Reshape the industry's value standards, Taobao Live bets 11 billion yuan on the "quality revolution".
At the Shangri-La Hotel in Hangzhou, the annual Taobao Live Festival officially announced for the first time the achievements of quality live - streaming in the past year: In 2024, both the overall transaction volume and the number of purchasing users of Taobao Live achieved significant year - on - year growth. The number of annual active buyers exceeded 200 million, a year - on - year increase of 38%. The ecosystem continued to develop healthily, with the number of daily live - streaming hosts increasing by 32% year - on - year, and the number of accounts with monthly transactions exceeding ten million growing by 26%.
Breaking out of the traffic trap and the vicious competition of low prices, the live - streaming industry is now entering a new stage. In the past year, Taobao Live, represented by the model of "professional hosts + brand product portfolios + platform guarantees", maintained high - quality growth. This means that as the live - streaming industry enters a new era, Taobao Live's quality strategy provides a healthier growth opportunity for brands and influencers.
This shift is inevitable. The accumulated problems in the industry over the years have emerged. Traffic hosts who create gimmicks to attract attention have successively fallen from grace, the consumer trust crisis has intensified, and coupled with the peak of the traffic dividend, the industry has fallen into a growth dilemma.
Quality live - streaming was born during the industry's troubled times: Relying on professional hosts, brand product portfolios, and platform guarantees to reconstruct the trust between consumers and the platform, and the definite growth has verified its effectiveness. It is not difficult to see that the current live - streaming e - commerce is returning to the essence of business operations. That is, what live - streaming competes for is not general entertainment traffic, but business links such as product portfolios, quality inspections, and after - sales services. It can be said that quality determines the vitality of a live - streaming room.
Under the strategy of adhering to quality live - streaming, Taobao Live has achieved phased results, and its ecological partners have also achieved remarkable results. Therefore, Taobao Live has strengthened its determination to invest in quality live - streaming. Taobao Live announced that in 2025, it will further increase its investment in quality live - streaming policies, with an additional investment of 11 billion yuan, aiming to double the transaction volume and user scale in two years. By adhering to the quality live - streaming strategy, Taobao Live redefines the standards of the live - streaming e - commerce industry and will also bring definite growth to ecological partners.
Jialuo, the president of Tmall and Taobao Live, said that for Taotian, Taobao Live is a high - speed growth engine. Although the current scale of live - streaming cannot be compared with that of the shelf e - commerce, it represents new growth, and there is a huge growth space on the Taobao and Tmall platforms in the future. To achieve this growth, the shelf e - commerce and live - streaming cannot develop independently but need to form a good tandem relationship. Products that perform well in the shelf scenario should be amplified in the live - streaming scenario, and products that perform well in live - streaming should be introduced to the shelf to form in - depth transactions.
01. The Rise of Cost - performance, Quality Live - streaming Rooms Take the Lead
Taobao has always been thinking about how to enable brands and merchants to develop healthily and stably on the platform in the long term. Different from many platforms, Taobao has always hoped to drive the development of the live - streaming industry and brands with quality, rather than just promoting it through low prices.
The low - price melee in the past two years has led to a mixed bag of products and poor after - sales services. While greatly harming the consumer experience, it has also led to a high return rate. Both merchants and the platform have been forced to be involved in this extremely unhealthy consumption ecosystem. Cost - performance has become the common demand of everyone.
Quality live - streaming has thus been pushed to the forefront and has become Taobao Live's secret weapon. The rise of "cost - performance" in live - streaming rooms. Although the word "quality" sounds simple, supporting it requires long - term in - depth cultivation. This type of live - streaming has become a new trend in the industry based on Taobao's accumulation in the industry over the past few years.
Taobao's quality live - streaming is based on three aspects: professional hosts, brand product portfolios, and platform guarantees.
In terms of products, Taobao Live has the largest pool of high - quality products. Backed by Tmall's 300,000 brand product portfolios, a large number of high - quality influencer stores, the largest number of industry operation teams and quality control teams, as well as the most mature product management system and store supervision system.
