Live Sales: A Booming Market in China, but a Far Cry from Tunisia's Reality
Live sales have become a norm in Tunisia, but they are the work of individual vendors, often clandestine merchants, offering goods at discounted prices. In developed economies, this is a marketing strategy, known as live video shopping, and there are specialists in the field. This phenomenon, which originated in China, is growing in the United States and Europe, thanks to the rise of social media app TikTok in these markets.
Among them is Swedish company Bambuser, which announced today that it has partnered with Alibaba Cloud, the tech giant's subsidiary, to make its live video shopping technology available in the Chinese market. As a result, the company's shares, barely known until last night, surged by around 75% after the news broke. This will support its entry into the vast Chinese market, where 55% of users make video purchases, the highest rate worldwide.
Needless to say, such a project is unthinkable in Tunisia. The goods sold have not gone through regulated channels, but through the parallel market. Prices are low because they don't incur taxes, and sellers don't pay taxes and have little to no fixed costs. This is one of the reasons that hinder the true growth of e-commerce in our country and deprive us of innovation, technological development, jobs, and growth.
