Sitting straight at his desk, Sami Sabeaallil turns on the lights, places his mobile phone on a selfie stick and starts greeting his viewers. "Hi everyone, this is Sami,"he says in Chinese. "I will recommend you some toys tonight…"
Every day, Sami livestreams (网络直播) on Douyin (China's domestic version of TikTok) for one or two hours, promoting his toys to Chinese buyers. Based in Yiwu City, the world's largest trading center for daily consumer goods in East China's Zhejiang Province, the 22-year-old said he is likely the first foreigner to get into livestream selling in Yiwu and take advantage of China's skyrocketing e-commerce industry.
Sami has been selling his toys on his Douyin account since last June. Most of his videos are about his products or show him hanging around Yiwu's markets and cracking jokes. For a video he published last October, he invited dozens of foreigners from various countries to express their love for China, which got nearly 30,000 likes.
As a young Chinese-speaking foreigner, Sami attracts much attention on China's social media. He now has only about 28,000 followers on Douyin but his goal is to have 10 million followers within two years.
The COVID-19 pandemic is severely hitting the economy of many countries and has caused great losses among Yiwu's producers and suppliers. Sami decided to try livestreaming and look for more Chinese domestic buyers via Douyin. As an owner of a Yiwu-based toy company, Sami used to have half of his orders from overseas. However, overseas orders have not been satisfactory in the past year, so he is gradually shifting his business to Chinese market as the epidemic situation in China has largely improved.
A few potential buyers have reached Sami and one of them bought over 100,000 yuan ($14,860) of toys from him, which Sami described as "a good beginning. "
Sami is not the only foreigner in Yiwu interested in livestreaming promotion. According to Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College, quite a few of its 140 overseas students say they will try livestreaming e-commerce industry after graduation.
The college is offering its overseas students courses on China's livestream selling market, which include how to attract more followers, how to select suitable products, how to interact with audiences and how to shoot and edit short videos.
