---
title: "How Hot Was Livestream E-commerce in the First Half of 2020?"
description: "Livestream e-commerce has become a major traffic source for both platforms and brands. Consumer habits have formed, with 2.65 billion users engaging in livestream shopping as of March 2020. Platforms like Taobao, Kuaishou, and Douyin are competing fiercely, but challenges remain in regulation, cost-effectiveness, and the sustainability of top influencers."
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published: "2020-07-23"
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# How Hot Was Livestream E-commerce in the First Half of 2020?

> Livestream e-commerce has become a major traffic source for both platforms and brands. Consumer habits have formed, with 2.65 billion users engaging in livestream shopping as of March 2020. Platforms like Taobao, Kuaishou, and Douyin are competing fiercely, but challenges remain in regulation, cost-effectiveness, and the sustainability of top influencers.

**Click to read the original article for details**
If there is a business buzzword for the first half of this year, livestream e-commerce is definitely one of them. Livestream e-commerce has become an important traffic source for both platform operators and brand owners.

**-01-**
**How hot is livestream e-commerce?**
In the first half of the year, Luo Yonghao's livestream sales debut exceeded 100 million yuan, and Viya's livestream sale of a rocket became a hot topic. Livestream sales are truly hot, with e-commerce platforms entering the fray one after another, and livestream hosts attracting more attention than the collective shows of various celebrities.

**More importantly, judging by the consumption heat in the first half of the year, consumers' shopping habits for livestream e-commerce have already formed.**

According to the 45th China Internet Network Development Statistics Report by CNNIC, as of March 2020, the number of e-commerce livestream users reached 265 million, accounting for 29.3% of all netizens. At the same time, shopping has become the main consumption method for livestream users, with 51.6% of users clicking on third-party e-commerce platforms to shop, and 48.0% purchasing products through built-in e-commerce on platforms. The embedded livestream function on products has shifted users' consumption habits from "tipping hosts" to shopping.

Earlier, the China Consumers Association's livestream e-commerce shopping report stated:
More than half of consumers shop at least once a month. The likelihood of trying shopping after watching livestreams is gradually increasing. Over half of the surveyed consumers said they have semi-defined shopping goals during livestream shopping, locking onto targets through a "browse + search" approach.

**In our view, livestream is becoming an increasingly important traffic entrance, and consumer habits have already been formed.** After carefully examining the data, we found that this is not just superficial prosperity; consumer shopping habits are indeed changing.

**-02-**
**Platform Competition**
Currently, in this track, Taobao Livestream, Douyin Livestream, and Kuaishou Livestream are relatively ahead. Survey data shows that 68.5% of consumers use Taobao Livestream. JD.com and Pinduoduo are also making significant efforts.

Let's compare the emphasis of several major platforms: Taobao, Kuaishou, and Douyin.

**1. Taobao**
At the 2020 Taobao Livestream Ceremony, Xuande, General Manager of Taobao Livestream, announced the performance of Taobao Livestream over the past year, calling 2019 a year of rapid development for Taobao Livestream.

Data shows that in 2019, Taobao Livestream's GMV exceeded 200 billion yuan, and on Double 11 alone, livestream GMV exceeded 20 billion yuan. This year on 618, Taobao announced that livestream-guided transactions increased by 250%. We have learned that its goal is to break 500 billion yuan in GMV within 3 years.

**2. Kuaishou**
Earlier, Kuaishou Big Data Research Institute released the "2020 Kuaishou Content Ecology Semi-Annual Report." The report shows that from July 2019 to June 2020, 300 million users published works on Kuaishou. In December last year, Kuaishou announced that its livestream daily active users exceeded 100 million, and this figure has now been updated to 170 million. "Product sales and recommendations" ranked first in Kuaishou's livestream types in the first half of the year.

Kuaishou's top host, Xinba, restarted his sales livestream in June, ultimately achieving sales exceeding 1.25 billion yuan, with total sales volume exceeding 9.1 million items.

**3. Douyin**
Douyin's livestream e-commerce started relatively late. It was not until April this year that Luo Yonghao took the lead in his livestream debut. Luo Yonghao's three-hour livestream attracted 48 million cumulative viewers and generated over 110 million yuan in payment transactions, setting a new record for Douyin's livestream sales.

It is reported that Douyin E-commerce's GMV target for 2020 is 200 billion yuan. However, some media have recently counted that Luo Yonghao's Douyin sales curve has been continuously declining over 100 days. This also brings new challenges to Douyin.

The geographical distribution of hosts on the three major platforms—Taobao Livestream, Douyin, and Kuaishou—is relatively concentrated, with a "south Douyin, north Kuaishou" characteristic, and the competition for top influencers between platforms is also evident.

Top 50 Livestream E-commerce Hosts in the First Half of 2020

**-03-**
**Some Thoughts**
"Retail Business Review" believes that the essence of livestream e-commerce is still the traffic economy. But as the livestream e-commerce trend rapidly expands, we need to think calmly about the long-term development of this path.

**1. The red line of excessive promotion.** Recently, the China Consumers Association disclosed that 37.3% of consumers have encountered problems during livestream shopping. Exaggerated and false advertising by brands will be the red line for this track.

**2. Cost-effectiveness is a high threshold.** Consumers watch livestreams more to pay for cost-effectiveness. The primary reason for converting from watching livestreams to shopping is the high cost-effectiveness of products (60.1%).

**3. The battle for time.** Livestream sales utilize consumers' fragmented time, but consumers are selective and naturally have viewing preferences for their favorite influencers. Only influencers who can truly and continuously win consumers' "time" are more valuable.

**4. Top influencers are powerful, but those below the waist are struggling.** Top influencers are irreplaceable, and platforms tend to tilt traffic toward them. It is relatively difficult for those at the waist and below to get a share. It is recommended to pursue a dual-track approach of public domain + private domain traffic. Merchants mobilizing all employees to livestream sales may yield surprising results in the early stage.

We believe that **livestream e-commerce should grow healthily and should not just blindly pursue GMV figures that often exceed 100 million yuan**, of course, there is also a lot of water in these numbers. So the real focus should be on bringing sales conversion for merchants, not just becoming a marketing tool.

Source: Retail Business Review (ID: lssync) Author: Retail Business Review


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