Sandy Friesen makes handmade leather purses in Connecticut. But one of her top customer bases is China.
Friesen’s company, Welden, is one of many fashion-related companies dipping into the Chinese live-stream market, where companies all over the world broadcast their wares to massive audiences.
In China, some 500m people watch live-streaming on channels owned by companies like Alibaba. These programs are based around sales, and they’re hosted by online and IRL celebs.
Welden’s VP of sales joined a fashion influencer on a live-stream on Black Friday, and thousands of viewers asked questions in real time. In the next 2 days, Welden made $350k — and now, the company sells 20% of its bags from Chinese live-streams.
Most of the live-stream shoppers are women between the ages of 18 and 35. Amazon has tried to launch copycat live-stream services, but so far it hasn’t matched the success of the biggest Chinese live-stream channels, such as Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace.
Taobao Marketplace makes $15B in sales volume, and some of the top companies selling products make up to $400m.