Editor’s Note
As young consumers increasingly carve out dedicated “jewelry time” for shopping and engagement, they are reshaping the e-commerce landscape for luxury goods. This trend highlights a shift towards experiential, video-driven retail, where livestreams are not just marketing tools but key sales channels.
In the rapidly growing jewelry market, young consumer groups have become an important driving force for the development of jewelry e-commerce.
33-year-old jewelry enthusiast Wang Zhi is a loyal viewer and consumer of jewelry video livestreams. Her consumption records show that over the past two years, her jewelry spending on livestream platforms has exceeded 120,000 yuan, including a sea-water pearl necklace with a transaction price of 36,000 yuan, as well as multiple pieces of jadeite, colored gemstones, and gold bracelets.
As a jewelry enthusiast, 35-year-old Jiang Min often purchases jewelry accessories through online channels. She follows the livestream accounts of several jewelry merchants on WeChat. “I rarely miss the livestreams of a few favorite stores. If I see a preferred accessory, I buy it first and then decide whether to purchase it during the appreciation period (referring to the time provided by merchants for product appreciation and appraisal, after which returns are allowed—Reporter’s note).”
Among young consumer groups, many post-00s are particularly fond of crystal accessories. Yun Yiyun showed the reporter her collection—nearly 20 crystal bracelets with various styles. In her view, “The styles in livestreams are trendy and the prices are affordable. Each crystal piece has a special meaning.”
Recently, watching jewelry livestreams has become Yun Yiyun’s fixed morning routine. Even when watching videos without focus, she keeps the livestream room open to listen to the introductions, ensuring she doesn’t miss the release of new products she likes.
Jewelry industry practitioner Mu Lin (pseudonym) observed that the consumer group in livestream rooms is predominantly young, with women aged 30-40 being the main consumers, injecting new vitality into the traditional jewelry industry.
Why do many people prefer buying jewelry on e-commerce platforms? Wang Zhi’s answer is “visual, convenient, and wide selection.” She usually has a busy work schedule, and buying jewelry in livestream rooms has become a way to relax.
Jiang Min explained that many of the hosts she follows are deeply knowledgeable about a certain product category and often hold “jewelry source” (showing consumers the entire process of a product from origin, production, packaging to processing through livestreaming—Reporter’s note) events. “This ‘source’ model is very attractive to me. It allows me to understand the production and processing process of jewelry, eliminates intermediate price markups, and enables me to buy desired products at reasonable prices.”
Industry analysis shows that factory-direct accounts in the jewelry accessory industry perform excellently. Displaying content from source locations, wholesale markets to original design factories can truly and visually showcase products, conveying the concept of “no intermediary price difference” to consumers and enhancing credibility.
Post-90s Wang Yufan enjoys buying jewelry in livestream rooms, attracted by trendy designs. She particularly follows young jewelry designer hosts. “These accessories pursue innovation, have novel shapes, moderate prices, and are suitable for daily wear.”
Mu Lin’s personal account has now accumulated over 50,000 followers. She graduated from China University of Geosciences and chose to engage in jewelry sales on e-commerce platforms due to her passion for the jewelry industry. Most of the products she sells are independently designed and loved by many followers. Mu Lin said that she previously mainly sold through traditional e-commerce platforms. Since starting livestreaming, sales and follower numbers have continued to rise.
Yi Song, founder of a pearl brand and host, believes that livestream rooms build a communication bridge between merchants and consumers, allowing merchants to more accurately grasp consumer demand and capture industry trends and market development potential.
What cannot be ignored is that the current jewelry e-commerce livestreaming field is mixed, with glaring sales data hiding industry chaos. Some low-quality livestream rooms engage in exaggerated or even false advertising, selling inferior products as good ones, and misleading consumption, affecting the healthy development of the industry.
In April this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation released 10 typical cases in the field of livestream e-commerce, two of which involved jewelry livestream rooms using fake materials and false advertising. In one case, a company from Xinjiang and Yunnan placed jade stones into a lottery machine in advance before the livestream. During the livestream, staff pretended to draw the jade stones from the machine and handed them to the host, who claimed in the livestream room that the jade stones were obtained from on-site draws to attract popularity.
In another case, Lin某某, while livestreaming sales on a certain platform, sold imitation jewelry products and imitation jewelry chains as real jewelry, with the accompanying jewelry appraisal certificates also being forged. The parties involved illegally sold a total of 599,700 yuan. The State Administration for Market Regulation notified that their actions violated the law.