Kunming:
Boxes of roses, lilies and carnations pile up as influencer Caicai talks into her smartphone from a small studio at Asia’s largest flower market – with thousands of eager customers Wait for her to see the best deals.
E-commerce is big business in China, and influencers and streamers have made a lot of money recommending products to luxury brands and cosmetics brands.
Now, the country’s horticultural industry, worth an estimated 160 billion yuan ($25.1 billion), is coming in. And where once people visit markets and florists, they increasingly shop for blooms through their smartphones.
Online retail now accounts for more than half of the industry’s revenue.
“Five bouquets of flowers, only 39.8 yuan ($6.25) for those who order immediately,” said the 23-year-old – a sales ploy she hones for eight hours a day. delivered at lightning speed.
“When you sell something for a long time, the words come naturally,” she told AFP.
However, the earnings can be unreliable.
“Flower sales vary with busy seasons and no jobs, so the daily income of live streamers is very variable. All I can say is that the more you work, the more you get. lucky,” she explained, as colleagues beside her put the bouquet in a cardboard box ready to be shipped.
Demand for cut flowers has skyrocketed in China as living standards rise, with southern China’s Yunnan province at the center of that boom thanks to its mild year-round climate.
The provincial capital of Kunming boasts the largest flower market in Asia – the second largest in the world after Aalsmeer in the Netherlands.
‘Flowers are very important’
At 3 p.m. daily, a commission auction begins in a large room where more than 600 buyers share the day’s supply behind their screens.
“Yunnan accounts for about 80 percent of the flower production in China, and 70 to 80 percent of the flowers on sale are shipped through our auction room,” said Zhang Tao, in charge of the market’s logistics.
“That’s an average of more than four million flowers sold every day. For China’s Valentine’s Day, we sold 9.3 million flowers in one day.”
They are shipped all over China within 48 hours.
On the retail side of the market, another influencer, Bi Xixi, displays flowers and bouquets from stalls to sell to her own online subscribers.
Dressed in a traditional Chinese costume known as a hanfu, walking from counter to counter with a phone at the end of a stick, the 32-year-old has attracted around 60,000 subscribers.
She picks up flowers, displaying them on her screen while followers quickly place orders.
Bi Xixi started streaming early last year, when China was crippled by the Covid pandemic. That’s when she realized people were eager to see flowers online that they could no longer buy outside.
Now, on a clear day, she says she can sell 150,000 yuan ($23,500) worth of flowers in three hours of live streaming.
She takes about 10% commission and is optimistic about the future of the transaction.
“People are attaching more and more importance to rituals. Flowers give them a feeling of happiness and young people are starting to like buying flowers,” she said.
Qian Chongjun, head of Dounan Flower Corporation, one of the largest in the market, said the market is still far from saturation.
“Weekly buying flowers has become a habit in many families,” says Qian. “I think they will one day become a necessity, just like air and water.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from the feed provided.)
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