Alibaba Has $ 56 Billion In Sales As Post-Virus Singles Day Kicks In

HANGZHOU: China’s Alibaba said that orders on its e-commerce platforms during the Singles Day shopping show had exceeded $ 56 billion on Wednesday (November 11) morning, as weary consumers of the confinement they spent up to 16 million discounted products.

The world’s largest sales event, overshadowing Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday in the United States, spans four major days this year, and has so far brought sellers 16 times more orders for value than Prime Day. Amazon.com’s two-day global last month.

Its size is such that its performance is widely considered indicative of China’s post-virus economic recovery.

“Due to COVID-19, many Chinese are unable to go abroad,” Vice President Liu Bo told reporters. “This actually stimulates online consumption.”

So far, the performance is likely a relief for Alibaba Group after losing about 10 percent of its market value last week when regulators blasted the listing of Ant Group, a fintech subsidiary.

The firm began selling earlier this year to give lesser-known brands more exposure. It has set main discount days for November 1 through November 3, as well as the usual November 11, and will calculate the gross merchandise volume (GMV) during the 11 days.

Launched in 2009, the event is typically a flashy one-day event with live performances and last year recorded a record GMV of US $ 38.4 billion. This year, Katy Perry appeared at the Alibaba gala, albeit through a live broadcast.

WATCH: Increased Adoption of Live Stream Sales for China Singles Day Shopping Event

In addition to offering straightforward price cuts, the event sees shoppers on Alibaba’s many platforms playing mobile games for deals, combining in-store purchases and placing orders in the early hours of the sale to get the best deals.

At 12:30 a.m. As of November 11, GMV had surpassed 372.3 billion yuan ($ 56.3 billion) with orders reaching a record 583,000 per second, Alibaba said. More than 2 million products were featured in the sale for the first time, double from last year.

LUXURY BOON

More than 340 companies, including Apple, L’Oreal and Huawei Technologies, have exceeded 100 million yuan in sales, with 13 brands registering GMV in excess of one billion yuan, Alibaba said.

Japan’s Fast Retailing said that its Uniqlo brand ranked first in women’s and men’s clothing on Alibaba’s Tmall market.

The main categories of products imported by GMV at 9:00 a.m. M. They were food supplements, milk formulas for infants and beauty products. Sun Jian, head of logistics for the event, told reporters that Alibaba was disinfecting all packages from abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Analysts are also expecting this year to be a boon for luxury brands, as consumers accustomed to going abroad for high-end products have been frustrated by coronavirus border closures.

READ: China luxury buyers call ordered equipment

LIVESTREAMERS

A survey of Singles’ Day spending by Sina Entertainment found that only 4 percent of the 191,000 respondents planned to splurge more than 10,000 yuan, compared with 43 percent who intended to spend less than 1,000 yuan.

To encourage spending, live streamers packed pop-up movie studios in a building near Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, touting the merits of the products for sale.

Luo Lima estimated that she had been in front of the camera promoting maternity products for 24 hours during this year’s sales period, compared to six hours on Singles Day two years ago.

“We broadcast continuously for six hours, without interruption,” he said. “We start with a full meal and get in a good mood. We also make throat lozenges and vitamin drinks.”

Alibaba rivals JD.com and Pinduoduo, as well as firms like Douyin, Beijing’s Chinese version of TikTok ByteDance Technology, are also holding Singles Day events.

JD.com, which began promotions on November 1, said that orders at 10:26 PM had set a record 243.1 billion yuan.