So Luo Yonghao, dubbed the most unfortunate entrepreneur in China, announced that he would go into live streaming.
So last night (Wed 1 Apr), he did his first show on Douyin, Chinese version of Tik Tok run by ByteDance.
His opening: “if you are here to listen to a standup comedy, you can leave now; we are here to sell goods.”
He went on to sell pens, ice cream, crayfish, Xiaomi phones etc. Over the three hours, the sales reached CNY110 million ((U$15.5 million), according to released numbers (which you can choose to believe or not).
The cumulative viewership reached 48 million – which is good for Douyin’s nascent live streaming ecommerce business.
Allegedly to secure a slot in his show, each brand has to pay CNY 600,000 (US$84.6k) slotting fee. So for 20 slots the fee income already reached CNY1.69 million.
Comments were overflowing – while a few accused him of abandoning his dream, more are supportive, saying that he needs to make money to pay back debt accumulated from previous failed ventures.
Compared to many other live streaming celebrities, he gave the feeling of someone honest, and straightforward. Once he read the brand wrongly (went with competitor brand), he declared self punishment by leaving the room for a short while, making his assistant bewildered and having to publicise the goods alone.
He also shaved his goatee while promoting Gillette shavers.
Also note that Xiaomi was his major competitor when he was doing smart phones.
Regardless of how Luo did, or whether he will continue to do live streaming, this attempt by Bytedance to enter ecommerce live streaming is successful.
Their continuous push in this area will make them a noticeable competitor to Taobao Live and Pinduoduo.
