Livestreaming boosts nationwide reach of products from SW China's Yunnan

Photo shows agricultural products from southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo/Huang Xinghong)

Southwest China's Yunnan Province is seeing an increase in sales of local agricultural products through livestreaming as the Spring Festival approaches.

A Yunnan organization for young entrepreneurs recently gathered several livestreaming shopping hosts to sell products characteristic of the local area. The sales volume from Jan. 18 to Feb. 5 exceeded 18 million yuan ($2.5 million).

Xian Jin, from an ancient village near Jingmai Mountain in Lancang Lahu Autonomous County, Pu'er city, Yunnan, has sold Pu'er tea, a key local specialty, via online livestreaming for a year. The Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain was designated the world's first tea culture world heritage site by UNESCO on Sept. 17, 2023. Since then, she has gained more than 5,000 followers. "Many consumers these days buy tea grown in Jingmai Mountain for the New Year," she said, noting that 90 percent of the buyers were from outside Yunnan.

Wang Haolin, another livestreaming shopping host, began selling more than 100 types of local products, such as panax notoginseng, nuts, baby corn, Pu'er tea, and coffee, on Jan. 18. "I have a daily sales record of over 40,000 yuan. My customers are mostly from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Fujian Province. I feel so happy to help farmers increase their income while letting friends from other provinces taste Yunnan specialties," said Wang.

Pu'er has also earned a reputation as the "coffee capital of China." The area of the city's coffee plantations has remained at over 670,000 mu (44,666 hectares) for years, with an annual production of over 50,000 tonnes of green coffee beans.

A leading coffee company in the city reported a maximum of more than 1,000 orders a day, with 60 percent of the consumers being from outside the province, since it launched a New Year Shopping Festival on Jan. 17, according to Tang Jiyong, a company executive.