After installation With her lights, cameras and microphones, Lynna Machida sat in front of a shelf full of wigs and makeup in a professional studio in Los Angeles. A message popped up in his feed: “Could you try number seven? and she took the matching wig – made by her Chinese customer – and slipped it over her long, thick hair.
Machida is an aspiring actor, but gigs have dried up during the pandemic. Then, in mid-2022, she was approached by Dance Art, a multi-channel network (MCN) that hires influencers to sell products on the TikTok and Amazon platforms. Since then, she has sold everything from cosmetics to charging cables. During Amazon Prime Day in July, she participated in an eight-hour marathon session selling electrical appliances.
The success of live streaming is all about creating a relationship with the audience, says Machida. His interactions with his viewers must be spontaneous and authentic. “Because they see me enjoying my moment, putting the wig on and then I have to adjust it, they think it’s real,” she says.
American social media is full of people selling things: TikTok influencers selling their own branded products and Instagrammers pushing their followers towards sponsored links. But true live e-commerce of the type pioneered by Chinese retail giants – not unlike old-fashioned TV sales, where a host sells products live over the Internet, softening the deal with discounts and promotions – never really reached critical mass in the United States. . Now, attracted by the scale of activity in China, companies like Amazon, YouTube, Shopify and TikTok have invested heavily in live sales. But they are struggling to gain ground. Facebook and Instagram have already bowed out. And Chinese experts say the U.S. market may simply not be ready for live e-commerce.
“I haven’t seen a single success story,” says Marina Jiang, a cross-border e-commerce expert and founder of The Unoeuf Creative Consulting, a social marketing agency. “If there is proof of concept in the United States, I would be willing to try it myself. »
Live streaming – without the sale – has been a huge phenomenon in China for a decade. As of June 2016, 325 million people, or 46% of all Internet users in China, regularly watched live broadcasts, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a government agency. That year, companies began integrating sales channels into their live streaming offerings, and vice versa, led by fashion retailer Mogujie and Taobao, the country’s largest e-tailer, which launched their services in March and April 2016 respectively.