Centering around "quality product portfolios + high cost - performance", Taobao Live will continuously expand the pool of quality products. In 2025, it will invest 2 billion yuan in special subsidies to establish a pool of popular live - streamed products. Hosts can select products first, and the platform will also provide exclusive traffic incentives to help products become popular. In addition to 300,000 Tmall brand stores, the characteristic supplies of millions of small and medium - sized quality merchants on Taobao also have the opportunity to enter the pool of popular products.
Many influencers have benefited from Taobao Live's quality product portfolios. Hu Ke's live - streaming room officially started live - streaming on Taobao in 2020. In the early stage, it was mainly a tentative attempt and seized the early - stage dividends. Later, it gradually developed into a full - category live - streaming room. In 2024, the GMV of Hu Ke's Taobao live - streaming room exceeded 3 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of more than 100%. The overall goal for 2025 is to continue to maintain a 100% growth.
Hu Ke mentioned that Taobao and Tmall have the richest brand product pool in the whole network, and one can select the most suitable brands for their own characteristics here. "In the past year, we cooperated with many clothing brands for brand special sessions. Among them, the cooperation with Neiwai had nearly ten million in transactions." Such cooperation has well exerted the star's influence in promoting products, and the brand's product promotion effect in the live - streaming room has also been very surprising. There will be more expansion plans for brands in different categories in the future.
In terms of the operation strategy for influencers, Taobao Live encourages host agencies that have strict screening and consumer service guarantees. For these high - quality and professional agencies and influencers, the platform provides key support in the traffic mechanism, while it does not support those internet celebrity hosts who rely on attracting attention in an improper way and agencies and influencers without a sound operation ability. In the current live - streaming environment, the uniqueness of hosts on the Taobao Live platform is gradually emerging. On Taobao Live, hosts can form stable interactions and purchase visits with users, which is the foundation for the long - term development of live - streaming rooms.
The Bee Surprise Studio live - streaming room was established in February 2022 and is the first full - category matrix live - streaming room in the industry. In 2024, the total transaction volume of the live - streaming room reached 16 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 30%. During the 3.8 Promotion this year, the overall transaction volume of the Bee Surprise Studio's Taobao live - streaming room increased by 100% year - on - year.
"What agencies and influencers value most is that Taobao provides a core position where they can do long - term business and operate stably." Damu, the person in charge of the Bee Surprise Studio live - streaming room, said that quality and trust are the key factors for the success of live - streaming e - commerce. Taobao Live has become the preferred platform for live - streaming agencies because of its continuous user operation and high - quality product portfolios.
Through a perfect product selection process and attention to fan feedback, the Bee Surprise Studio's Taobao live - streaming room has achieved a two - way positive improvement in product quality and service experience, thus bringing explosive growth. Among them, Taobao Live's live - streaming strict - selection buy - back red envelope marketing tool has greatly contributed to the improvement of the live - streaming room's performance. In the next stage, the Bee Surprise Studio will further improve the service quality while maintaining stable growth.
Platform guarantees are also an indispensable part. Taobao Live has adopted a triple guarantee for the user experience from brands, live - streaming rooms, and the platform. In the traffic mechanism, it gives traffic weight to good products and cracks down on counterfeits and shoddy products. As early as 2022, Taobao Live launched the "Live - streaming Strict - selection", creating a product pool specifically for influencer live - streaming. The corresponding products have an exclusive golden tag, with guarantees of genuine products, 48 - hour delivery, 7 - day no - reason return, and freight insurance to ensure service guarantees.
02. New Investments, New Opportunities, Pursuing Long - termism
In 2024, the number of Taobao Live users further increased, with the number of annual purchasing users exceeding 200 million. However, compared with the 1 billion annual active buyers in the Alibaba ecosystem, in terms of the penetration rate of live - streaming users, Taobao Live still has huge growth potential.
On March 31, Taobao Live announced new growth targets: a transaction growth rate of over 50% in 2025; doubling the transaction volume and user number in the next two years. Based on Taotian's unique ecological advantages, Taobao Live will further increase its support policies for quality live - streaming in terms of users, hosts, products, content, and marketing.
In order to serve these quality users well, Taobao will further integrate the shelf e - commerce and live - streaming fields this year, and make a series of product designs to help brands with overall repurchase. At the same time, the platform will also allocate 3 billion yuan to promote brands to acquire new users. In addition, Taobao Live will upgrade the fan operation system and help brands with overall repurchase through a series of product designs; the platform will also invest 3 billion yuan in red envelopes together with agencies to help brands acquire high - quality new customers.
