East China fishing town reels in a fortune as livestream hub

Haitou township has undergone a miraculous transformation, with the small fishing town in East China's Jiangsu province reinventing itself as a livestreaming paradise.

In 2018, it drew great media fanfare by tallying 16.5 billion views on Kuaishou, a leading Chinese short-video platform. Last year, local seafood sales through e-commerce exceeded 5 billion yuan ($715.5 million).

From fishing nets to the internet, Haitou has made a perfect transition by exploring new possibilities in the digital era. The township boasts over 3,000 online presenters, who are selling products and produce around the clock. Zhang Yanxi is a front-runner.

Zhang has over 460,000 followers on Kuaishou and his online broadcast often starts at 9 pm.

"I logged over 200 orders during the one-hour livestream," says Zhang.

In 2013, Zhang purchased a mobile phone and began detailing his maritime life online, accumulated his first batch of followers. The 33-year-old was exposed to e-commerce in 2015 when he started uploading videos on Kuaishou.

"I shot videos about everything I saw at sea, such as the sunrise, sunset and the fishing process. I was the first in our village to start a livestream," he says.

"To my surprise, many fans came to me to buy seafood, so I began selling seafood products online," says Zhang.

Zhang earned over 1 million yuan in 2017. Now his team has 28 mobile phones, with 28 WeChat accounts each with around 5,000 followers. He even met his wife through livestreaming.

Kuang Lixiang, another online presenter in Haitou, boasts 2.88 million followers on Kuaishou. The expressive man's ace in the hole is his appetite-he wolfs down hefty portions of his produce in front of the camera.

He prefers broadcasting from his boat, where the audience can see how freshly caught seafood is cooked. His trademark trick is to pluck the seafood from the boiling water with his bare hands and eat it directly.

"I've got no special talent other than being an eager beaver," says Kuang. "My gums were once scalded and I even lost a tooth."

For him, it's a price worth paying. He can sell produce worth 3 million yuan overnight. In Haitou, there are at least 12 online celebrities like Kuang that have over a million followers each, and the annual sales revenue of 35 family stores can top 10 million yuan.

As glamorous as it may seem, their success did not come easily.

"We seldom slept before 4 am, and I had little time to spend with my child," says Liu Feifei, a hairstylist-turned-livestreamer with about 700,000 followers.

The family used to run a hair salon. "I heard my customers say they could earn 2,000 to 3,000 yuan every day (by livestreaming). I was tempted. The happiest moment for me is when I hear the sound of the printer producing the shipment waybills. It's awesome," she says.

Every afternoon, livestreamers go to markets to select produce, or to the pier to shoot short videos.

"There is no pie falling from the sky. It's not that you can sell any seafood as long as you put it in front of the camera and do a livestream. It's not that easy," says Liu. "Some people tried livestreaming for over a year, but still failed.

"Once we end the show, we still have to sort out the orders and arrange the shipping before going to bed," she says. "We must prepare in advance how to promote the product. You must let the customers know why it's good and worth purchasing, plus set a reasonable price. All of this takes time and effort.

"You still need to work hard despite having a good platform," says Liu. "I love Haitou, everyone here is diligent and hardworking."

In recent years, more youngsters have come to Haitou to capitalize on the livestreaming "gold rush".

In 2018, Yan Xiuyu resigned from his job in Beijing, and returned to Haitou, his hometown, hoping to cash in on the e-commerce dividends.

He adopted an extreme method to attract followers-by livestreaming for 24 hours a day for three consecutive months.

"Midnight is the busiest hour in the seafood distribution center, and we introduce to the audience how they can identify various types of seafood. After that, we enjoy the sunrise together, that's how we accumulated our first followers," says Yan.

The local government has also played an active role in promoting the sustained development of the livestreaming industry.

"Our office was provided for free by the authorities. The local government has also provided us with favorable policies and services, such as cold storage and supply channels for the e-commerce industrial park. I think all of us share a common dream, that is to make this place the top seafood e-commerce town in China," Yan says.