Jia Nailiang notched up 570 million yuan in sales in just one day, and the competition in the celebrity live-streaming sales sector has already reached such a cutthroat level.
When celebrity live-streaming marketing enters its second half, the eye-catching metrics of an entertainer are no longer limited to their pay, billing position or TV ratings, but also include the transaction volume, viewership and likes generated in the live streaming room.
This year, the most popular "man" in the Double 11 live streaming rooms is no longer Li Jiaqi.
On October 21, the first day of the Double 11 promotion, Jia Nailiang hosted the entire live stream in the streaming room, explaining products from 9 a.m. to late at night, with a total duration of more than 12 hours. The live streaming report shows that the peak number of online users in Jia Nailiang's live stream reached more than 7 million, and the single-day sales exceeded 570 million yuan, setting a new personal high in live-streaming sales in the past 3 years. This achievement quickly pushed Jia Nailiang to the top of the trending search list.
(Picture/Screenshot of Jia Nailiang's live stream)
Just a few months ago, a netizen asked Jia Nailiang in the live stream: "You have already earned enough money, why don't you stop streaming?" At that time, he admitted that he had limited talent as an actor, and frankly said that he had no dramas to shoot, "I am not qualified to play the elder roles, and I can't reach the level to play idol roles", so he shifted his work focus to live-streaming marketing.
Coincidentally, actress Wang Ou also responded in the live stream recently why she cross-border to do live-streaming sales. She said that she was very nervous in her heart, and was very afraid that people would say that she went to do live-streaming sales because there were no dramas for her to shoot, that she was not competent enough as an actor.
In fact, most celebrities have been stationed in live streaming rooms for many years. Rather than saying that live streaming is a fallback option for actors, it is more likely to be a new track to awaken the second spring of their careers. The live streaming room is no longer just "a place for people who have no dramas to shoot", it is becoming a business entrance that some entertainers actively choose and operate carefully.
When celebrity live-streaming marketing enters its second half, the eye-catching metrics of an entertainer are no longer limited to their pay, billing position or TV ratings, but also include the transaction volume, viewership and likes generated in the live streaming room.
Picture/Screenshot from the Internet
Multi-habitat entertainers make the live stream their core habitat
570 million yuan is not an overnight myth, and Jia Nailiang did not become a top live-streaming sales anchor just because of this trending search.
According to the sorting out of his past live streaming performance by relevant media, during the Double 11 period in 2023, Jia Nailiang's total live-streaming sales scale had exceeded 1 billion yuan; in 2024, he live streamed 300 times in total, and his single live stream sales during the 618 period reached 450 million yuan. In the live streaming era, for entertainers like Jia Nailiang, the identity of entertainer is still the starting point for the public to know them, but it is no longer the only entrance to understand their current commercial value.
Jia Nailiang's live streaming business has been operating for many years. What achievements his live stream can achieve depends not only on whether he has enough popularity, but also is closely related to product selection, price, brand cooperation, operation rhythm and team execution ability. Celebrities are no longer just special guests in a certain live stream, but deeply integrated into and become an important part of the entire commercial system.
TVB entertainers are also frequent visitors to the live streaming rooms familiar to everyone. (Picture/Screenshot of live stream)
Celebrity live-streaming sales are no longer a new thing. Many people call 2020 the "first year of live-streaming marketing". According to incomplete statistics, at least 500 entertainers entered the live-streaming marketing industry in this year. When reviewing this round of upsurge of celebrity anchors, Jiemian News mentioned that the scenery of celebrity anchors does not last long. The other side of the high-profile gathering of celebrities is that a large number of celebrities quit silently and tried it only briefly, and the active celebrity anchors are less than 10%. Celebrities entering the live streaming room does not mean that they have become professional anchors.
With the intensification of competition in the live streaming industry, the early model of creating popularity through one activity has gradually revealed its limitations. The live streaming room is not a celebrity meet-and-greet, the audience clicking in does not necessarily mean placing an order; even if they place an order, it does not mean that they will stay stably. "After the short-term support of fans, the purchasing behavior will eventually return to the product and cost performance. If you want long-term development, learning how to become professional is a problem that celebrities must think about." The report of Jiemian News concluded at the end.
Entering the post-live streaming era, the celebrity entertainers who re-enter the live streaming rooms have different motivations and practices from those in the early years. The focus of celebrity live-streaming sales has shifted from "popularity realization" to "long-term operation". However, the new round of celebrities entering the live streaming room still has an advantage that professional anchors may not have: the public recognition accumulated over many years in front of the camera.
In September this year, Mei Ting, who secured the position of national-level actress with the work "Romance of Our Parents", started her first personal live-streaming sales, and launched her own brand "Little Nice Life". One Entertainment, the agency company Mei Ting belongs to, began to explore the upgrading of live streaming content and IP building several years ago, and its founder Yang Zhentian has long been engaged in the live streaming track, writing "anchor brokerage" into the business map of the company. Mei Ting's team re-created her positioning, shifting from a powerful film and television actress to a popular life live-streaming sales anchor.
(Picture/Screenshot of Mei Ting's live stream)
Under the same path, temperament middle-aged actresses such as Dong Jie, Zhang Jingchu, Yang Rong, Zhang Li and others have been promoted to the live streaming rooms in batches.
Just like Wang Ou is not the first entertainer to be asked "you come to live stream because there are no dramas to shoot", Mei Ting will not be the last celebrity to be said "the best actress also comes to sell goods". The key is that entertainment companies are building the live streaming room as a fundamental part of the entertainer's IP image.