To do a good job in quality live - streaming, the supply chain is undoubtedly one of the keys to success or failure. Taobao and Tmall have a large number of high - quality products with very good cost - performance. In 2025, the platform will allocate 2 billion yuan to establish a pool of popular live - streamed products. Hosts can select products first from the pool of popular products, and the platform and brands will serve the needs of consumers well and jointly amplify the explosive growth rate of products.
The platform mechanism of Taobao Live has also been upgraded. The live - streaming scenario will be further integrated with the shelf e - commerce, and it is expected to add hundreds of millions of traffic per day. The Taobao Live channel will have a new entrance on the home page of the Taobao app, which is larger and more prominent. At the same time, high - quality live - streaming rooms will be given priority in distribution and exposure in fields such as Taobao search, information flow, and content.
In the past year, Taobao Live has strengthened its internal strength and focused on incubating high - quality hosts. A surprising phenomenon is that many niche hosts have grown rapidly under such support.
The niche host "Home with Lao Wang" on Taobao Live started live - streaming on December 26, 2022. Currently, his Taobao Live account has 3.32 million fans, and he sells health - related products, focusing on the Taobao Live supply chain. After two years of operation, his live - streaming room has achieved explosive growth: In 2024, the GMV of his live - streaming room increased by 30% year - on - year, and the total GMV during the Double 11 period reached more than 70 million yuan. At the same time, the average customer price in the live - streaming room has increased from 500 - 600 yuan to 1000 - 2000 yuan, and the consumers' trust has been significantly enhanced. The GMV of the live - streaming room is expected to double further this year.
Wang Yufeng, the founder of the "Home with Lao Wang" live - streaming room, believes that Taobao Live has always been advocating the quality live - streaming model, and the professionalism of hosts is the core manifestation of quality live - streaming. Compared with entertainment - oriented live - streaming platforms, Taobao Live focuses on the hosts' professionalism in niche products, especially in the selection, sales logic, and fan service of health - related products such as traditional tonics and health supplements.
The rise of niche hosts cannot be separated from the unique advantages of Taobao Live. Taobao Live has the purest e - commerce genes, with accurate traffic and high conversion rates. Users have strong shopping intentions. At the same time, the platform has a rich product pool, which is convenient for hosts to select products to meet consumers' needs, and the support policies for hosts are also very clear.
Currently, Taobao Live has formed a quality host matrix of comprehensive hosts, niche hosts, and brand store - live hosts. In the future, Taobao Live will further increase traffic incentives, product portfolio support, and marketing support for high - quality live - streaming rooms, and invite and incubate more new quality hosts.
"Become the best quality hosts in China." At the meeting, 10 top hosts on Taobao Live spoke in unison. Industry insiders pointed out that in the past year, consumers voted with their feet for quality live - streaming. Professional hosts represented by Li Jiaqi have regained high sales achievements, which shows that for agencies and hosts, quality will be the greatest certainty in the future.
Li Jiaqi shared his views on quality live - streaming at the meeting. He believes that the core driving force of live - streaming e - commerce has undergone profound changes, and "quality first" has become the underlying logic driving long - term business growth.
Wu Jialu, the vice - president of Jiaogebang, said that Tmall's rich brand pool, perfect supply chain, and user perception are unique advantages, and the conversion rate on Taobao is much higher than that on other platforms. In 2024, the annual GMV of Jiaogebang's Taobao live - streaming room more than doubled.
Taobao Live's positioning has shifted to a "brand operation position", which is highly consistent with merchants' demand for stable growth. Therefore, more and more brands have chosen to join the quality live - streaming camp. Xiaomi started to layout Taobao store - live in 2020 and achieved remarkable results on Taobao Live in the past year. The transaction volume of the brand's live - streaming room increased by more than 50% year - on - year. The children's clothing brand Balabala, with its precise operation targeting the maternal and child population, not only ranked first in the store - live transaction volume in the maternal and child category on Taobao Live in 2024 but also achieved a more than 200% growth in store - live transactions during the 3.8 Promotion this year.
In 2024, the live - streaming room of the Ubras brand ranked first in the underwear industry's store - live on Taobao