Despite over £500k in sales, New Oriental’s livestreaming transformation is tough

On February 20^th, New Oriental (09901. HK; EDU.US) reported 4.5 million yuan in revenues after the transformation of its E-commerce livestreaming service.

According to the latest data on Weibo and Douyin, since the launch of their E-commerce livestreaming business Oriental Selection (on December 28^th, 2021), a total of 335 products were offered to consumers. In sum, Oriental Selection has made a total of 81,400 sales, generating revenue of 4.5 million yuan (approx. £521k). On their single highest sales day, Oriental Selection sold nearly 11,000 items.

Within two months, Oriental Selection had broadcast 27 live streams. Despite this not being very high relative to competitors in the Chinese livestreaming industry, the total number of viewers reached 3.32 million, and the peak popularity of a single live stream was 15,900 impressions, with average sales of 173,700 yuan. Since the live streaming business launched, the total number of Oriental Selection followers has grown to 210,700.

However, despite strong overall sales figures, most sales are of low value. 15,000 of total sales had a unit price of less than 50 yuan, followed by 3,200 sales valued between 50 to 100 yuan, and a little more than 1,500 sales valued between 100 and 300 yuan. In addition, many of the commodities sold are perishable goods, including fruit, beef and mutton and other agricultural products. Therefore, increasing the sales of higher-value goods, priced over 300 yuan, is less optimistic.

The E-commerce livestreaming of New Oriental has been the focus of Chinese netizens since its launch, and despite initial interest, netizens have commented on the New Oriental’s transformation being “tough” throughout its first two months performance.