Donning hijabs and floor-length abaya gowns over shorts and tank tops, Chinese students at an e-commerce school perform into a smartphone camera as they learn how to sell the clothes to overseas TikTok users.
It is the final day of a two-week course on selling products abroad via the short video app -- which despite being blocked in China is a platform more and more Chinese vendors are turning to.
"This is chiffon, it's really breathable!" she gushes in English as her proteges model the goods and sort through racks of satin robes under stark studio lights.Instructor Wang Yaxuan uses her phone to livestream on TikTok at Mede Education Technology's e-commerce school in Guangzhou. Photo: Jade GAO / AFPwhich products are selling better, and which markets are more suitable for their current stages," 27-year-old Wang Yaxuan, another instructor at the school, tells AFP.
Shein, the China-founded fast fashion giant, has effectively taken over the lower-end Western market using this strategy, with TikTok a key facet of its selling network.Shop launched in the United States late last year, and e-commerce features have previously been rolled out in places like Britain and Southeast Asia.But with TikTok unavailable in China -- parent company Bytedance operates the more strictly censored sister app Douyin domestically -- smaller businesses there are at a disadvantage.
"Information is part of the cost now, and if you don't have the information that's appropriate to the market, your cost will be way too high," Qiu says.Wang, the Mede instructor, attended university in the United States and says it can be challenging for Chinese sellers to adapt to different consumer tastes abroad.
TikTok is also caught up in global geopolitical tensions -- the US Congress is threatening to ban the app entirely over concerns it could share personal data with the Chinese government."Our students are not just selling to the US market... the current trend for TikTok for Southeast Asia is also very good," she tells AFP.
Molly Zhao, a 23-year-old TikTok livestreamer, has been selling products including clothing and electronics online since 2022.
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