Although online shopping has been around for some years, it became mainstream recently due to the pandemic outbreak. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers around the country have been sheltering in their respective places for months and taking most of their shopping online. The changing of consumers’ behaviour has greatly benefited those who intended to do online business.

With the aim to educate and provide knowledge on how to start an e-commerce business using short video and live broadcasting, UTAR Division of Community and International Networking (DCInterNet) in collaboration with Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College (YWICC) from China successfully organised a Mandarin webinar titled “E-commerce Entrepreneurship with Short Video and Live Streaming (抓住直播红利实现 ‘短视频+直播’就业创业)” on 9 March 2021 via ZOOM.

Moderated by DCInterNet Deputy Dean Dr Chen, I-Chi, the two-hour insightful webinar was delivered by YWICC Enterprise lecturer Luo Yonghong. Having been an e-commerce entrepreneur for years, Luo was involved in many online business projects. In the year 2020, she became a mentor, teaching how to do live streaming e-commerce.

Among the topics covered during the session included “The Development status as well as the trend of short video and live streaming e-commerce”; “The situation and trend of university students in their employment and entrepreneurship”; “The production process and ideas of making a short video” and “The procedures and operation skills in selling products through live streaming”.

Luo started her presentation by sharing many successful examples of social media influencers from China who do live streaming e-commerce. Among the famous social media influencers, Luo took Austin Li (李佳琦)as one of the examples.

According to Luo, Austin Li is a very famous full-time live streamer for Taobao. He is the most famous lipstick seller who sold more than 10,000 lipstick within 15 minutes through live streaming. “You do not need to become a celebrity to start your live streaming e-commerce. Austin Li did not come from a distinguished family background. He was the son of a farmer, but he was able to become one of the most famous social influencers by his own,” Luo said.

She added, “In China, most of the company owners sell products using live broadcasting. They do not rely on anyone but themselves to promote their respective companies’ products. Some of them even hire a team to do image packaging on social media like Tiktok and Wechat.”

Luo also introduced the advantages of promoting products through live streaming. She explained, “Live streaming provides the best form of interaction with consumers. Besides, it is also the best way to enhance consumers’ loyalty. By doing live streaming, you are able to provide customer service while promoting your products.”

Speaking of some procedures in promoting and selling products through live streaming, Luo advised, “First of all, you need to register an account on the social media that you wish to sell your products. Then you need to sit down and write a proposal on how to promote your product, as well as how to do branding for your social media profile. After that, you have to write some articles that will be able to attract consumers and attach them with the video clips you have made. Those steps above aim to increase the traffic to your business account. After you have gained some online traffic to your business account, you can start to do your live streaming.”

Before ending the webinar, Luo encouraged students to utilise two mobile phones if they wished to do live streaming e-commerce. “One mobile phone is to respond to the customer, while the other is used for recording purpose yourself. For lighting, you should find some appliances on the online platform. Basically, as long as the background is bright, you do not need to buy extra tools for your first try.”

“If possible, try to post once each day. If you cannot do that, at least post some articles or upload a short video once in three days. In total, you have to do at least 15 posting on your social media account if you want to increase the online traffic to sustain your live streaming business,” said Luo. 

The webinar then wrapped up with an interactive Q&A session followed by a group photo session. It was attended by more than 110 participants.