(Yicai) Dec. 27 -- Many fake Chinese baijiu bottles are being sold by livestreamers who need to meet the low-price standards set by this new online shopping mode while bypassing the high prices of liquor companies.

Online sales of alcoholic drinks on Chinese e-commerce platforms Taobao, Douyin, and JD.Com increased during this year’s Double 11 Shopping Gala. Sales of such products through livestreaming on Taobao’s Tmall skyrocketed 628 percent to CNY1.8 billion (USD252.3 million) during the shopping festival from a year earlier, driving baijiu sales up by 250 percent.

Even though baijiu sales are hotter during promotions, there are only hundreds of viewers watch famous baijiu brands carrying out livestreaming events everyday, an industry insider said. However, many independent livestreamers offer fake or shoddy baijiu bottles to attract more buyers and tackle the competition from official channels, the insider noted.

Some alcoholic drink makers even deliberately produce lower-quality products with appealing packages and offer discounts exclusively for livestreaming sales to attract more buyers, Yicai learned.

Livestreaming e-commerce mainly adopts price-oriented, low-price strategies to encourage impulsive consumption, Cai Xuefei, an alcohol industry analyst, told Yicai. However, baijiu sales mostly rely on regional market distribution, so a stable price system is the bottom line that distillers strictly abide by, Cai added.

Leading baijiu makers have set up official livestreaming studios on e-commerce platforms to promote their brands, Cai said, noting that their prices are the same or higher than those in offline stores.

The main task of the liquor industry is to stabilize the offline price system so they will not need to promote core products online, the e-commerce head of a listed baijiu company told Yicai.

Despite the difficult situation, many distillers and liquor merchants interviewed by Yicai said they are still optimistic about livestreaming e-commerce and that the mobile internet era will undoubtedly promote the development of new sales channels.

Editor: Futura Costaglione