Auto salesman Wang Haitao introduces customers to a car through livestreaming in Shenyang, Northeast China? Liaoning Province on Monday. Photo: Courtesy of Wang Haitao

"What size you should buy depends on the height of your child," Han Xueying, a children's wear seller, tells a customer via livestreaming.

Han, who owns 13 children's wear retail stores in several cities across Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, normally opens her stores to welcome customers, but now she has to turn to livestreaming rooms on short video platform Kuaishou - a Tik Tok rival in China.

Moving online

Few customers realize that Han, who closed all her offline stores amid the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) outbreak, was facing bankruptcy with severe revenue decline, which has forced her to move online to save her business.

"After the Spring Festival, all my 13 stores remained closed due to the epidemic, during which time there was no revenue but costs such as rent continued," Han told the Global Times. "If the situation goes on until the end of March, I would have been broke [if I continued to have no income]."

But the situation improved as she started selling products through livestreaming - a new online sales model that allows sellers to chat with customers and sell products in a streaming room. The sales model has become popular in China since 2019.

"Since January 28, my average daily sales through livestreaming have been more than 10,000 yuan ($1,430), and sometimes they reach 30,000 to 40,000 yuan," said Han, who has about 118,000 followers on her Kuaishou account.

Han was not the only retailer to turn to this new model as the epidemic has brought serious economic losses, hitting many industries including hotels, sales and logistics. According to official data released on Monday, China's retail sales from January to February plunged 20.5 percent to 5,213 billion yuan ($744 billion).

A Kuaishou employee told the Global Times that "as China is gradually resuming business operations nationwide, some small businesses may still face challenges such as low customer flows, but the livestreaming model could use its natural advantages such as vast online traffic and resources to help those small businesses increase sales."

People from many sectors including the auto industry are now aiming to adopt this online sales model.

China's car sales have been declining over the last two years. According to official data, 25.77 million cars were sold in 2019, down 9.6 percent year-on-year.

The epidemic has cast another cloud over the car market as many auto shows have been cancelled due to fears over the spread of COVID-19. Under this situation, many car makers and dealers are also choosing to embrace livestreaming.

Chinese carmaker Chery chose the Kuaishou streaming platform to release its new cars on March 9. Following four livestreaming shows, the company has received nearly 7,000 sales inquiries. 

A screenshot of Wang Haitao's Kuaishou home page

Wang Haitao, a Kuaishou user who also sells cars on the platform, told the Global Times that since the COVID-19 outbreak, he has mainly focused on online streaming and has so far sold more than 20 cars.

Livestreaming boom

As people flocked to livestreaming rooms, China's technology firms including e-commerce companies like Alibaba and JD and short video platform Kuaishou have been racing to expand their livestreaming branches. 

The number of users is expected to hit 524 million in China this year and hit a 900 billion yuan estimated market size, the People's Daily reported, citing data from iiMedia Research.

According to data released by Taobao, an online sales platform under Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, the number of new registered livestreaming stores saw a month-on-month increase of 719 percent in February, with about 30,000 stores registering daily.

According to Kuaishou's data, there are so far over 1 million registered livestreaming sales accounts on its platform, of which more than 60 percent are commercial accounts. It expects to see 10,000 new registered accounts daily.

The Kuaishou employee said that compared with normal online sales, customers can get more information through streaming as it is live and more similar to people-to-people exchange. 

"Kuaishou will continue to use its platform to help brands and businesses minimize their losses and find opportunities online," she said.

"Livestreaming could help build trust between us and customers. Many of my clients have come to me after watching online, and I can see their names. It's like a reunion of old friends," Wang said. "I like this sales model. After the epidemic I will continue to focus on living-streaming sales."

"I have now built a team to operate my streaming room and logistics. Almost every order can be shipped in two days," said Han, adding that she is planning to shift her focus from offline stores to online streaming.

"After operations fully resume, I plan to scale down my stores from 13 to 6, and then to 7, and shift my original team to the e-commerce sector," she said.