China’s biggest online shopping celebrity has vanished from Alibaba’s ecommerce platform Taobao after authorities fined her for tax evasion, in a big blow to the ecommerce giant’s fight to dominate the growing market of livestream shopping.
Huang Wei, known online as “Viya”, had her account on Taobao taken down after being fined Rmb1.34bn ($210m) by the tax office of the city of Hangzhou on Monday for under-reporting income made from promoting goods to her 13m online fans.
With the suspension of Viya, “Taobao has just lost its core competitiveness in livestream ecommerce” said Li Chengdong, head of the internet think-tank Haitun, adding that many shoppers tune into Taobao livestream shopping platform just to buy products the influencer recommends.