<![CDATA[Forget K-pop and US missiles, Korea is back in fashion with China thanks to live-stream shopping]>

Camera lights wash over Ding Xiaoping as she broadcasts herself across the internet from an iPhone, from inside a minimalist-style living room complete with an ornate faux fireplace. Sporting a trendy auburn hairstyle and bright coral lipstick, Ding speaks in rapid-fire Mandarin introducing 2,000 of her Taobao live-streaming channel viewers to the high-waist pink pastel shorts she'll be wearing for the next 10 minutes " until she changes into her next look.

For many Chinese consumers and retailers, live-stream shopping is now a widely accepted " even preferred " virtual reality, with thousands of shows like Ding's being made and watched every day. But Ding does not shoot her show from China " for the past six months she has been broadcasting from a studio in Seoul, South Korea.

Growing up while watching K-dramas and listening to K-pop in Taizhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang province, Ding always dreamed of working in South Korea. Her wish came true last year when she was hired to be a live-streaming host, or "zhi bo" as they are known in China, by a local merchant organisation. Today she is among the 600 or so Chinese zhi bo operating out of Dongdaemun, Seoul's renowned fashion wholesale Mecca. Ding works with South Korean clothing brands and wholesalers to sell clothes that retail between RMB 98 (US$14) for a blouse, and RMB 150 for a dress.

China is the world's biggest live-streaming sales market, with more than 100 million monthly viewers of such channels and US$4.4 billion worth of sales last year alone, according to digital research firm L2. And South Korean fashion merchants are cottoning onto the trend, trying to tap into the lucrative market amid a downturn in Chinese consumer spending " triggered by Beijing's boycott over the South's instalment of US-made missile systems.

Beijing from 2016 to mid-2018 restricted group travel tours to South Korea because the East Asian neighbour installed the US-designed Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system. Chinese visitors to the South fell from more than 600,000 in April 2016 to around 227,000 in April 2018.

While the ban was lifted in August 2018, Chinese tourism to South Korea has yet to fully recover, with visitor numbers reaching just 493,000 in April this year " a 34.5 per cent increase year-on-year, but not enough to revive Seoul's fashion wholesale hub of Dongdaemun.

"For some stores, 60 per cent of their sales came from China."

South Korea's cultural exports such as K-pop and K-dramas were the main targets of China's boycott, with no explicit import ban on clothing. But Park said that was not the reality, as many wholesale distributors found their shipments denied by Chinese customs.

Jang Dong-youn, of the buyer's lounge at the Dongdaemun Fashion Wholesale Market, and Hwang Kyo-jun. Photo: Crystal Tai

"Now the THAAD ban has been lifted and the Chinese do not delay or block our products in customs, but our customers in China did not come back to Korea " they already found new alternatives," he said.

In light of the current situation, Ding's employer, Jang Dong-youn, of the buyer's lounge at the Dongdaemun Fashion Wholesale Market (DFWM) " a traders association partly funded by the Korean government " launched a live-streaming service for Chinese viewers after seeing their influence first-hand.

"In 2017, independent Chinese live-streamers started coming to Dongdaemun," Jang said. "I saw lots of them walking around, shooting their shopping experiences as they visited stores. Before shop owners realised these influencers were famous, they would block them from broadcasting and using their shop spaces. But they soon realised the zhi bos could help with sales, so since then it's become a common activity around here.

Ding Xiaoping showcases clothes at the Dongdaemun Fashion Wholesale Market (DFWM). Photo: Crystal Tai

Zhi bo were quick to establish themselves as power players in Dongdaemun when they started attracting sales and new customers to the district's 20,000 wholesalers.

While most of the zhi bo in Dongdaemun are self-employed and run their own shopping channels on platforms such as Taobao " the Chinese e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba (owner of the South China Morning Post) " an increasing number of South Korean businesses are employing their services because they understand the significance of their role in China's e-commerce ecosystem.

Hwang Kyo-jun, a fashion designer and managing director of A. Glow, a Korean Taobao shopping channel, said live-streaming was now crucial to online shopping in China.

"Chinese people want the truth about a product " they want to know everything from the source, to the distribution channels," he said. "They want to guarantee they are purchasing clothes that were made in Korea. In most Korean online malls there are photos, but no guarantee that what you get will be the same as in the photo."

Chinese tourists carry their baggage on Myeongdong Street in downtown Seoul, South Korea. Photo: EPA

Hwang said he has seen a similar trend across Asia " live-stream shopping arising to alleviate consumer concerns about authenticity.

While platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram " all banned in China " are popular mediums in places like South Korea, Hong Kong, and regions like Southeast Asia, Jang said the zhi bo on Taobao have been the most influential.

"Lots of Korean merchants want to connect with Taobao sellers," said Jang Dong-youn of DFWM. "They are the hot [e-commerce] potato here in Dongdaemun."

For those like Ding Xiaoping, live-stream shopping hosting has become an exciting new vocation for millions of Chinese youths. She plans to continue working as a zhi bo for the foreseeable future, saying her family and friends support her choice of unconventional career.

And although she changes into more than 48 different outfits most nights, the excitement of broadcasting live hasn't worn off.

"Live-streaming is like having a conversation with thousands of people, so it's fun." she said, "I give them travel advice on where to go if they come to Korea, and of course " tell them how to dress for the weather here."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.