14 DAY TRIAL // Alibaba managed to bypass expectations for this year’s Singles’ Day shopping bonanza by a landslide, racking in 57.1 billion yuan, which equals some $9.3 billion (€7.44 billion).
The Chinese e-commerce giant organized the 11.11 sale estimating that it will bring in $8.18 billion (€6.56 billion), 42 percent over last year’s $5.75 billion (€4.61 billion).
The shopping festival began a few years back, as Alibaba picked up on a trend among college students who were celebrating being single on the day with the most ones – November 11. Alibaba managed to market the entire holiday by urging people to just buy something nice for themselves.
The numbers Alibaba is racking nowadays show that things are actually working. “You’re seeing the unleashing of the consumption power of the Chinese consumer,” said Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba.
Of course, there’s a difference between last year and this year in the fact that this time around, Alibaba has given the festival a global twist, reaching shoppers in some 220 countries. “This year, more than 27,000 brands and merchants are participating in the event, including Costco, Muji, Desigual, ASOS, and The North Face, among others,” said Alibaba in a statement.
This is a far cry from the 27 merchants that chose to work with Alibaba back in 2009 for the occasion. This year, there were 278 million orders that have either already been shipped or will be in the coming days.
By expanding globally with the help of AliExpress and Tmall Global, Alibaba has considerably widened its reach and power. While this was only the first year when Singles’ Day was celebrated at such a level, we should see even more interest in the holiday next year, as more people know about it.
More than twice as much as Black Friday and Cyber Monday put together
This has, after all, the potential to turn into the next Black Friday or Cyber Monday global phenomenon. Talking of which, the best Cyber Monday in US history, in 2013, brought in $1.46 billion (€1.17 billion). Last year, Alibaba sold twice as much in a single day than all US companies did on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
Alibaba’s shopping festival is good news for mobile phone companies since 42.6 percent of all orders that were placed with the company on Tuesday were for such devices. The sales are also good news for Yahoo, who has a 16 percent stake in Alibaba.