The "2025 White Paper on the Development of Live Streaming E-commerce Industry" shows that the total transaction value of goods in live streaming e-commerce in 2025 is expected to exceed 5 trillion yuan, accounting for nearly one third of online retail sales, and the industry user scale is expected to reach 660 million people. From 2019 to 2024, the market size of live streaming e-commerce increased by more than 12 times. When an industry has such a large transaction scale, live streaming is not just an affiliated scene of the entertainment industry, but a commercial market that can independently attract brands, platforms and professional operators to enter.
(Picture/Big Data Research Institute)
In the past, an actor needed to get exposure by continuously acting in works, and then win commercial endorsements with popularity; now, he can continuously operate the live streaming account outside the works, accumulate user relationships, and gradually form a relatively independent commercial line. When the commercial value of celebrities has more ways to realize, it has practical significance for actors in different stages of their careers. Celebrity live-streaming sales not only mean how many goods an entertainer can sell, but also how celebrities use their public influence to embed into the mature commercial operation system.
When an actor really regards live streaming as a business rather than a lively cross-border performance, he is possible to establish a long-term position in this industry.
Live streaming is not a fallback, nor is it the next step for everyone
Not long ago, in the latest episode of the show "Chen Luyu · Slow Talk", the guest Wang Kai said a sentence that was repeatedly captured by netizens later: "Now the film and television industry has no money, it's not that I have no dramas to shoot, (but) everyone has no dramas to shoot."
(Picture/"Chen Luyu · Slow Talk")
It's not that personal ability has changed, but the industry has changed. The film and television winter that has been talked about for many years has shown its real coldness this year. In the first quarter of 2026, the total number of long dramas officially announced to start shooting on the four platforms Tencent, iQiyi, Youku and Mango TV was 28 in total. The number in the same period two years ago was 53. In April this year, in the list of "actors' idle period" counted by fans, the longest one had not joined the crew for nearly 900 days; many traffic stars also fell into an idle period of nearly a year since 2025. Actress Liu Tao once sighed in the live stream: "It's not that I don't want to shoot dramas, I don't know why, everyone has been discussing, but the crew just can't start shooting."
The once popular micro short dramas, which were important positions for middle and lower-level actors, have also begun to shrink under the squeeze of AI technology. Facing the industry winter and professional idle period, many actors have embarked on a feasible path to save themselves. Some turn to the drama stage, some embrace AI to open authorization, and it is even more normal to "re-debut" as a live streaming anchor.
For celebrity entertainers, the market evaluation criteria are indeed becoming more diverse. In the past, the public popularity of actors was mainly accumulated through works, and now the popularity can also be used to operate personal accounts and explore more consumption scenarios. The commercial competitiveness of celebrities is no longer limited to whether they can get a better advertising quotation, but also includes whether they can continuously reach consumers, understand their needs, and provide them with goods and services worthy of purchase.
Different from Jia Nailiang's path of creating GMV myth through long-term live streaming, the entertainers active on the Xiaohongshu platform have another set of playing methods. In the traditional e-commerce logic, GMV = traffic × conversion rate. But on Xiaohongshu, this formula becomes GMV = aesthetics × trust × high unit price, which Xiaohongshu calls the "buyer e-commerce" strategy.
(Picture/Dong Jie's live stream)
The difference between a "buyer" and an "anchor" is that the anchor is a salesman who promotes goods intuitively; the buyer is a product selector, whose core competence is to plant grass for products, and sells a "better life". Female celebrities such as Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui, Annie Yi, as well as new rising ones such as Karena Ng and Xue Jianing, are all this kind of "buyers" who sell lifestyles.
For the whole industry, this is also a new signal: after the era of traffic supremacy, the era of "value e-commerce" with content, aesthetics and trust as the core is coming.
If celebrities can sell goods easily as long as they have popularity, then all the celebrities who entered the live streaming rooms in the early years should have become long-term successful operators, but the fact is not the case. Celebrities and entertainers who enter the live streaming sales track are facing a more complex professional environment. Live streaming e-commerce requires systematic commercial organization and perfect processes, and these links will not become easier just because they have acted in a popular drama.
(Picture/@Zongxiang Video)
The immediacy and strong relevance of live-streaming sales also easily expose the operation problems of the entertainer's team. In this year's CCTV 315 Gala, the Australian brand Herbs of the Earth was exposed for fictional overseas origin and forged brand background, and it has been removed from the whole network. After the incident was exposed, entertainers who once endorsed and sold Herbs of the Earth products, such as Carman Lee, Ming Dao, and Zeng Shunxi, apologized respectively. Similar live streaming rollover incidents are also emerging in endlessly.
The goodwill accumulated by actors through film and television works is precious, but this goodwill should not be overdrawn infinitely. For most entertainers who enter the live streaming room, the real problem to be solved is how to establish a business model matching their own audience.
As for how far this road can go, it ultimately does not depend on how popular the celebrities used to be, nor on how many hundreds of millions of yuan of goods they sold on a certain day, but on whether they can convert short-term traffic into long-term trust, and continuously output things recognized by consumers outside the camera.
References
[1] Jia Nailiang Achieved 570 Million Yuan in Live Streaming Sales on the First Day of Double 11, Setting the Highest Record in 3 Years｜NetEco
[2] The Disappearing Live-Streaming Sales Celebrities in the Live Streaming Rooms｜Jiemian News
[3] Why Female Entertainers Take Turns to Be the Top Live-Streaming Sales Host on