The unexpected COVID-19 pandemic is pushing Chinese exporters to save their declining overseas orders by trying out livestreaming while the global spread of the virus is keeping many at home.

Exporters that used to reach potential buyers through conventional means like email and offline fairs are now trying to peddle their products to the camera in foreign languages, always ready for real-time consultations and interactions with people all over the world.

Ningbo Huamao International Trading (Huamao), an educational equipment exporter in East China's Zhejiang Province, plans to hold its second livestreamed sales event on Wednesday, following its first broadcast on YouTube and Facebook in April which led to $500,000 in orders.

"The outbreak of the virus forced us to move online," said Huamao's general manager Gu Weijun. The company's sales volume suffered a 15 percent year-on-year drop in the first quarter.

The pandemic has brought huge financial pressure for many Chinese exporters. In Shenzhen, the port city in South China's Guangdong Province, 80 percent of local exporters said they could not survive for more than six months with current limited liquidity and inventories, according to a survey released by the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association in April.

Travor Technology, a Shenzhen-based camera equipment exporter that pulls 90 percent of its income from foreign markets, is considering livestreaming on overseas platforms to improve sales amid the pandemic. 

The company is seeking coopera tion with foreign livestreamers. "We are negotiating with web celebrities with no fewer than 100,000 Facebook or Twitter followers from the US, the UK and Russia for online promotion in these countries," the company's owner, surnamed Zhang, told the Global Times.

Some foreign web celebrities in China have shifted to livestreaming sales during the pandemic. Tyler Christler, a US vlogger living in Northeast China's Liaoning Province with 1.8 million followers on video platform Kuaishou,  has promoted nearly 20 products from Chinese seafood to foreign wine over the past two months on Chinese livestreaming platforms.

Each of Christler's livestreamed promotions averaged 40,000 to 50,000 views. "They've definitely helped the brands sell," Christler told the Global Times, adding that he will keep advertizing products via livestreaming after the pandemic.

Huamao's first overseas-targeted livestreaming sale on April 9, by contrast, received only 100 views after it had emailed former buyers to invite them to watch. This form of promotion is still new to foreigners who are more familiar with traditional TV sales, Gu explained.

It nonetheless called its results "not bad," with a $230,000 order coming in shortly afterward, Gu said. "By inquiring about products in real time during the livestream, some overseas buyers found this form works equally well [to offline interaction]," he told the Global Times.

Seeing a promising trend, Huamao plans to train a dozen of English, Spanish and Japanese-speaking livestreamers specifically for foreign markets, Gu added.

Professional certificate

China's already developed e-commerce livestreaming industry, hitting a total value of 433.8 billion yuan in 2019, is embracing another mushroom-shaped growth this year, at a time when the development of offline trading is hindered by the COVID-19 spread.

In Yiwu City of East China's Zhejiang Province, home to the world's largest wholesale market for daily commodities, over 500,000 people are engaged in e-commerce, a local human resources authority said.

To meet the demand of local rapidly expanding livestreamer groups, the Yiwu government plans to offer free training for 100,000 livestreamers within two years. Participants who pass an examination after training will receive a professional ability certificate issued by the local human resources bureau.

It is China's first ever professional certificate for e-commerce livestreaming, an official with the Yiwu human resources and social security bureau, surnamed Liu, told the Global Times. The first batch of 19 trainees received their certificates on May 8 following four days of courses and tests.

The certificate won't bring holders financing or policy privileges, Liu said. "It's more like an official recognition of one's professional skills and ethics in this career."

The training teaches participants specific livestreaming skills, including how to interact with audiences and make short videos, and related rules concerning which products are not allowed to be promoted and which words are prohibited during livestreaming, said Song Bing, head of the School of Creative Studies under the Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College which facilitates the training and tests.

"Professional, systematic guidance for livestreamers promotes the healthy, orderly development of the booming e-commerce livestreaming industry," Song told the Global Times.