Chinese consumers spent more than $33 billion (RMB 168.2 billion) on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms during its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, breaking last year’s record of $23.3 billion (RMB 120.7 billion).
China’s largest e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group, said on Sunday sales by the thousands of retailers on its platforms for the 24-hour period on Saturday amounted to 168.3 billion yuan ($A33.3 billion), setting a new record for the company. It was 39 per cent more than sales clocked last year on Alibaba’s platforms of 120.7 billion yuan.
By comparison, American shoppers last year spent more than $US5 billion shopping online on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, according to Adobe, which tracks such data. Shoppers also spent $US3.39 billion on Cyber Monday last year, the largest single online shopping day in the US, Adobe said.
In China, Alibaba’s main rival, online retailer JD.com, did not provide a sales figure only for Saturday but said cumulative sales over the 11-day period starting on November 1 through Saturday totalled 127 billion yuan.
Starting at midnight Friday, diamonds, Chilean frozen salmon, tyres, diapers, beer, shoes, handbags, and appliances were shipped out from JD.com’s distribution centres on trucks bound for deliveries across China.
More than 140,000 merchants and brands participated in the Singles Day sales event, China’s much larger answer to Black Friday in the US, including major Australian retailers, such as Chemist Warehouse.
At its peak, Alibaba Cloud processed 325,000 orders per second, and its logistics arm, Cainiao Network processed 812 million total delivery orders. The first delivery arrived 12 minutes and 18 seconds after the event kicked off at midnight on 11 November.
“More than US$25 billion of GMV in one day is not just a sales figure,” said Daniel Zhang, chief executive of Alibaba Group.
“It represents the aspiration for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully embraced the integration of online and offline retail.”
Key highlights from the 2017 11.11 Global Shopping Festival
- Total GMV settled through Alipay was RMB168.2 billion (US$25.3 billion), an increase of 39 per cent compared to 2016
- Total mobile GMV settled through Alipay was approximately 90 per cent of total GMV, compared to 82 per cent last year
- Alipay processed 1.48 billion total payment transactions, up 41 per cent from 2016, and processed 256,000 transactions per second at peak
Globalisation: Power of the Chinese consumer
- 60,000 international brands and merchants available to Chinese consumers
- 225 countries and regions with completed transactions
- 167 merchants each generated more than RMB100 million (US$15.1 million) in sales, 17 merchants surpassed RMB500 million (US$75.4 million) in sales, and 6 merchants surpassed RMB1 billion (US$150.9 million) in sales
- Top countries selling to China include: Japan, United States, Australia, Germany, South Korea
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