On Monday, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. stated that their sales numbers for the annual shopping spree on Singles’ Day had exceeded the $30 billion mark. The announcement by the Chinese retailer has put the event back on track for setting a record in its 11th year. The figure is the same as the sales of the retailer’s U.S. rival, Amazon.com Inc., in their latest quarter. Moreover, it also matches the sales of the company’s e-commerce platforms last year on Singles Day. However, analysts have said that the sales growth for the complete 24-hour event are most likely to fall short, as opposed to a year earlier.
This is mostly due to an overall slowing down in the ecommerce industry in the country at a time when the economic expansion in China is heading towards an all-time low. ‘Double 11’, as its also know, has become a gauge of consumer sentiment in China and this year, the event is also a shop window for Alibaba as the company is planning to sell $15 billion worth of shares this month in Hong Kong. Even though the U.S. listed company has spent significantly on diversification, the numbers show that ecommerce still contributes about four-fifths of revenue.
It was in 2009 that the informal Singles Day sales in China was transformed into the biggest sales online fest in the world by Alibaba. As a matter of fact, this day even dwarfed the Cyber Monday sales in the United States, which raked in $7.9 billion last year. The name for the event plays on the date November 11th, which is rendered as 11/11. Since then, this event has been replicated in the country as well as abroad. It is easy to find Singles’ Day promotions at competitors, such as China’s Pinduoduo and JD.com, as well as Singapore’s Qoo10 and South Korea’s 11thStreet.
However, the slowdown in China’s economy has meant that Singles Day sales for Alibaba have weakened. Last year, the company revealed that the year-on-year sales increase for the event was 27%, which was the lowest in the 10-year-history of the event. According to forecasts, the sales increase would be around 25% to 27% this year.
This year’s shopping bonanza for 24 hours was started by the Chinese retail juggernaut with a performance by Taylor Swift, the U.S. pop star and they followed it up with live-streamed marketing for more than 1,000 brands. It took one minute and eight seconds for sales to hit $1 billion and they reached $22.6 billion in the first nine hours. According to Alibaba, this was a 25% increase from last year at the same point. The company also said that 84 brands were able to make sales worth 100 million yuan in the first hour. It further said that live streaming was used by half of the merchants on the Tsmall marketplace and the sales generated this way exceeded 10 billion yuan. As per Alibaba, it expects more than 500 users to make purchases, which is 100 million more than the year before.
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