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Chinese top influencer Austin Li Jiaqi’s absence imperils live-streaming campaigns of Taobao, various brands for 618 festival
- The situation shows the fragility of live-streaming e-commerce programmes built around popular online influencers
- The stakes are high for Taobao to make up for lost sales from this debacle involving Li, the country’s top live-streaming e-commerce star
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The sudden disappearance of Austin Li Jiaqi, China’s “Lipstick King”, from his highly anticipated online shows may imperil the live-streaming sales campaign of Taobao Marketplace in the middle of the country’s annual 618 shopping festival.
Li, who has more than 64 million followers, was a no-show at a scheduled sales session on Sunday for Taobao Live, the live-streaming platform for merchants on Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao. Earlier last Friday, Li’s live-streamed show on the same platform abruptly stopped its feed just past 9pm – the prime time for sales on the mainland – to leave millions of fans watching online clueless about what happened.
The situation reflects the fragility of Chinese live-streaming e-commerce programmes centred around popular online influencers, according to marketing professionals. Li’s nickname came after he sold 15 million tubes of lipsticks in just five minutes on Taobao.
“His absence will be disadvantageous to brands that aimed to boost sales during the promotional period [of this year’s 618 shopping festival],” said Miro Li, founder of marketing consultancy Double V.
Taobao did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Like Taobao, the South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba.
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