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Edited by | Wen Shuqi
June has officially kicked off, and this year’s 618 mega-sale is already in full swing—but the real head-turner? The spotlight is firmly on overseas markets.
At 5 AM Beijing time, a host from Spain’s top deal-hunting platform, Chollo Metro, flipped the switch on AliExpress’s Hangzhou campus to kick off the 618 live broadcast. Across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, streams fired up simultaneously, showcasing homegrown heavyweights like Xiaomi, Honor, OnePlus, and Unitree Robotics.
Peaking at around 3,000 concurrent viewers isn’t just decent for a country of 47 million—it’s a serious wake-up call to the local market.
Looking ahead to the 2026 618 window, AliExpress is rolling out a massive cross-border push. Partnering with over 100 international influencers across Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the US, and several other key territories, the platform will host more than 100 live sessions featuring 60+ Chinese brands.
Let’s be real—live commerce isn’t some brand-new gimmick overseas. In fact, AliExpress tried paving this road years ago.
Back in 2020, when Chinese superstreamers like Li Jiaqi were shattering sales records, Alibaba saw an opportunity to export that winning playbook globally. That May, AliExpress dropped “AliExpress Connect,” an initiative designed to scout and nurture influencers worldwide.
Too bad timing was everything back then. Western shoppers’ habits were nowhere near ready. Nobody was sitting around waiting for a streamer to drop deals, and skepticism toward live shopping ran deep.
Ji Hanxiao, who heads AliExpress’s channels in Spain and Italy, told us that around 2023, the team tried replicating China’s big-ticket live events locally—think celebrity comeos, mini-concerts, and shoppable links. Sure, it drew crowds and racked up views, but conversions still bled into traditional offline retail. “We were essentially trying to force Chinese live-stream logic onto a completely different cultural playbook.”
Fast forward to today, and the playbook has completely shifted. Instead of betting on rookies, AliExpress is snatching up established creators who already have loyal followings. Take Chollo Metro again—that massively popular Spanish price-comparison hub boasts over 6 million monthly active users. AliExpress locked them into a one-year exclusive live commerce partnership. Smart move.
Yeah, it costs more upfront, but the platform’s gut check says the moment is finally ripe.
The broader cross-border scene has gotten brutal lately. With the U.S. scrapping its de minimis tariff exemption and the EU quickly following suit, the old cheap-parcel loophole vanished overnight. Platforms had to pivot fast. Last September, AliExpress doubled down on branding. Rather than playing the subsidy arms race with Temu, they’re leveraging China’s rock-solid supply chains to poach premium sellers directly from Amazon.
Here’s the catch: outside of niche winners like drones and 3D printers, most overseas buyers still associate Chinese labels with budget pricing and questionable quality. Which makes influencer live streaming look like the perfect bridge to change that narrative.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure is finally catching up. Giants like Amazon, TikTok, and Instagram are stitching live video straight into checkout flows. Consumer education has leapfrogged years ahead, too. By Sensor Tower’s numbers, TikTok alone has smashed past one billion monthly active users globally.
The numbers tell the rest of the story. According to The Business Research Company, the global live commerce market is projected to balloon to roughly $30 billion by 2026, growing at a jaw-dropping CAGR of over 30%. Live selling isn’t just a trend anymore—it’s the new global standard.
Ji puts the current European live-streaming scene right where Taobao Live was back in 2015 or 2016. That screams massive untapped potential. But the real prize goes to whoever can seamlessly plug those top-tier creators into actual sales funnels and close the deal.
Everyone’s terrified of missing out on this gold rush, so rivals are sprinting to claim territory. Leading the charge, per EchoTik data,TikTok Shop’s global GMV hit $27.45 billion year-to-date, skyrocketing 95% YoY. Southeast Asia alone raked in $19.15 billion, while the U.S. market kept pace with a steady 40% quarter-over-quarter jump.
TikTok isn’t just letting creators fly solo either. They’re actively courting flagship brands and shipping their proven domestic playbooks abroad. This past March, they rolled out an upgraded “ACE Your Shop” framework that ties creator content, merchant hubs, and store search together, all aimed at turbocharging live ops and hyper-fine-tuning holiday campaigns. Europe is squarely in their crosshairs.
Over at the heavyweight champion, Amazon’s taking a totally different angle. As Yang Tong, VP of Amazon Ads China, put it, Amazon Live isn’t about copying social media trends. It’s built on hard-won shopper trust and purchase intent, leaning heavily into brand storytelling and product education. By April, they’d explicitly accelerated their global push, now dominating live commerce across the US, Canada, five major European markets, India, and Japan.
Temu’s staying cautious on the live front. Their energy is still heavily pinned on short-form video; in Q1 2026, over 75% of their overseas social content landed as Reels-style clips, with daily live streams nowhere near their core focus. That said, knowing their roots, Temu’s quietly leveraging supply chain agility through initiatives like the New Pinduoduo Plan to stretch that advantage further.
Compared to the pack, AliExpress rides Alibaba’s hardcore e-commerce DNA. Physical “shelves” and brand building are baked into their strategy, whereas TikTok Shop runs on algorithmic content recommendations that dictate what people buy next. Clash these two approaches overseas, and you’ll likely see history repeat itself domestically: Taobao Live and Douyin Live carved out distinct niches based on their core strengths, and we’re about to watch the same ecosystem split take shape internationally.
Let’s cut through the noise: TikTok owns the traffic and the algorithm. AliExpress doesn’t have that luxury abroad, which means they’ll have to sweat harder on external funnel generation. Good news? Many of this year’s partner influencers are already broadcasting multi-platform simultaneously, TikTok included. Word on the ground is that when platforms block direct checkout, hosts are smartly steering viewers back to AliExpress or dropping exclusive promo codes mid-stream to capture those sales.
For this round, AliExpress is running a dual-track approach. First, they’re flying in top-tier global creators to broadcast from state-of-the-art studios right here in Hangzhou. Second, local influencers can host from home base while AliExpress handles sourcing, logistics coordination, and campaign ops behind the scenes.
Why drag creators across the ocean? Ying Peng, AliExpress’s country business lead, explains it perfectly: native hosts can demystify Chinese manufacturing using familiar slang and settings, directly tackling the twin hurdles of awareness and trust. Just ask the Chollo Metro crew—they spent days crawling through Xiaomi, Honor, and Shenzhen tech factories before going live, giving audiences an unfiltered look at how these gadgets actually get made.
Still, the elephant in the room remains: Can Chinese brands actually break free from the race-to-the-bottom pricing trap once and for all?
Look at dashcam maker Dingdingpai. Overseas marketing chief Chen Sizhan shared that since launching abroad in 2024, their AliExpress revenue absolutely exploded to over $7 million in 2025—a massive 7x jump. Demand is clearly there. One specific model priced north of $160 moved over 20,000 units single-handedly. Proof positive that Chinese gear can command premium tiers now. Kicking off this 618, they’ve packed ten high-intensity influencer streams across Italy, the US, and Saudi Arabia.
As live streaming shifts from hype to daily routine, AliExpress is already plotting the long game. They’re cooking up an “AE Global Live Calendar” with themed monthly drops, teaming up with MCNs to train homegrown talent pipelines, and crafting flexible quarterly/annual service packages that match brands with the exact creator mix their budget and target market need. They’re even piloting AI co-hosts and virtual presenters to lower the technical barrier to entry for smaller sellers.
Whether AliExpress can truly own the overseas 618 momentum and carve out a permanent seat at the global live commerce table? That’s a marathon, not a sprint, and the verdict is still loading. Buckle up—we’re just getting started.
