Guangzhou will hold the world's first festival for product promotion via live streaming activities based in a city from June 6th to 8th. Such a new business model is expected to push the city towards developing a consumption hub with more than 200,000 live streaming shows and sales of over 1,000 local branded products.

The festival will see all industry sectors and all eleven districts of the city live streaming online and hosting offline activities at the same time, said Wei Min, deputy director of Guangzhou's bureau of commerce at a press conference on June 3rd. Distinctive products from both wholesale and retail, in industries such as accommodation and catering, manufacturing, tourism, education, and legal services will all be presented online.

With a so-called ‘1+11+N’ pattern, the event will have one main venue, the Canton Tower, and 11 satellite venues across the city’s different districts and many parallel sessions in featured business areas such as professional markets, major business districts, shopping malls and famous restaurants.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao parallel session is planned to be hosted at Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, with efforts to showcase products including makeup, jewellery, technology, food and beverages. More than 100 anchors and entrepreneurs from the Greater Bay Area are invited to sell their products via live stream.

The city's own-brand products are one of the highlights in this event, over 1,000 branded products were selected from 2,800 registered, including products from brands such as Guangzhou Restaurant, Eagle Coin, Chenliji, Guangzhou Automobile.

Live streaming e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Tik Tok and Shopee will offer various means of support for the sale of locally produced products. For example, Shopee will set up overseas live broadcast rooms in Singapore and Malaysia to sell selected products.

Several tips about online shopping and rights protection were also released at the press conference. According to Ding Li, deputy director of the Guangzhou Administration for Market Regulation, there were 447 major e-commerce platforms operating in Guangzhou by the end of May, "operators engaged in catering, food, and medicines must obtain administrative licenses in accordance with the law, and publicize their license information on the website," said Ding.

She reminded consumers to be rational when shopping online, carefully reading the instructions on the e-commerce platform for services including return and exchange, delivery times and method, and after-sales care. Reading carefully should help consumers to avoid ‘price traps’.

If people are engaged in disputes with retailers, they can call the 12315 or 12345 hotlines to lodge a complaint, and should retain the relevant proof, including electronic or written trade records, orders, invoices, chat records etcetera in order to protect their rights.

Throughout 2020, Guangzhou has made frequent moves to promote the development of live streaming e-commerce. On March 25th, the city’s bureau of commerce issued a plan for the development of Guangzhou's live stream e-commerce (2020-2022), proposing to establish the city as a ‘live stream e-commerce capital’ making use of the city's complete supply chain and large quantity and variety of commodities on offer.