An Old Beef, The Pendulum & A Modern QVC 🥩

The ecosystem is supported by big-name celebrities selling products on the channels and the millions of live-stream viewers.

Some stats:

• China had more than 500 million webcast viewers in 2018. 
• In 2018, the most profitable live-stream host on Taobao Live, Wei Ya, raked in $390m in sales through live streaming. Another beauty influencer, dubbed Top Lipstick Seller, is said to sell one lipstick every 30 seconds during his live streams.
• Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace, the biggest live stream platform and e-commerce site in China, generated more than $15B in sales volume through live streaming sessions in 2018.

Alibaba’s Tmall Live and bourgeoning platform Xiaohongshu are some of the other live-streaming shopping platforms in the ecosystem.

How can startups tap into the market? 

There are specific digital marketing agencies such as ShopShops that collaborate with international retailers of luxury fashion and “fast fashion,” or items that appeal to a massive audience in China. 

The agencies help boutique stores, contemporary retailers, and independent designers:

• Market their items to China through live streaming.
• Create content on Chinese social media.
• Handle international shipping and product distribution for their partnering retailers.

A new House subcommittee report has unveiled a flagrant violation of rules. Meat-packing companies exaggerated product shortages during the pandemic to keep factories open.

Tyson, Smithfield, JBS, National Beef, Hormel, are just some of the meat producers named in the report. In fact, Tyson even drafted the executive order issued by former President Trump in April 2020 to keep factories open. Since these companies account for the majority of the US’ beef and pork industry, they had the power to influence regulation. 

Result: Covid spreading rapidly through factories and killing 269 employees during the first year of the pandemic.

Approximately 334,000 Covid cases across the country can be linked to meat-packing factories, and per capita infection rates doubled in towns where such facilities were open, according to research from the University of California.

In just three trading days, Big Tech has lost a total of $1 trillion.

For Meta or Netflix, such falls are common, as previous declines have been based on low growth numbers. But a number of VC-backed companies that recently debuted on the market such as Coinbase, Rivian or Robinhood are trading at 70% below their starting price.

The cryptocurrency market is also sharply down with most coins losing over 50% of their value.

What explains this sudden downturn? 

• A looming economic crisis: Rising interest, supply shortages and high inflation leading to a feeling of uncertainty in the market.
• Tech Regulation: A new generation of antitrust rules making life harder for big tech.
• Extra Inventory: E-commerce giants like Amazon practically doubled the number of warehouses during the pandemic to serve increasing demand. Now they’ve got to a point where inventory is out-sizing orders as demand slows due to inflation.

Where are we headed from here? 

Signs are that this is no minor correction.

For a while, investors will be conservative. But eventually, companies that truly represent value might emerge from the crisis stronger. We may even see a new wave characterised by worsening climate emergency and the emergence of clean technologies.