By Casey Hall and Sophie Yu
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese sellers of items from lunch boxes to appliances have taken to social media platform Rednote to generate sympathy purchases, telling domestic consumers they are offloading stock at bargain prices amid U.S. tariffs.
Over the past week, dozens of sellers have broadcast livestreams showing goods produced for U.S. customers, which they said they could no longer sell because of tariff rates of 145% for made-in-China goods imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In one livestream, user “Dingding Cloud Foreign Trade Warehouse” sells small appliances, including rice cookers, juicers and toasters by telling viewers: “The U.S. has breached its contract. No more shipments! Everything is on sale at 90% off!”
In another video, by user “Muzi Has Good Goods,” a host hawked appliances while surrounded by boxes marked “trade transit containers”, saying they had no more space in their warehouse because of orders they could no longer send to the U.S.
Some of the sellers sold items such as Costa Coffee mugs, but most were brands not widely known abroad, such as OSTMARS and APLX, which are sold on Amazon.
The push comes as China has declared that it will help Chinese exporters sell goods domestically, touting its giant, though of-late sluggish, domestic consumer market as an alternative to the U.S. market after Trump’s tariffs.
JD.com and Alibaba-owned supermarket chain Freshippo have been among retailers and e-commerce platforms that have joined the push, with JD.com saying it would launch a 200 billion yuan ($27.35 billion) fund to help the country’s exporters to sell their products domestically over the next year.
At the Canton Fair, China’s biggest trade expo held twice a year in the southern city of Guangzhou, exporters told Reuters on Tuesday that U.S. markets were “frozen” for them.
Some sources involved in the export business said they were skeptical of the Rednote sales livestreams, describing them as pure marketing. Exporters tended to have a variety of target markets and would shift focus to other countries if the United States were not an option, one Chinese exporter, who declined to be named for privacy reasons, told Reuters.
Reuters reached out to 12 of the Rednote sellers but did not receive any responses.
Analysts said that the livestreams were in line with how China reacted to external pressure and that even if they were just marketing, it would be effective.
“In China, there is this sentiment that we need to come together and we need to resist U.S. bullying,” said Ashley Dudarenok, founder of digital consultancy Chozan, adding that hashtags like “resist”, “China can make it” and “save factories” have all emerged in the wake of the newest outbreak of trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies.
“Somehow Trump tariffs might actually help China’s boost consumer sentiment, it will give people a very strong reason why they should consume … because it’s now bigger than just about themselves,” she said.
(Reporting by Casey Hall and Sophie Yu; Editing by Brenda Goh and Gerry Doyle)
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