NewsColony

NewsColony Coronavirus: Live-streaming sales prove a lifeline for China retailers illustration by Henry Wong Zhang Jiacheng, a farmer in one of China’s poorest counties, is wandering around his orchard on a desolate mountainside cutting flowers from the apple trees. As he wields his secateurs he looks towards a tripod-mounted camera trained on what he’s doing as he explains to a live online audience what makes his apples so tasty. “You can get to know the growing process of our apple trees here. They taste so good because the height of our orchard is more than 1,000 metres (0.6 miles),” says the 59-year-old during one of his regular broadcasts on Taobao Live. Addressing an audience that fluctuates between dozens and a few thousand, he is trying to sell his farm produce, which includes apples, potatoes and black fungus. Any of his viewers wishing to make a purchase just have to click an icon on screen to bring up a list of products. Zhang is part of a growing army of small Chine...