An Ecommerce Influencer is Selling Rockets and Houses on Taobao’s Livestream Service

After Viya (薇娅) became Taobao’s top-ranked seller last year (and appeared with Kim Kardashian West), netizens claimed that she could “earn a house in one night.” Now the ecommerce champion is literally selling deeds to houses — as well as rockets — over Taobao’s livestream service.

Viya entered the fledgling real-estate-livestream industry last Wednesday, offering her fans property deeds for as little as 521RMB (around 74USD). The house in question was a 24,000RMB per square meter apartment complex in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou.

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In addition to becoming property owners via the internet, buyers enjoyed an 8.3% discount for purchasing the titles through Viya’s livestream room. The package also included a 2-year contract with a property management service. At the end of the livestream, over 800 deeds had been sold. 

Viya clarified during the livestream that she was not earning any money from the sales, and that she just wanted to push the boundaries of livestreaming.

But she didn’t stop there. The next day, she sold five commercial rocket launch packages for a whopping 45 million RMB (USD 6.3 million) each. But don’t worry — she offered her viewers an exclusive discount of 5 million RMB. Included in the “deals” were visits to the launch site, “command” over the launch, and customization of the body of the rocket. 

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The rocket stunt was announced on Taobao’s Weibo page on March 30. After it was originally suspected to be an April Fool’s prank, the ecommerce giant clarified with a post: “This is for real.” 

The Kuaizhou-1A solid-fuel carrier rockets were manufactured by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC), China’s first commercial rocket service. One Weibo user commented under Taobao’s post: “Who needs the 5 million RMB discount? I need the 45 million first!” 

“The stars are falling,” writes another. “Who wants to buy them?”