Over the first 11 months of 2021, Yiwu, a county-level city in East China's Zhejiang province, hosted 212,000 commercial livestreaming events, surpassing the 2020 figure of 183,300.

The livestreaming events brought record high retail sales of 29.927 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) in 2021, up 58.1 percent from the year before. Home to the world's largest wholesale market of small commodities, Yiwu’s livestreaming e-commerce retail sales make up roughly 5 percent of the national aggregate.

Livestreaming e-commerce has become a crucial means of marketing for numerous small- and medium-sized companies in Yiwu looking to attract domestic consumers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The products to be promoted during livestreaming events range from daily groceries and agriculture products to creative culture products and services.

In Yiwu, more than 80,000 individuals are currently working in the livestreaming e-commerce industrial chain, which involves content production, livestreamer training, customer service, and more.

In recent years, Yiwu authorities have been recruiting multi-channel network (MCN) operators and strengthening cooperation with mainstream livestreaming platforms such as Kuaishou, Douyin, and Taobao so as to propel the sustainable development of livestreaming e-commerce. Yiwu is where the first state-recognized vocational training textbook for livestreamers was published and the first state-recognized Vocational Skill Level Certificate for Internet Marketers was awarded.