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Jofie Yordan · · 9 min readTikTok’s live-commerce boom: hustler’s paradise or fleeting trend?
Thu Huong Le also contributed to this report.
One year ago, Revian Nur Risky worked behind the scenes as a videographer at a Jakarta-based creative agency.
Now, as a TikTok Shop livestreamer for marketing firm Social Bread, Risky has to be in front of the camera at all times. The 23-year-old Indonesian national broadcasts five hours a day, seven days a week for a local sporting goods company.
That might sound exhausting, but Risky doesn’t mind. The main reason is simple: higher income.
Revian Nur Risky during one of his livestreaming sessions at Social Bread / Photo credit: Tech in Asia
On average, he can make nearly tens of millions of rupiah monthly (around US$650), which doesn’t include commissions from Social Bread if he reaches the sales target. To put this in perspective, the average monthly salary in Indonesia is about 3 million rupiah (US$197), according to government estimates in February 2023.
Though still at an early stage, ecommerce enablers in Indonesia like Social Bread are following in the footsteps of the so-called “livestreaming factories” in China, molding live-selling hosts like Risky.
The race to sell and make money on TikTok Shop is heating up in Southeast Asia, as the platform has seen a recent explosion in popularity. While live commerce isn’t new in the region, TikTok Shop has revitalized it.
See also: Can TikTok Shop catch up with Shopee, Tokopedia in Indonesia?
“It is the first platform that finally puts all the pieces of the customer journey puzzle together for live shopping,” says Simon Torring, founder and CEO of Cube Asia, which specializes in ecommerce market and insights data.
But how long will this party last?
Image credit: Timmy Loen
800 million rupiah creator hub
In November 2022, Social Bread opened what it refers to as a creator hub in BSD City, a digital center located in Greater Jakarta.
Where Shopee and Lazada left off
Don’t bore the audience
Live selling isn’t magic
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Similar to the rise of China’s so-called “livestreaming factories,” training TikTok live sellers has also become big business in Southeast Asia.
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