Who is live-streaming e-commerce star Viya and how did she become famous?

Chinese online influencer Viya currently finds herself out of the live-streaming e-commerce market after being fined for tax evasion
Viya saw her social media account on Weibo and her online store on Taobao become immediately inaccessible after her record fine was announced

E-commerce

Jane Zhang

Published: 11:23pm, 21 Dec 2021

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It has been a spectacular fall from grace for Chinese online influencer Viya, who went from being the country’s most bankable live-streaming e-commerce star to a virtual pariah overnight after authorities in the eastern city of Hangzhou slapped her with a record 1.34 billion yuan (US$210 million) fine for tax evasion.

One of China’s rare one-name celebrities, Viya – whose real name is Huang Wei –saw her widely followed social media account on microblogging platform Weibo and her online presence on Taobao Marketplace, the social commerce operation of Alibaba Group Holding, become immediately inaccessible just hours after the tax bureau of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, announced her steep penalty.

That has temporarily derailed Viya’s online business empire that she built from scratch through years of hard work, which included collaborating with American celebrity Kim Kardashian during Alibaba’s Singles’ Day campaign in 2019 to sell the US reality television star’s KKW fragrance. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Viya, 36, cemented her lofty position in live streaming and role as an online influencer in October this year, when she sold a whopping 8.5 billion yuan worth of goods during her 14-hour live-streaming session on Taobao Live as part of Alibaba’s presales programme for Singles’ Day in November.

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Live-streamers bring bridge traffic to standstill in China

Last year, Viya conducted 310 live-streaming sessions or almost one session a day, according to a report by Xinhua Daily Telegraph in June. She sold 38.6 billion yuan worth of products on Taobao in 2020, which amounts to about a third of US department store chain Macy’s worldwide net sales in the same year.

The implications of Viya’s hefty fine and the penalty of being erased online are expected to be huge. Live streaming is already the best-paying job for fresh Chinese graduates, according to online classifieds platform 58.com, and a vital marketing channel for many foreign and domestic brands in the world’s biggest e-commerce market.

The latest campaign against tax evaders in the live-streaming sector has also come at a time when the nation’s tech entrepreneurs are scrambling to lavish tens of billions of yuan on President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” drive – a new initiative to reduce economic and social inequality.

The fine levied on Viya amounts to nearly 40 per cent of what online delivery giant Meituan was fined by the government for antitrust violations in October.

Hangzhou fines top influencer Viya a record US$210 million for tax evasion

Despite her current woes, Viya’s journey to the top of her chosen profession provides an example of how opportunities in the world’s biggest e-commerce market can create wealth and help shape trends in the internet industry.

Without a college education, Viya left her home in the eastern rural province of Anhui at the age of 16 to work in Beijing and make her fortune in the nation’s capital. Viya found work as a sales girl at a wholesale market near the Beijing Zoo.

She became jobless during the Sars outbreak in 2003. Money was hard to come by in those days, according to Viya’s recent interviews with Chinese media, and she tried to save by living in a rented flat without a private toilet and taking non-air-conditioned bus rides, which cost 1 yuan cheaper than the air-conditioned transport.

Still, Viya’s motivation to get rich and famous remained strong. In 2003, Viya and her husband Dong Haifeng opened a small shop with 6,000 yuan as capital. The money earned from that venture, however, was lost when the couple opened a small factory for consumer goods.

Confident of her looks and singing ability, Viya entered the entertainment industry in 2005 by forming a girl band, which was eventually signed up by a talent agency. However, she later realised that her occupation as a singer did not make enough money as she initially thought it would.

So she and her husband moved to Xian, the capital of northwestern Shaanxi province, where they opened a chain of clothing stores.

Alibaba’s Taobao Live notches US$7.5 billion in Double 11 presales campaign

By 2012, Viya started to feel the pull of e-commerce. In a story she has told Chinese media, including Xinhua Daily Telegraph, one customer entered her store to try on many garments, but did not buy any. Instead, this customer opened the Taobao website and searched for the clothes that she had tried on.

That became the “a-ha” moment for Viya, who decided to invest in e-commerce. After closing all her physical stores, she moved to Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province. While her online store on Taobao was mildly successful, Viya received a life-changing opportunity when she was invited by Taobao as one of its “Taobao Girls” in live streaming.

In May 2016, she started her first live-streaming session. Her strong sales skills in front of the camera – a trait she honed from her early days as a sales girl at a Beijing wholesale market – combined with a popularity among online shoppers and special deals offered by suppliers, made her a force to be reckoned with in live-streaming e-commerce.

Viya pitched everything from make-up and skincare products, snacks, home appliances to cars and even the launch of a rocket. Her sales began to grow at a fast pace. She sold about 2.7 billion yuan worth of goods in 2018. She generated that amount of sales over a few days by 2019. And it is a sum she was able to make in just a few hours by 2020.

As Viya’s sales grew, Alibaba would give her more goods to pitch to a vast audience. The more her online traffic increased, her sales grew larger.

She became the face of live streaming on Taobao and a leader of a live-streaming enterprise that involved a team of hundreds of people and many merchants.

Alibaba bets on live-stream e-commerce amid Big Tech scrutiny

Viya followed a gruelling work schedule. According to one leaked daily schedule, she wakes up at 3 in the afternoon and reviews products from 4pm to 7pm. Her live-streaming session typically starts at 8pm. A session usually lasts until midnight, after which she will review the live-streamed show with her team to draw up improvements for the following day’s session.

In an interview last year, Viya said that she worked so hard that she has an oxygen bag on standby if ever she faints. She said she has only used it once or twice. “Some people said I want to make more money, but even if I can make more money, I will never have the time to spend it,” Viya said. “I love what I am doing”.

“For my profession, I see it as a bridge,” she said. “I can stop live-streaming today, but if I stop – for all those who are walking on the bridge, all the merchants and my fans – the bridge will fall down.”

Today, that has become a bridge too far for Viya amid her tax problems.