For years, Chinese e-commerce exporters have been educating customers around the world about inside and out ad placements on Facebook, Instagraph and other major social media platforms. But recently they found a new approach that never felt more familiar to capture people's attention.
Influencers for video
Currently, video shopping in China is all rage. Short video apps like Douyin — Chinese sister of TikTok — have been making efforts to align merchants with promotional content creators.
Millions of consumers rely on live videos to scrutinize products and ask merchants remotely during the coronaviral lock-down, a practice that received local governments support to boost domestic consumption. More than four million live shopping sessions were held in China in Q1 only this year.
Brands and video creators in other parts of the world, particularly influencers with significant consequences, also ply. The early potential of the collaboration has also been recognized by some American entrepreneurs. Amazon launched Amazon Live last year, a few years after its Chinese counterparts.
Now Alibaba, a pioneer of shopping videos in China, is aiming to draw and train foreign influencers – so that AliExpress can sell more all over the world. The site is one of Alibaba 's largest consumers markets with a total of 180 million engaged customers annually.
Mirand Tan, Chief Executive Operating Officer of Robin8, a data-driven marketing platform, explained: "Chinese manufacturers are still searching for ways to sell.
Some e-commerce exporters based in Shenzhen are actively looking for the marketing of their products along with international content creators, especially influencers from TikTok.
They rely currently on their Chinese staff to produce low-budget promotional videos that often miss important cultural nuances.
All are sellers
AliExpress plans to hire 100 000 "promoters" who will promote AliExpress brands, retailers and other common internet platforms via Twitter , Facebook , Instagram, TikTok etc.
In addition to prominent influencers, the company also provides professional brand managers with access to consumer purchasing networks behind the camera and seasoned marketers.
Martin Wang, head of AliExpress's overseas sales and social exchange co-operation, told TechCrunch that "live shopping still is in his relatively early childhood in the Overseas Consumer Market." "Our initiative will contribute to advancing the overseas ecosystem."
The founder of short-video marketing company Uplab, Fabian Ouwehand, expressed this view. "It is interesting because it is going to push the [outside] industry to innovate on social trade. They seem to be seeking a [through] strategy that can turn each user into a seller — a key customer in the West.
In order for the team to find promotional tasks, the "Connect" matching system has been developed to support its creation processes. AliExpress has just added the feature and announced the recruitment program in April during live sale in China since 2016.
The demand for talent arose when, due to the coronavirus epidemic, millions around the world lost their jobs. No wonder AliExpress takes account of recruitment as one that "will help people recover after COVID-19."
"Many people are now without money, searching for ways to make money during the outbreak of coronavirus," said Tan, who noticed many people aspiring to be social media product promoters for extra bucks. "Everybody is becoming a company of its own."
Differences of society
The new crop of bilingual international influencers living in China is an obvious target for AliExpress. "All of them have a good image and expressive capacity of international students in China.
They have a flexible schedule at night, so that agencies can contact them, train them as live hosts and sign up for them, "Wang said.
Chinese-language influenciers can act as ideal ambassadors on target markets for sellers, but there is a possible downside.
Wang, referring to the top beauty influencing players known to China for record-breaking sales, said "They may look like Li Jiaqi and Weiya as role model. "But in their home countries what works in China may not work."
On the side of demand, Wang was concerned that Chinese dealers are too familiar with meteoric sales figures produced by influencers in China.
"The overseas [live streaming] market has not matured, so it's up to us to handle [sellers' and content creators'] demands on both sides." "
Most AliExpress sellers are of course from China, a manufacturing business worldwide, and Russia is its largest revenue market.
The platform worked to boost its inventory by opening up sellers last year in Turkey, Russia, Spain and Italy. Russia, for example, is a large market for Turkish merchants from AliExpress.
The expansion provides the Chinese company with an even greater challenge to cope with variations in market conditions and customer behavior across regions.
