China’s Lipstick King sold an astonishing $1.7 billion in goods in 12 hours – and that was just in a promotion for the country’s biggest shopping day

• China’s livestreaming star Austin Li Jiaqi – also known as the “Lipstick King” sold about $1.7 billion worth of goods in 12 hours.
• He was livestreaming for on Alibaba’s Taobao shopping platform to usher in China’s shopping season.
• Single’s Day on November 11 is akin to Black Friday in the US.

There are still three more weeks to go China’s annual mega shopping event on November 11, but one of China’s top livestreamers has already sold some $1.7 billion worth of goods in a promotion to usher in the event.

In a 12-hour-livestream on Wednesday kicking off Alibaba’s Singles Day Shopping Festival on its Taobao app, Austin Li Jiaqi – widely known as “Lipstick King” – moved 10.7 billion Chinese yuan ($1.7 billion) worth of products reported China’s Economic Daily newspaper. Alibaba does not typically release sales numbers, but CED cited data from third-party data analysis company Hongren Dianji.

Products sold range from Shiseido skincare to Apple’s AirPods, according to Bloomberg.

Li said on his Weibo microblog account that he clocked 250 million views for the event.

Another top livestreamer, Viya, moved about 8.3 billion Chinese yuan ($1.25 billion) worth of goods in her 14-hour marathon.

Participation sitewide was so enthusiastic that Alibaba’s Taobao shopping app crashed temporarily during the nationwide pre-order event.

Despite the pandemic, China’s shopping platforms racked up record-breaking sales of $115 billion on Singles Day last year, far exceeding Amazon’s $4.8 billion in sales from 2020’s Black Friday through Cyber Monday.