Under the attack of the pneumonia outbreak, traditional brands in China are speeding up their transformation and innovation through the Internet to satisfy the demands of consumers.

A woman sells tea on an live-broadcasting platform in Yuqing county, Guizhou province on March 30, 2020. (Photo/People's Daily)

Many employing online stores and live broadcasts to facilitate sales, data suggests Beijing-based traditional enterprises saw a total turnover of over 1.7 billion yuan on the marketplace of the e-commerce giant Alibaba in the first half of 2019, a year-on-year increase of about 20 percent.

Half of the traditional enterprises in Beijing have cooperated with live streaming platforms to stimulate sales, according to Xue Siyuan, senior director of the live streaming platform under Taobao, a major online shopping website run by Alibaba.

With the help of live broadcasts, Wuyutai, a time-honored tea company in Beijing, made a record-high revenue of 100,000 yuan in a single day on March 8, said Zheng Yan, general manager of e-commerce at the company, adding that e-commerce sales accounted for 15 percent of the company’s total during the epidemic, up from one percent at the very beginning.

To attract young consumers, many traditional brands have conducted cross-border cooperation, such as the milk candy brand White Rabbit Creamy Candy, who launched a candy-flavored lipstick together with domestic cosmetics provider Maxam. The first batch of 920 lipsticks were all sold one second after the product was rolled out.

Many revered companies have explored the culture behind the brands, developing related cultural and creative products. Beijing Enamel Factory Co., Ltd., which has engaged in traditional handicraft cloisonné, opened its first store of cloisonné-related products to the public in October 2019. The products, varying from coasters to fridge magnets, were made from over 30 patterns used in cloisonné.