Wait, isn’t it supposed to be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? As we bid goodbye to the Year of the Tiger and welcome the Year of the Rabbit, we find it apt to use this idiom to describe not only the transition of the lunar calendar, but also how some innovative companies in China have evolved. Made popular by the Golden Globe award-winning film, the phrase “crouching tiger, hidden dragon” is a literal translation of a Chinese idiom describing a place or situation that is full of unnoticed masters. The rabbit, on the other hand, symbolizes wittiness and deftness. In our view, following a year-long crackdown in Chinese internet, the sector still has its “masters” and many have proven to be as witty and nimble as the rabbit.
As Chinese around the world get into the festive spirit, purchasing of New Year goodies online has gone into full force. Attractive New Year promotions are adding to the momentum of a booming live-streaming e-commerce market in China. Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) host live-stream sessions via their social media channel where they introduce and sell goods. Shoppers can ask questions, get a reply immediately and interact with other viewers. Highly engaging and entertaining, online shopping is made more exciting than traditional e-commerce. This real-time experience reaches a wide audience (sometimes in the millions), thus requiring high-speed and high-capacity data transmission. 5G technology plays a pivotal role in connecting these millions of users and ensuring a good user experience. Live-streaming e-commerce users reached 469 million in China by June 2022, accounting for 44.6% of the total internet users.
The rabbit in the hat is that live-streaming e-commerce has now taken an educational twist. Teachers turned KOLs have found an innovative way to conduct classroom courses whilst selling related products online. In a promotion of steaks on Douyin (a TikTok equivalent), the KOL also teaches viewers how to order a steak (well done, medium rare, etc.) and the types of seasonings that go into a well-marinated steak. A former English teacher at Koolearn even has a whiteboard ready to write key phrases such as “pieces of steak” and “bags of seasonings” in English for viewers to take notes. This unique approach quickly attracted millions of subscribers who are tired of hard sells and seek higher quality content.
Dongfang Zhenxuan, Koolearn’s live-streaming platform, has been brought to the spotlight for its quick and successful transformation. Just as the old Chinese saying goes, clever rabbits have more than one hideout (狡兔三窟). The platform launched as a workaround after China’s crackdown on the private tutoring sector in 2021, and has been growing rapidly since.
Koolearn: Growing 兔 Big 兔 Ignore
(兔 is Chinese for rabbit, pronounced as Tu)
A subsidiary of New Oriental Education, Koolearn is a leading online education service provider in China. The business took a hit in 2021 when China imposed stringent regulation on after-school private tutoring. This spurred Koolearn to transform itself into one of the largest live-streaming e-commerce platforms in China, accumulating a fan base of 30 million within half a year.
One requirement for success that e-commerce live-streaming and teaching share is the need to be engaging. Grabbing attention through witty conversation and conveying ideas in a clear and entertaining manner is a quality that Koolearn’s teachers have. In a competitive live-streaming industry, anchors are the key to attracting viewer traffic, so instead of hearing “Buy, buy, buy” during a streaming session, you learn how to describe a steak in English with adjectives like “juicy” and ”tender”, or learn more about Chinese poet Du Fu and English playwright Shakespeare while easily able to click on a link to purchase products mentioned in the session. This approach has led viewers to stay in Koolearn’s live room for 20% longer than its peers.
With over 10,000 former teachers, Koolearn is able to scale its platform and build a sustainable business model. Leveraging existing capabilities in dual-language teaching and educational content will allow it not only to be a first-mover in the industry, but maintain its leadership position and continue to grow. Recently, Koolearn’s most famous anchor, Dong Yuhui, was selected to perform at the state-run Internet Spring Festival Gala in China, with over 150 million viewers. This is a milestone for Koolearn, and speaks to its success in live-streaming. We are positive on Koolearn’s potential in live-streaming e-commerce and ability to find new fortunes as it expands from the current agriculture-focused product segment to new opportunities in travel and luxury goods.
