Kitsch parody of a 1960s home shopping vendor -

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  • Live shopping is an e-commerce technique that appeared in China a few years ago and which has emerged in France since the first confinement, according to our partner L'ADN.

  • Invented by the Chinese site AliExpress, the format is now used by French brands such as Fnac-Darty, Nocibé or Boulanger.

  • Some live shopping vendors have become stars and generate millions for each of their services.

Hannah, a young woman in her twenties, praises the merits of a milk frother.

“It is very light, very practical,” she explains before plugging in the device.

The scene does not take place on TF1 on a Tuesday morning in 1992, but on the AliExpress site in 2021. It is a live shopping, an e-commerce technique born in China a few years ago, which emerges in France since the first confinement.

The old recipes of tele-shopping or market hawkers are revisited there.

The goal is to entertain, but above all to make people buy, and quickly.

For an hour or more, a “live seller” presents 6 to 7 products.

Kitchen utensils, selfie sticks, high-tech gadgets, fashion accessories, backpacks… All come from the AliExpress site and are generally made by Chinese companies.

Obviously, a direct link to the product sheet is integrated into the video.

As with teleshopping, promotional codes are given to spectators who watch the live to encourage them to proceed to checkout quickly.

They can also ask questions of the host and make comments throughout the live.

To export this sales format - today essential in China - AliExpress has hired around twenty live sellers since May in France.

The site intends to recruit ten more each month.

Superstar sellers in China

In China, among the approximately 10 million live sellers, some have become national stars.

Like Li Jiaqi, a very expressive lipstick tester with 30 million subscribers.

He punctuates his make-up tests with “Oh, my God!

"And others" Buy it!

»During lives that last for hours.

His record: 125 million euros in sales in a single session.

Watch the video “Li Jiaqi, King of live streamers” (ARTE TV documentary)

Jennifer Friess, a French live seller and young actress, who answered our questions by e-mail (her answers were validated by the communication from AliExpress, editor's note) looks at Li Jiaqi as a model.

For the moment, she does not yet have the aura of the young Chinese seller.

Its two to three weekly sessions collect on average between 800 and 2,000 views.

“In terms of sales, we are between 500 and 3,000 dollars per live,” she estimates.

For all the French live sellers, glory does not yet seem to be there.

By connecting to the AliExpress Live site, we see that the number of simultaneous French live shopping spectators rarely exceeds thirty.

In total AliExpress claims all the same 1.5 million spectators for 3,000 lives since May.

“The important thing is to create a relationship with their community for the moment,” explains Mana Zhou, marketing content manager for AliExpress France.

We recruit live sellers

through

agencies, who watch their ability to sell and be comfortable in front of the camera.

They don't need to be followed on social media already.

They are not influencers, ”she explains.

Our "E-commerce" file

Model / live seller

Volodia Boutineau, a live seller specializing in tech objects, tells us that he earns between 500 and 900 euros per month

through

this activity, which he exercises in parallel with his profession as a model.

“Generally, I host two live streaming sessions per week, each lasting 1 hour, or at least 8 hours per month,” he explains.

AliExpress is not the only one trying to export this sales technique to France.

During the confinement, brands like Fnac-Darty, Nocibé or Boulanger launched their live shopping sessions broadcast on their own site, YouTube or even Twitch.

Some prefer to bet on influencers already known like the cook Cyril Lignac and the youtubers McFly and Carlito, rather than on apprentice live sellers.

For their part, social networks like TikTok and Instagram are also becoming live shopping platforms, integrating more and more purchasing functions.

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The original article was written by Marine Protais and published on the DNA website.

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  • China

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