Alibaba 11.11 global shopping festival kicks off with impressive figures

Alibaba 11.11 global shopping festival has seen tremendous customer participation from the get-go

The festival has made some impressive results from the first day of the first shopping period. The 2020 11.11 Global Shopping Festival Livestreaming Gala was hosted on October 31 through Hunan Satellite Television, Youku, and other platforms for about five hours. 70 celebrities and 17 Taobao Live studios joined the show, perfectly combining entertainment and shopping.

At the exciting moment – at 00:00 on November 1 – hundreds of millions of consumers flooded Taobao and Tmall to place orders and check out the 14 million discounted items. Meanwhile, a new delivery record (at 00:11 on November 1), the first parcel of this event was delivered to a consumer in Wuhou district, who placed an order for mosquito-repellent incense liquid at 00:00 via Eleme.

New sales records were achieved at top speed: 100 brands achieved gross merchandise value (GMV) exceeding RMB100 million in 111 minutes after the sales officially commenced, including Nike, Adidas, Huawei, Midea, Xiaomi, Quanyou Home, Lin Wood, Perfect Diary, Barabara, Apple, L’Oréal, Haier, Estée Lauder, Lancome, and more.

In addition, the festival also witnessed strong demand for imported goods on Tmall Global. Positive results from the 11.11 presales period show a robust and continuously growing demand for imported goods. On October 21, the first day of presales, Tmall Global’s GMV increased by more than 90 per cent GMV of imported coffee beans saw 92 per cent on-year growth.

GMV of imported wine and bird's nest saw 400 per cent on-year growth, while GMV growth rate of an imported camel milk brand from Dubai increased by 100 per cent compared to its performance during the 618 Mid-Year Shopping Festival, which was held from June 1 to 18.

In collaboration with 30 KOLs, including China’s top beauty influencer Austin Li, Tmall Global released its predictions for this year’s 50 most popular products on October 16, so Chinese consumers can familiarise themselves with the latest global trends and enjoy popular products from overseas without leaving the comfort of their own homes.

Another highlight is McDonald’s China and Alibaba launching cross-platform storefront. Before the kickoff of this year’s Global Shopping Festival, McDonald’s China has worked with Alibaba to launch a cross-platform storefront to integrate membership, marketing, coupon sales, on-demand delivery and pick-up features for consumers from multiple scenarios.

The collaboration marked a new implementation case of Alibaba Business Operating System, which is a unique solution that empowers businesses to extract new value from digital transformation in the Alibaba Digital Economy. McDonald’s China also leveraged Taobao, Tmall, Alipay, Koubei, and Ele.me to provide exclusive 11.11-themed bucket meals on the multiple platforms of Alibaba’s ecosystem during this year’s Global Shopping Festival.

There is also the first-ever Cartier jewellery livestream show on Taobao Live. As an exclusive promotion during the 11.11 period, luxury brand Cartier hosted its first high-end jewellery show on Taobao Live. During the broadcast, the brand unveiled more than 400 pieces of glittering timepieces and jewelry, including a necklace valued at RMB190 million ($28.3 million). The livestream attracted 770,000 viewers in just two hours.

Other brands from Cartier’s parent company, Richemont, are also participating in this year’s 11.11, with Montblanc, Piaget, IWC Schaffhausen and six other jewellery and watch brands joining for the first time. Close to 200 luxury brands are participating in this year’s 11.11 – doubling the brands from last year’s festival.

Moreover, Spring Thunder Initiative boosts the agricultural sector. Since Alibaba launched its 2020 Spring Thunder Initiative six months ago, the company’s digital economy has empowered more than 1,800 agricultural production belts through digital technologies. For example, it helped sell 800,000 agricultural products, broadcast more than 2 million agriculture-related livestreaming sessions, cultivated more than 100,000 rural livestream hosts, and helped drive over 200 per cent monthly sales growth for nearly 1,000 regional agricultural brands.

In the run-up to 11.11, Taobao helped farmers in Sichuan province’s Liangshan prefecture secure a large order of 60 million apples from its merchants. The order is expected to bring Liangshan’s farmers at least RMB100 million ($14.9 million) in revenue.