East-to-West Learnings: E-Commerce Platforms Upgraded Their Functionality To Help Business Sell Online amid Store Shutdowns

• Chinese social commerce platform Little Red Book enabled self-employed individuals to open verified accounts on its platform—it had previously only allowed brands to open accounts. These accounts can host livestreaming sessions to promote their products, and they can develop mini programs for stores. To further facilitate the selling process for these newly added accounts, Little Red Book launched an official account called “Enterprise Assistant” that provides livestreaming tutorials.

Little Red Book’s new official account “Enterprise Assistant”

Source: Taobao Live

• JD.com launched an expedited channel for small and medium-sized businesses to open stores on its platform to help them sell online, given that people were advised against leaving their homes.

A store on JD.com

Source: Company website

In the current context of ongoing store shutdowns, Western firms can learn from Chinese e-commerce companies and upgrade their platforms’ functions to enable more business to sell online in a faster and easier way.