May I get the total sales of her stream in Sydney? What did Sherry sell?
Yes we were extremely excited to partner with the gorgeous Sherry Xu, with almost 10M followers on the popular Kuaishou platform, she is the Kim Kardashian of live commerce and incredibly good at leveraging this emerging sales channel. We found Sherry and her team to be polite, hard working and very down to earth. Despite achieving enormous success and fame, she was relaxed and easy to work with and we really enjoyed hosting her visit to Sydney, which was balanced with some honeymoon and VIP activities and also brand experiences. We have an independent e-commerce network, VTN, which brings consumers leading health, beauty and wellness products from international brands.
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Her sales result during her Sydney based 12 hour live stream was incredible – $1,257,101 AUD (or almost ￥6,000,000 RMB). That sort of seven figure result is a real wake up call for anyone who is sceptical of live commerce as a genuine opportunity for international brands. Sherry sold a range of hero products from our VTN brand portfolio which included Bee+ Manuka Honey from New Zealand, SRW cellular health and anti-ageing supplements, Vida Glow marine collagen and NatureDay dairy products. Over 20K unique views and 1 million likes were gained during the live streaming, showing how popular and interactive the platform is.
Breakdown of Sherry’s sales for VTN Products;
What is the tech component of these ‘live stream’ sales?
Tech details: 1 mobile phone and 1 ring light.
Team: Each influencer has generally a small team of 2 – 3 individuals who support behind the scenes with content and products, getting props ready for inclusion in the live stream.
How many Chinese celebrity streamers came to Australia through VTN this year? How much were the stream sales generally?
So far this year we have hosted two very special guests, in addition to Sherry, Nicole Chenyn who has over 2M followers on Douyin, and Jessica Yu. Their live stream results were amazing, Nicole achieved a similar result to Sherry (around $1.25M or 6M RMB) of which around a third were Access Corporate Group portfolio products, sold through the VTN network internationally. It takes so much preparation to host a live stream. The celebrity streamers need to understand our products and brands in incredible detail, almost more than a brand manager. During the live stream, they could be asked nearly any question by the audience, so they need to be well prepared. With health products, this means having a detailed understanding of the ingredients and the efficacy – how they work.
Why does VTN invite these Chinese celebrity streamers to Australia? What will they bring to Australia?
Early this year we established a new sales platform, Celebrity Streamers, which allows VTN to partner with China’s leading KOLs and influencers. Because most of our premium brands are based in Australia, we bring the celebrity streamers to Australia so that they can have a highly personalised and authentic introduction to our brands and products. This can include briefings with the brand team, interacting with brand ambassadors and founders, and most importantly, learning in detail about the products and the science that underpins them. All of our brands have rich innovation stories with new ingredients or even sometimes establishing new categories within the wellness landscape, for example last month we launched Australia’s first tribiotic.
The celebrity streamers bring an incredible work ethic and a fascination with the opportunity to experience the iconic Australian lifestyle for a few days. We generally host them at top Sydney hotels like the Crown, and provide luxury cars so that they can travel between their engagements in comfort. Often they will be capturing content during their trip to ‘preview’ with their audience building anticipation for the bigger live stream sale still to come.
As an Australian brand management company, how does Access Group and VTN think the e-economy is different in Australia and China?
The e-economy is more sophisticated in China at present, with live commerce estimated at a value of $600 Billion and growing. In the US, it’s $30 Billion & growing, by comparison. In Australia, consumers are comfortable with e-commerce from recognised platforms, but live commerce is starting slowly due to a different cultural integration with direct sales and also, I believe, caution about the cyber security of online social platforms and live commerce events. What is growing globally across all countries is the huge universal appeal of KOLs and influencers, brands are now recognising this and beginning to leverage these celebrity streamers as valuable partners.
What does Access think are the pros and cons of promoting Australian local products to China via the Internet?
The pros include providing start up and boutique Antipodean brands with access to an engaged group of Chinese customers at a scale that blows the local Australian market away. You might have an industry leading product, but to market that product successfully in Australia requires mass brand awareness – TV advertising, bricks and mortar retail touchpoints, as well as the fully integrated suite of PR and marketing activities across print, digital and social channels. Most brands can’t afford that kind of investment early in their lifecycle. So by partnering with the VTN network, they can access these large audiences in China, and those sales boost their capability to then grow in local markets here. Vida Glow is a great example of this incubation programme at work, and we have developed the brand from early stage to $50M USD annual turnover within 6 years and expanded internationally.
The cons of the business model – sometimes we have high local demand for new products in Australia, and all of the stock has sold out already in China. This means our locally based customers sometimes have to wait, which is never ideal. Managing the international operations and logistics of health and wellness products can be challenging because they have a relatively short shelf life, when compared to other consumer goods. So if you manufacture too much, it can be wasteful, but if you don’t make enough then consumers have to be patient while you can make more. Right now, some of our ingredients for a new weight loss product are held up in customs, for example. You can’t control everything but at the end of the day, you try your best!
Sherry’s details –
Xu Shan (Sherry Xu)
Followers: 903.6 Million
Kuaishou Profile Link: http://o.m.chenzhongtech.com/fw/user/357038066?cc=share_copylink&fid=1731658223×tamp=1690334223480&type=2
Sherry speaks Chinese Mandarin.
