11 years later, China’s e-commerce mammoth Alibaba is still relentlessly churning out new records at its annual “11.11” shopping extravaganza, except in recent years, the daylong campaign is been branded more as “Double Eleven” instead of the “Singles’ Day”.
It clocked a total GMV (gross merchandise volume) of RMB 268.4 billion (USD 38.4 billion), up 26% from that of last year.
Hangzhou-based Alibaba kicked off the 24-hour long shopping binge with a televised countdown gala that features American pop star Taylor Swift. Earlier, another U.S. celebrity Kim Kardashian was seen on a Tmall livestreaming session touting her own fragrance brand, which is available on Tmall. In the interim, In Europe and Southeast Asia, Alibaba’s AliExpress and Lazada have respectively launched Singles’ Day campaigns on the same day.
Alibaba’s Singles Day, falls on the calendar date November 11, isn’t the only shopping bonanza that looks to reap Chinese consumers’ wallets. The e-commercer’s long-time nemeses including JD.com and Pinduoduo were also coaxing consumers into spending on their platforms through similar deep discounts.
In total, Chinese people spent RMB 1482 billion in a 24-hour spending marathon across various shopping events, as People’s Bank of China announced in the morning of Novemer 12.
Coined by Alibaba 11 years ago, the company’s annual shopping ritual has now evolved into a mirror that reflects the changing consumer behavior in the world’s second largest economy. Let’s dive into this with our infographic below.
