(Yicai Global) March 15 -- Taobao, the online shopping platform owned by Alibaba Group Holding, plans to substitute 70 percent of items promoted with photos and texts via its recommendation system with livestreaming events and short videos, as these media forms are more likely to encourage young people to buy electronic products, according to an insider.

Most Taobao users search for items they want to buy, while in the future, the recommendation and livestreaming functions will become two of the platform’s main traffic channels, Peng Yanping, general manager of consumer electronics marketing at Taobao Tmall Industry Development and Operation Center, told Yicai Global.

Scenario-based content marketing is the key to stimulating users to buy electronic products, and integrated e-commerce livestreaming has the highest conversion rate because users feel the urge to purchase items when connecting with the salesperson, according to a white paper on trends in the consumer electronics industry released by Taobao’s site Tmall and Ernest and Young.

“Brands that haven’t entered the livestreaming or short video businesses yet perhaps need to speed up,” Peng said. “Consumers’ decision-making has shifted from function-orientation to scenario-orientation.”

The individual needs of Generation Z, youngsters born between the mid-to-late 1990s and 2010, led to the development of new products, as it is very hard to impress young people now, she added.

More than 80 percent of consumers in China who buy electronic products are aged between 20 and 40, with those born after 1995 accounting for over 30 percent.

Small household appliances are low priced and are mostly fast-moving consumer goods, meeting the needs of Gen Z, and are considered to have great potential in the consumer electronics industry.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione