Singles’ Day 11/11 2019 – Going Beyond the Numbers

Singles’ Day 11/11 2019 – Going Beyond the Numbers

November 15, 2019

By Eddie Tabakman, Director of Marketing + Communications at WPIC

11/11 or Singles’ Day, the largest shopping day of the year, has eclipsed Black Friday, Amazon’s Prime Day,  Boxing Day and Cyber Monday, and has offered yet another record-breaking day across China’s e-commerce ecosystem. 

Cumulative gross merchandise value (GMV) exceeded $70 billion USD over the course of a 24 hour span that saw more than 2.8 billion packages delivered to roughly 800 million individuals. 

While both Alibaba and JD announced record-breaking results (a 27% increase in successive annual GMV compared to the previous year), it is the statistics that go beyond topline numbers.  These insights demonstrate both the scale of the day and the massive opportunity that global brands stand to realize, should they choose to activate their brands in China’s burgeoning e-commerce landscape.

Below are some of the statistics that WPIC’s big data division observed both in the immediate lead up to Singles’ Day and on 11/11:

• Online payments saw a 35.5% increase in the number of transactions that took place when compared to last year, and a 162.6% increase in cumulative transaction volume.
• Lower Tiered Cities are driving a significant portion of growth for a variety of brands in China. Users from lower-tiered cities (tier 3 to tier 5) purchased a significant number of personal care items for the first time, including oil, shampoo, massage equipment, gifts, foot care basins, and more. The purchasing of home appliances, mobile phones, child/baby/mother products and sporting equipment, which were tremendously popular in 2018, continued to trend this year. 
• Note: Across JD.com, 70% of new customers on the platform came from lower-tiered cities.
• Live Streaming was a tremendously popular marketing tactic, with half of Tmall merchants (more than 100,000 brands!) engaging in the activity to drive awareness and conversions.
• Tmall’s most popular product categories were:

1. 1. Smart Phones
   2. Pants
   3. Ejiao gelatin (skincare and medical product)
   4. Down Jackets
   5. Hoodies

• The top selling products across the Tmall were:

1. 1. Huawei Mate 30
   2. iPhone 11 Pro
   3. Ecovacs T5 Max Robotic Vacuum
   4. SK-II Facial Treatment Essence Pitera Toner
   5. Lancome Advanced Genefique Serum 

• JD.com saw unbelievable volume of consumer electronics and appliances sold during the festival:
  • Appliances:
    • 10,000 65” inch TV’s were sold every 8 seconds
    • 10,000 smart robots were sold every minute
    • 20,000 Dyson hair dryers were sold every 10 minutes
  • Consumer Electronics
    • More than 220,000 mid to high-end electronics were sold every 5 minutes
    • 100,000+ AI-enabled smart speakers were sold every 5 minutes

What’s next?

Now that the world’s busiest shopping day has come and gone, what happens to the ecosystem? Here are a few of the nuggets of information you may want to consider, when planning next steps for your brand:

1. After 11/11, there is a little-known opportunity to drive growth through an “Encore” sale taking place on the leading e-commerce platforms. As internet traffic comes back to normal levels, and site speeds return to their averages, November provides one last lift before the holiday season begins. Brands can choose to participate in order to get their conversion rates up, which would have been significantly impacted by the unprecedented levels of traffic they saw on 11/11.
2. Organizations are getting ready for 12/12, which is the third biggest sale of the year, and takes place on December 12th. Although the width and scope of the sales are not as broad as the ones available Singles’ Day, platforms like Alibaba and JD.com consider the event critically important, and offer an opportunity to drive traffic before the end of the year.
3. Get ready for 2020. Now that the furor of 11/11 has died down, it is best to start planning for the year ahead, and looking at the tactics and channels that are expected to drive growth. Don’t forget that virtually all of China shuts down for Chinese New Year (this year on January 25). So, it is important to begin planning around that and ensuring that your logistics and customer service infrastructures are prepared to handle the slowdown in service from your partners.

 

Did your brand participate in the largest shopping day of the year? Ensure your brand is positioned to take advantage of 11/11 next year, and drive revenue for your organization in 2020.

Contact [email protected] for more information.