Ding Kelun, 42, traveled all the way from Zunyi, Southwest China's Guizhou province, to pick up his newly bought truck in Cheng'an county of Handan, North China's Hebei province, in late June, after seeing the vehicle on seller Wu Ranran's livestreaming promotion.
He said he knew the company Handan Boang Special Vehicle Manufacturing from Wu's Douyin account. After discussing details about buying a truck on WeChat, Ding drove about 20 hours to the company in April to see if the truck was really as good as Wu said, and finally decided to make the deal at a price of 400,000 yuan ($59,000).
Wu, who now has 170,000 fans since she began livestreaming in 2024, said in the past, sellers had to drive vehicles to places like petrol stations to do marketing, and as such could only reach potential customers in Handan and nearby cities.
"As competition became more fierce, and profit became less, we developed livestreaming platforms so we could reach clients across the country," she said.
Now the company has 20 livestreaming personnel and last year sold 1,300 trucks — about double the number before it started livestreaming — with sales of 350 million yuan. Around 85 percent of those orders were from livestreaming and 70 percent from outside Hebei. Last year, Wu's personal livestreaming sales alone exceeded 100 million yuan.
