“Our goal is to stimulate consumption demand and support lifestyle upgrade in China through new brands and products. We will enable merchants in China and around the world to grow their businesses through data-driven product innovation and consumer insights, as well as leverage our recommendation technology and content-driven user engagement to delight consumers in urban coastal cities and less-developed areas of China” – said Fan Jiang, president of Taobao and Tmall. Just to give you an idea of the scale of the sale, this year, there will be more than 22,000 international brands from 78 countries on Alibaba’s global online marketplace, Tmall. Similarly, with its other subsidiary, AliExpress, the group is expecting to serve more than 200 countries, while also allowing local merchants from Russia, Spain, Italy, and Turkey to participate in the festival for the first time. Here are some interesting insights at the 2019 11.11 (Singles’ Day) Festival so far –
$1 billion GMV in 1 minute 8 seconds $10 billion GMV in 29 minutes 45 seconds Xiaomi leading the list of top exporters, followed by Midea and Haier Dyson making it to the top importers’ list, with a2 coming in at second Huawei Mate 30 and iPhone 11 Pro right on top as the top new products by GMV By 1:26 (CST), total GMV exceeded ¥120.7 billion, surpassing that of the GMV back in the year 2016 Japan tops the list of top 10 countries by GMV selling to China after an hour of sale, followed by US, Korea, and Australia among others Aptamil and Swisse, along with a few others make their way to the top 10 list of imported brands bought by Chinese consumers by GMV Interestingly, the total number of orders during peak hours reached 544,000 orders/second, which is around 1,360 times that of the first edition festival sale back in 2009 As of 1:00 (CST), 84 brands (Midea, Apple, Haier, Nike, Huawei, Adidas, and more) have surpassed the ¥100 million mark in GMV At around 9:00 (CST), the total GMV reached $22.63 billion (~ ¥158 billion), which, at the same time during last year sale, was $18.27 billion (~ ¥127 billion) and by 10:00 (CST), it reached around ¥167 billion By 12:00 (CST), Xiaomi tops the list of top 10 exported brands from China by GMV, followed by Midea, Haier, MIJIA, etc, with the total GMV touching over ¥184 billion ($26.38 billion) which is more than what they achieved in 2017 With the day progressing, at around 16:31 (CST), the total GMV has exceeded ¥213 billion, surpassing that of the 2018 festival sale After 16 hours and 33 minutes into the festival sale, the number of delivery orders has exceeded 1 billion, which surpasses that of 2018 sale with 6 hours and 45 minutes faster With the sale coming to an end, at 00:00 (CST), the total GMV that the group managed to achieve touched ¥286 billion Russia topped the list of top 10 exported brands from China by GMV, followed by Midea, Haier, MIJIA, and others The 2019 sale attained an overall year-on-year GMV growth of 25.7% with around 1.29 billion delivery orders As of 00:00 (CST), 15 brands have managed to surpass the ¥1 billion GMV, which include the likes of Apple, Midea, Haier, Nike, Xiaomi, and more
Coming back to the three pillars that the Alibaba Group is focussing on this time around — when it talks about New Consumption — the group hints at over 200,000 brands coming together to offer around one million new products, with more than 500 million users expected to participate this year and save a total of ¥50 billion in promotions and coupons. Similarly, when it says — New Business — it points towards the thousands of merchants that have upgraded to Tmall Flagship Store 2.0 to avail the ability to customize the user experience, make it more immersive, and in turn, serve them better. While the group has its focus on expanding its reach and serving more consumers, at the same time, it also has its focus on taking a Greener approach to saving the environment. For this, Cainiao (Alibaba’s logistics company) and its partners have taken an initiative to recycle all the packaging material on November 20. The group also expects to save around 200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy on November 11 at its data centers by utilizing renewable energy and energy-conserving technology. Talking about the milestones that the Alibaba group has managed to achieve with its 11.11 (Singles’ Day) festival in the past decade, the group surpassed a ¥1 billion GMV back in the year 2011, with a ¥5.2 billion GMV and 22 million parcels. The year 2014 marked the first 11.11 after Alibaba got listed in the NYSE, and in the same year, with an “All-in Mobile” strategy, the mobile GMV made up 42.6% of the total GMV. Later, in 2016, the GMV went into three digits, with a total of ¥120.7 billion with around 657 million parcels. Similarly, last year, it managed to achieve a 27% increase in the GMV from 2017 with a total of ¥213.5 with more than 237 brands, including the likes of Apple, Dyson, Kindle, Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, Nestlé, Gap, Nike, and Adidas adding up to a total of more than ¥100 million. Disclosure: The Editor of this blog is in Hangzhou on Alibaba’s invitation.
