Kuaishou made a turn into e-commerce in August 2018, and the next year its gross merchandise volume (GMV) — the total value of goods sold on the app — had exploded to 59.6 billion yuan, up from just 97 million yuan. Its revenue from online retail increased 10 times to 259 million yuan in 2019, on the back of a roughly 5% commission it was taking on products bought from partner vendors.