网络购物热潮催生新职业

A growing number of photo studios, as well as individual photographers are providing product photo shooting services for online businesses and most of them are able to make some 10 thousand yuan, or about 1,600 US dollars, a month.

Huang Jingyi runs one such photo studio in Beijing. Caught up in the recent Singles Day online shopping sales frenzy, Huang says photo orders started to flood in a month in advance and he and his staff rushed to get the work done.

"At the busiest time, we had to work day and night, nonstop for three consecutive days. We took photos of at least ten thousand products."

Huang started his business only a few years ago, with one associate in a 50-square-meter studio, but thanks to the booming online shopping industry, his business has grown to a 10 person shooting team and moved into a 200-square-meter studio.

A senior female online shop owner surnamed Li uses the product photography service and says competition between shop owners is fierce nowadays. Having presentable product pictures on a store's webpage is an effective way to be more competitive and Li talks about her own experience.

"I sell purses and bags online. The business was good, until more competitors entered the market in recent years, and my sales started to go down. However, I found one other shop selling basically the same products as mine that stood out strong. It was largely due to the attractive promotion pictures on its page. The pictures have beautiful models in them and are well shot, and even I felt like shopping at that store after seeing the pictures. So I began to use the photo service and now spend 800 yuan every week for it."

Huang Jingyi says the market for online product photography is huge and growing. He says that more than ten thousand online shops took part in the Singles' Day sales campaign on Taobao, and millions of products needed new photos. The lowest price for taking picture of one product is 35 yuan, so that means there is at least 40 million yuan in the pool. That's a small tip of the iceberg, given that there are hundreds of thousands of online stores on Taobao.

Another occupation that booms is the cyber model. A young woman surnamed Yang is a sophomore student who does cyber modeling work part time, and says she's been making quite a fortune out of it.

"I work on weekends, posing in front of cameras in different clothes. The payment is about 7 or 8 thousand yuan a month."

Being an online model doesn't require models to have an outstanding height or professional training experience, so it's easy for many university students to do as a part-time job.

Taobao has its own "T-Lady" online model platform, where women interested in the job can register and put up their profiles and pictures on the page, and shop owners can find the a model that suits their product and directly contact the model. According to Taobao's statistics, there are 35 thousand cyber models registered at the platform and the models have made a total value of more than 1 billion yuan.

Xiong Xiaoyingzi is a college student registered at the platform and says it's quite easy to make money.

"I put my profile on the platform, and shop owners contact me directly. I often read fashion magazines to learn from professional models about how to pose in front of cameras. The income is quite good, from 5 thousand to 10 thousand yuan a month."

Online models also fall into different subcategories including face, neck, hand and leg models. Children and elderly models are also in strong demand nowadays.

For CRI, I'm Wang Wei.