Live e-Commerce Effort Promotes U.S. Red Meat in South Korea

Recognizing strong growth in South Korea’s e-commerce sector, USMEF recently conducted several e-commerce events encouraging Korean consumers to purchase U.S. red meat online.

One of the activities represented a relatively new approach to e-commerce in the country – live merchandising though an online platform.

“More and more Korean retailers are investing aggressively in e-commerce platforms and one of the notable trends is that platforms are merchandising products through live videos,” said Jihae Yang, USMEF director in South Korea. “They are producing ‘merchandising video clips’ with a celebrity chef or Youtuber, or they create production areas, characterizing farms or ranches, to highlight the freshness of foods they are promoting.”

Live e-commerce, or “livestreaming,” has taken off in China and other Asian countries. The concept is like home shopping channels on TV, in that a host promotes products on a specific channel. However, live e-commerce broadcasts occur online or via a mobile platform where viewers can interact with the host in real time and directly purchase products.

USMEF, with funding from the United Soybean Board, supported a one-hour live e-commerce show promoting Johnsonville sausages on Jamlive, a program produced by Naver, a leading online platform in Korea.

During the show, which attracted more than 113,000 viewers, the farm-to-table concept was emphasized, along with the food safety aspects of U.S. pork production.

A popular South Korean social media influencer promotes U.S. red meat during a live e-commerce show