Shopee Now Has Live-Streaming Selling With Chiobus & Even an Ah Beng Live-Streaming in the App

Remember S-Hook Ah Lian?

Me neither.

I don’t know where she is now, what she’s doing now or what she’s selling now. But I do know one thing: Facebook live-streaming to sell products is still hot.

Scroll through Facebook and you’d see someone talking to you, telling you about certain products that would definitely be sold soon. It’s almost like viewers just anyhowly buy things online simply because they see it.

And it helps that sometimes, the host is funny. Hooking chicken rice on a T-shirt, anyone?

Lest you’re not aware, it’s not a Singapore and Malaysia phenomenon: it’s popular globally, with Taobao and Amazon also providing live-streaming.

And now, homegrown e-commerce platform Shopee is jumping into the bandwagon, because why not?

Shopee LIVE

In Facebook live-selling, a seller would take out an item and let the viewers bid. He’ll tell the audience the list price (which is usually very high) and then provide a very low starting price, though most of us know that starting price could well be the cost price of the item.

During the bidding period, he’d answer any questions posed to him on the comments, and that’s the attractive part, since you won’t have a seller answering your questions in real-time when you’re buying a product online traditionally.

(Can’t believe I just said that buying online is “traditional”)

However, it’ll be a tad different in Shopee LIVE.

Instead of bidding for an item, the host would merely be talking about the products; kind of like the TV infomercials we used to watch in TV (these infomercials are still airing in Channel U, for your info).

The difference is that instead of making a call after hearing the “But wait, there’s MORE!”, you can just tap on a button and buy immediately.

And of course, unlike infomercials, Shopee LIVE allows you to ask questions online and the hosts would answer immediately.

Goody For Sellers

The feature is available for sellers (not sure if it’s for all sellers) and according to Shopee, a test of the live feature showed that live-streamers’ sales increased by 75%.

That’s a lot.

Shopee’s chief commercial officer, Zhou Junjie, mentioned, “Singaporeans are looking for more than just a transactional shopping experience, they are demanding more entertainment and engagement.”

The other Goody thingy is that you can replay videos that’ve already been streamed, though of course you can’t engage with the host anymore.

I’ve watched a few and some are quite interesting.

We’ve got Eden-Ang-lookalike (and soundalike, too)…

….chiobus for Fila…

…and even an Ah Beng (really, he speaks, looks and acts like one):

I don’t know about you, but this could mean that live-streaming is really the next big thing.

To watch the videos, simply go to your Shopee app, as it’s not available on their website (but who uses Shopee on desktop?!).