu Offers Commerce Livestreaming to Select Brands
On February 11, Xiaohongshu announced that it would enable a small group of brand accounts to access the livestreaming function as well as give them traffic support. This is noteworthy because in late 2019 Xiaohongshu announced it would be launching commerce livestreaming in early 2020, however it seemed the feature would just be for KOLs, meaning brands would have to collaborate with KOLs in order to stream. Now if they are able to stream through brand accounts they can have more control over the content and stream more often.
Xiaohongshu has said it aims to focus on several types of live streaming content such as online lessons, fitness classes, online shopping, product presentation, and knowledge sharing. Accounts featuring these types of contents might get more traffic support.
Read more: 小红书直播再升级：企业号直播来了
China Marketing Podcast Episode 62: The Secrets Behind a Fast-Growing Chinese Brand
I am fascinated by the rise of Chinese domestic brands so recording this episode was so much fun for me. Listening to Mia Wang introduces MAIA ACTIVE’s product design process, their community engagement strategies, the way they constantly gather and use consumer insights, and how they are handling the current coronavirus made it SO CLEAR why brand new domestic brands are rapidly becoming formidable competitors to well-established global brands.
This episode is definitely a must-listen, particularly for budget-strapped brands just entering the China market.
China Marketing Podcast Episode 63: How to build and retain a Chinese team with Elisa Harca, CEO of Red Ant Asia
This episode’s guest is Elisa Harca, the CEO and co-founder of Red Ant Asia, a China marketing agency in Shanghai and Hong Kong, founded in 2012. It works with lifestyle and luxury brands such as Lush, Charlotte Tilbury, Lane Crawford, Birkenstock, and more.
For the past eight years, Elisa has led an entirely Chinese team, and she has many employees who have been with the company for five to seven years. As anyone who has worked in the communications industry in China knows, this is quite impressive, as many people tend to hop around and change positions every one to two years.
In this interview, she shares some of the biggest lessons she’s learned about leading a Chinese team, mistakes she has made or frequently sees other foreigners make when building a team of Chinese employees, and her top tips for finding and retaining high-quality Chinese talent. Elisa also shares how her company is handling the coronavirus and managing a remote workforce.
“18th Tier Female Live Streamer” (十八线女主播)
With the government ordering students to learn from home, over 200 million primary through senior high school teachers are live streaming classes, leading to the emergence of a new phrase “十八线女主播” or “18th tier female live streamers”. In this context, 18th tier means their level of fame, (similar to the idea of A-list or B-list celebs) essentially that they have no fame at all.
This phrase has become popular because of all the drama happening during these online classes. The first obstacle is the complicated design of live streaming platforms. Some of the teachers aren’t technically savvy, for example some teachers forget to turn on the sound, and because they turned their mobile phone to silent, they don’t pick up the calls from their students telling them to turn the sound on and don’t realize students can’t hear them. Some teachers enjoy teaching so much, and there is no bell ringing reminding them to stop, so they just keep talking long after the class is over.
And of course, students are torturing the poor teachers choosing all sorts of funny account names, for example in one class, there were 5 students with the screenname “Jackson Yee’s (易烊千玺) wife”, which of course makes it really hard for teachers to call on students.
And then there have been content issues. On live streaming platforms, there are restrictions against sexual content and biology and nursing teachers have been having their accounts blocked mid-class.
Read more: 直播第一天，她就被封号了！
