When Lionel Messi appeared on Alibaba’s Taobao Live platform this year, 5.3mn viewers joined the livestream to watch him chat. But it is not just football superstars that attract such crowds in China. Top streamers who sell products via live video attract a huge following. The success of livestream commerce is overhauling the retail sector.

Livestreams are similar to home TV shopping programmes. The difference is that people can ask questions about the products, in much the same way as they could in a physical store. Streamers sell everything from fresh produce to luxury handbags, while entertaining and engaging viewers.

Livestreaming has caught on in other parts of Asia too. In Indonesia, the market share of TikTok’s live commerce business overtook Alibaba’s ecommerce platform in the past year. The threat posed by the new sector to traditional retail stores prompted the Indonesian government to introduce a nationwide ecommerce ban on these social media platforms. TikTok shut down its ecommerce shop in the country this week.