Live commerce is changing the way brands connect with their communities.
At Young Hungry Free, we've never seen it as just another sales channel. We believe it's an opportunity to create genuine conversations, build lasting relationships and make our community part of the experience.
As our founder, Winnie Ong, recently shared with Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the journey didn't change what we wanted to achieve. It reshaped how we think about achieving it.
China's live commerce ecosystem to strengthen customer experience and build more resilient businesses. Watch the full segment above.
Looking beyond the livestream
One of our biggest takeaways was seeing how businesses in China approach live commerce as a complete ecosystem. Product design, marketing, livestreaming, operations and customer engagement aren't separate functions; they work together to create one seamless customer experience.
It challenged us to ask a different question: not "How do we replicate what China is doing?" but "How do we reshape these ideas to work for Singapore and our community?"
Strengthening the team behind every livestream
Since returning, we've restructured our livestream operations with clearer roles across the team and launched our 10-week training programme for both hosts and backstage administrators. Because when our people grow, our community benefits too.
We've also begun investing in data and dashboards to better understand our customers and make more informed commercial decisions.
Most importantly, we've embraced the idea of “shoppertainment”. Instead of treating livestreams as a place to sell products, we're creating interactive experiences through styling, storytelling, gamification and community participation. Every livestream is designed to be engaging, enjoyable and something our customers genuinely want to return to.
Always putting our community first
The lessons we brought back from Hangzhou weren't about becoming another market.
It was a reminder that better systems, stronger training and smarter use of data ultimately serve one purpose: delivering a better experience for our customers. As retail continues to evolve, we'll continue learning, experimenting and adapting global best practices in ways that make sense for Singapore.
At Young Hungry Free, we aim to build a community that keeps coming back, not because they have to, but because they want to. Because every decision starts with our community.