Alibaba and JD.com between them achieved $139 billion of sales across their platforms during the Singles Day shopping extravaganza on November 11, setting a new record.
Originally known as the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, the event began in 2009 with participation from just 27 merchants as an event to raise awareness about the value of online shopping. Starting out as 24 hours of sales in a similar vein to Black Friday in the UK, the event has morphed into a multi-day behemoth which ends at midnight on November 11. JD began sales at the end of October whilst Alibaba started at the beginning of November.
Alibaba Group reported that the 13th its Global Shopping Festival generated RMB540.3 billion (US$84.54 billion) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) during the 11-day campaign, which culminated in Single’s Day.
The Vice President of Alibaba, Yang Guang, commented: “This 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, we delivered steady and quality growth that is a reflection of the dynamic Chinese consumption economy. We also leveraged the power of 11.11 as a platform to fulfil our social responsibility. This year’s festival was a meaningful milestone as part of our commitment towards building a sustainable future”.
290,000 brands – more than ever before – participated in Festival this year, of which 65% are small and medium-sized businesses, manufacturers from industrial belts and new brands. Agricultural belts in less developed regions enjoyed strong sales, with GMV of agricultural products from these regions growing 20% year-over-year.
Ahead of this year’s 11.11, Alibaba Group fully migrated all systems and operations onto its public cloud. Use of renewable energy in the Zhangbei County data center, which plays a major role in supporting Alibaba’s e-commerce businesses, reduced more than 26,000 tons of carbon emission.
78 brands on Alibaba grew to surpass RMB100 million in GMV this year, up from RMB10 million in GMV last year, while 698 brands grew to surpass RMB10 million this year from RMB1 million in GMV last year.
More than 45% of consumers that made purchases during the Alibaba Global Shopping Event were born in the ‘90s and ‘00s and 500,000 products with official Green Product Certification from more than 2,000 merchants were featured in a dedicated eco-friendly vertical on Tmall.
Over 1,600 brands participated in the new membership challenge campaign on Tmall and attracted over 97 million new members during this Global Shopping Festival. More than 1.3 million new products were offered by over 29,000 overseas brands that participated via Tmall Global this year, with some 2,800 overseas brands joining for the first time.
From November 1 to 10, 90 emerging brands remained as the top brand by GMV in their respective small categories for three consecutive years. 275 emerging brands saw their GMV doubled YoY for three consecutive years.
Over one million packages were delivered by around 350 Xiaomanlv driverless vehicles from November 1 to 10, surpassing the volume of packages delivered by Xiaomanlv vehicles from September 2020 to September 2021.
GMV for the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival is the total value of orders settled through Alipay on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces, Kaola, Lazada, AliExpress, and New Retail and consumer services platforms from November 1 to November 11, 2021. It is reported on a real-time basis and includes shipping charges paid (where applicable).
