商务部研究院报告：直播电商持续释放服务实体经济的增量价值

This article centers on a research report released by the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce, which examines how live-stream e-commerce drives the rise of Chinese domestic brands. The report clarifies the incremental value live-stream e-commerce brings to the real economy, and key takeaways for general readers are as follows:

1. The live-stream e-commerce industry has gradually shifted to a "store-led, influencer-supported" structure. Brand-owned live streaming has clear advantages in long-term user accumulation and cost control. Aspiring individual entrepreneurs entering the space should prioritize building their own brand live streaming, as it makes it much easier to retain full control over operations.

2. The core value of today's live-stream e-commerce lies in expanding the overall consumer market pie, rather than snatching existing users from traditional e-commerce. It has unlocked a large number of previously untapped potential consumers, and also allows everyday shoppers to access more cost-effective trending domestic brands.

3. Live-stream e-commerce has spawned a large number of new jobs, including streamers, operations specialists, product selectors and stream room managers. By the end of 2025, there will be more than 7.47 million rural China-based internet merchants related to live streaming alone. This means there are abundant employment opportunities for ordinary people looking to enter the industry.

This article focuses on how live-stream e-commerce empowers the growth of Chinese domestic brands, with key takeaways for brands summarized below:

1. China's consumer market is growing steadily, with new consumer formats expanding rapidly. Policy frameworks consistently support the development of trending domestic brands, creating a favorable environment for brands to grow via live-stream e-commerce. The channel lowers market entry and marketing costs for emerging brands, and can provide end-to-end support from onboarding to full brand incubation.

2. The industry has formed a mature "store-led, influencer-supported" structure. Brand-owned live streaming has outstanding advantages in professional operation and long-term user accumulation, helping brands take ownership of user operations. It is a sustainable path for brands looking to upgrade from low-end operations to high-end, brand-driven growth.

3. Live-stream e-commerce connects supply and demand through real-time data feedback, allowing brands to respond faster to market demands. It also stimulates interest-driven latent consumption and unlocks incremental new users. Both established and new brands can achieve growth and open up entirely new development space through live streaming.

Key takeaways for all types of live-stream e-commerce sellers are summarized below:

1. Chinese policy makers are ramping up support for the development of trending domestic brands, cultivating new consumer formats, and expanding incremental markets, creating a favorable policy environment for the entire live-stream e-commerce industry. The sector is still in an incremental expansion phase with abundant new growth opportunities.

2. The industry structure has shifted to "store-led, influencer-supported", and the long-term advantages of brand-owned live streaming are now prominent. Compared to relying solely on influencer collaborations, owned live streaming helps sellers cut marketing costs, accumulate their own proprietary user base, and retain operational control. New entrants to the industry should prioritize building out their owned live streaming operations.

3. In terms of opportunities, live-stream e-commerce creates entirely new incremental markets rather than competing for existing share from traditional shelf e-commerce. China has already cultivated more than 2,000 "e-commerce + industrial clusters" nationwide. Small and medium-sized sellers can leverage these industrial cluster networks and adopt a "small-batch fast turnaround" model to respond quickly to the market, effectively reduce inventory risk, and open up new sales channels.

Key takeaways for manufacturing factories of all types are summarized below:

1. A common pain point for China's manufacturing sector is that many factories have strong production capacity but no established consumer brand. Live-stream e-commerce provides a critical pivot for contract manufacturers to shift from pure OEM/ODM production to operating their own branded business. It allows factories to gain the ability to define their own products, showcase their accumulated process expertise directly to consumers, and take control of brand and user operations.

2. In terms of production and product design, the real-time interaction and user data feedback from live-stream e-commerce has driven the popularization of user co-creation, flexible production, and the "small-batch fast turnaround" model. Factories can quickly adjust their product design and production to align with market demand, better match consumer needs, and effectively reduce the risk of unsold inventory.

3. In terms of business opportunities, live-stream e-commerce acts as an important connector for the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry. With more than 2,000 "e-commerce + industrial clusters" already developed nationwide, factories can leverage these networks to expand their market access and open up new space for export-focused manufacturers to switch to domestic sales, while achieving digital upgrades.

Key takeaways for live-stream e-commerce service providers are summarized below:

1. In terms of industry trends, as a new format that deeply integrates the digital economy and the real economy, live-stream e-commerce is still in a phase of sustained incremental growth. It will continue to release value across multiple dimensions, including brand quality improvement, industrial upgrading, consumption expansion, and job creation. The overall industry has broad room for growth.

2. In terms of core customer pain points, emerging domestic Chinese brands currently lack end-to-end brand incubation and operational support. Contract manufacturers often have production capacity but no brand, and their traditional production models struggle to respond quickly to market changes. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises also face barriers to expanding into new markets.

3. Service providers can build out solutions aligned with these unmet needs. Key growth areas include professional operational services for brand-owned live streaming, matchmaking services for factories' digital transformation, supporting services for live streaming in industrial clusters, and supply-demand matching services. These opportunities align with market demand and allow providers to carve out growth for their own businesses.

Key takeaways for live-stream e-commerce platform operators are summarized below:

1. Today, merchants' core demand from platforms is end-to-end support covering onboarding, operations, and brand incubation. As the industry has shifted to a "store-led, influencer-supported" development structure, platforms can adjust their operational strategy by increasing support for brand-owned live streaming, improving dedicated tools and operational services for owned streaming, and helping brands build long-term user accumulation.

2. In terms of business expansion, platforms can prioritize partnerships with industrial cluster factories, export-to-domestic sales enterprises, and emerging domestic brands. These players have strong demand for live-stream e-commerce collaboration, and China already has more than 2,000 established "e-commerce + industrial clusters" with abundant high-quality merchant resources for recruitment.

3. In terms of strategic direction, current policy clearly supports serving the real economy, developing trending domestic brands, and cultivating new consumer formats. Platforms should align with policy guidance, prioritize the development of incremental markets, avoid cutthroat competition for existing share, and strengthen their positioning as a service provider for the real economy, which aligns with long-term development trends.

Core key takeaways for industry researchers are summarized below:

1. In terms of new industry trends, live-stream e-commerce has become a core new format integrating the digital economy and the real economy. The industry structure has evolved from the early stage of heavy reliance on influencer streaming, and gradually matured into a "store-led, influencer-supported" model. It has already driven positive structural changes across four dimensions: brand cultivation, industrial upgrading, consumption expansion, and job creation.

2. In terms of new business model logic, the core incremental value of live-stream e-commerce comes from innovation in demand signaling. It redefines the traditional role of sales as merely meeting existing demand: instead, it stimulates latent demand through content, and leverages the production capacity flexibility of China's domestic industrial clusters to build a closed loop of "demand creation - rapid response". It creates new incremental growth rather than just shifting existing market share.

3. Future research can focus on the mechanisms through which live-stream e-commerce drives the rise of domestic Chinese brands: demand-driven supply improvement, trust accumulation, the store-led development path, the role of live streaming as a connector for manufacturing digital transformation, and the social value of live-stream e-commerce in stabilizing and expanding employment, among other new research directions.