CHINA - If QVC was born today, it would look something like this: retail app ShopShops hosts livestream shopping events from brick and mortar US fashion outlets for Chinese shoppers. Founder Liyia Wu showcases various items, while her assistants respond to customers’ questions about sizing and material on the livestream. Orders are then placed on Taobao and shipped to the customer direct. As of June 2017, ShopShops had made more than USD 1 million in total sales, with an average of USD 6,000 sales per store event.

Many brands only started thinking about live video when Facebook introduced the feature in 2016. But if you want to see where livestreaming is headed, China is the place to look. About half the country’s 700 million internet users have tried live-streaming apps – that’s more than the entire population of the US! And savvy entrepreneurs are creating all sorts of novel livestreaming experiences to keep viewers engaged. So, if you’re in retail (or indeed deal in any form of tangible experiences), could this be the startup that inspires you to think about how you could excite customers with digital and social ‘live’ experiences?

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