ALIBABA IN ACTION: COVID-19

On April 7, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang announced the 2020 Spring Thunder Initiative to help small and medium-sized enterprises impacted by Covid-19.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, organizers of Shanghai Fashion Week brought the entire autumn-winter 2020 edition online, making it the world’s first fashion-week event at this scale to go fully digital. More than 150 designers and brands livestreamed their collections from March 24-30 via Tmall, Alibaba Group’s e-commerce platform.

Taobao Live announced that it would offer training to 200,000 farmers in ongoing efforts to increase business in rural areas across China. The livestreaming platform aims to generate RMB15 billion ($2.1 billion) in agricultural sales across 16 Chinese provinces this year. Meanwhile, Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao released new measures to support merchants facing transport and logistics disruptions during the pandemic.

VIDEO: With many popular cultural and tourist attractions closed due to the outbreak of Covid-19, Taobao Live launched an online Spring Tour that brought pandas and priceless historical artifacts to audience’s phones and homes.

VIDEO: Watch how local authorities in Zhejiang tapped Taobao Live to help fishermen at Qiandao Lake bring their catch to consumers during the coronavirus outbreak.

Taobao Live announced plans to help more than 200,000 brick-and-mortar retail stores and 100 marketplaces make use of the platform this year. The platform said that its strategy for 2020 will include training to help more than 10,000 in-store staff become effective livestream hosts.

With Taobao Live being used in ever-more-creative ways as millions stays indoors during the coronavirus outbreak, Grace Hsu – one of the creative minds powering the tool – talks about livestreaming's power to bring people together.