In the first four months of this year, the online retail sales of Qingdao, Shandong province totaled 55.75 billion yuan ($8.35 billion), accounting for 33.1 percent of the provincial total, which is an increase of 29.3 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the Qingdao municipal bureau of commerce.

Since this year, Qingdao has given full play to the positive role of e-commerce in promoting consumption and expanding domestic demand. Efforts have been made to develop new forms and models of consumption such as e-commerce livestreams, in a bid to promote the high-quality development of e-commerce in Qingdao.

A poster for an online sales event in Qingdao [Photo/Qingdao News]

To meet residents' expanding consumption expectations and unleash the potential of the domestic market, the Qingdao municipal bureau of commerce collaborated with Meituan and other online food delivery platforms to launch promotional events around Valentine's Day, the May Day holiday, and Mother's Day.

Promotional products cover dining, leisure and entertainment to provide consumers with one-stop online shopping services.

In 2020, the city released an action plan to boost the development of e-commerce livestreams to build a batch of industrial agglomeration areas and livestreaming agencies, cultivate a batch of influential MCN institutions, incubate a batch of online celebrity brands and train a batch of online hosts in Qingdao.

After two years of development, the total number of online hosts in the city has reached 5,692, ranking first in the province.

An online host promotes products in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo/Qingdao News]

In the first quarter of this year, 313,000 livestreaming activities were held in Qingdao, up 123 percent year-on-year. They attracted 2.97 billion viewers, up 196.8 percent year-on-year.

In recent years, Qingdao has ramped up efforts to promote the construction of a rural e-commerce public service system. From January to April, the city's rural areas realized online retail sales of 8.27 billion yuan, up 32.7 percent year-on-year.