Chinese internet users spent billions of dollars in the planet’s biggest online shopping splurge Wednesday, as “Singles Day” hit new heights, despite slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Advertisement
Smartphone maker Xiaomi received more than 1 billion yuan worth of orders by 7pm from Alibaba’s Tmall platform, ranked at first among the sellers in terms of sales value, it said on Weibo. The firm said over 27 million purchases came via mobile devices in the first hour.
As 16,000 brands participated in the mega sale, 1.7 million couriers, 4 lakh vehicles and 200 planes will be delivering products.
One of the new sales channel pumping Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales was Suning Commerce Group Co, in which it bought a 20 percent stake in August.
“Alibaba is positioned as the number one player in the Chinese e-commerce market, so it has to be seen to be maintaining, or gaining ground really”, said Duncan Clark, chairman of Beijing-based tech consultancy BDA.
The army of Internet shoppers had ordered 37,000 health products from the United States within 11 hours of the start of Singles Day, said Sun Weimin, vice-chairman of Suning.
“This year, Alibaba Group has transformed 11.11 into an unprecedented mobile shopping experience”.
“Singles Day” began back in 1993, when students at Nanjing University chose 11 November as Bachelor’s Day, for “unmarried men to celebrate their singleness and buy themselves a present”, a report in the South China Morning Post explains.
In an earlier release, Alibaba’s chief executive officer Daniel Zhang (張勇) said: “The whole world will witness the power of Chinese consumption this November 11”.
That explains why year-on-year sales of Alibaba and JD.com keeps on jumping from $5.75 billion in 2013 to $9.3 billion in 2014 for Alibaba and 120 percent hike in orders for JD.com for the same years.
As more people get used to shopping online, growth in online shopping will slow from a forecast 32 per cent growth next year to 16 per cent growth by 2016, which may be why Chinese retailers are looking beyond China.
It’s now the largest single online-shopping day in the world, and this year, more than 40,000 merchants and 30,000 brands from 25 countries were expected to participate, including Apple, Nike, Huggies, Topshop, Burberry, and P&G. That’s more than full day Singles Day sales in 2013.
Advertisement
For Alibaba, GMV “doesn’t mean that much, because it’s no guarantee of the money they’re going to make off the transaction”, Cavender said.
