Chinese and international shoppers flooded online to Alibaba, rival JD.com and other e-retailers during the ‘11.11 Global Shopping Festival’ on Wednesday which smashed previous records and generated hundreds of millions of parcels for delivery.
This year’s online shopping extravaganza, also known as Singles Day, has dwarfed Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the USA and Europe through its sheer size and reach. No overall parcel volume figures are yet available but China Post estimated that the event would generate some 760 million packages this year compared to 540 million packages last year, a 40% rise.
However, Alibaba’s logistics partner and affiliate, Cainiao Logistics, received 467 million delivery orders during the 24-hour shopping period, a 68% increase compared with 278 million orders during last year’s 11.11 sale. This is more than 15 times the daily average of 30 million orders.
In preparation, Cainiao Logistics launched a massive logistics operation to handle the expected tsunami-style flood of parcels. More than 1.7 million delivery workers (including hundreds of thousands of temporary staff), 400,000 vehicles, 5,000 warehouses and 200 airplanes were used by the 3,000 logistics partners who cooperate in Alibaba Group’s logistics affiliate, to handle deliveries. Partners include major Chinese delivery firms such as China Post, SF, STO, YTO, ZJS and ZTO.
For cross-border deliveries, Cainiao signed up 49 international partners who set up 16 dedicated global delivery routes and 74 warehouses, creating a cross-border network to handle up to 4 million international package deliveries per day.
Alibaba Group itself sold $14.3 billion worth of goods on November 11, crushing last year’s total of $9.3 billion for the 24-hour online sale by 60% and easing concerns that Chinese consumers are cutting spending as the country’s economy slows. Its sales via mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets soared by 158%, and accounted for 68.7% of total orders (by value).
Purchases of international goods by Chinese consumers also soared, with 33% of all buyers making purchases from international brands or merchants. Top selling countries included the USA, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Australia.
International shoppers also bought strongly from Chinese merchants through Aliexpress, the company’s international B2C marketplace. It processed 21.2 million paid orders during the sale, more than triple the 6.8 million orders processed during the 11.11 festival last year. Top buying markets were Russia, Spain, the US, Israel, Ukraine, Belarus, France, Chile, the UK and Canada.
Ranked by sales value, the most popular product categories for international buyers were apparel and accessories; phones and telecommunications; jewellery and watches; consumer electronics; home and garden; sports and entertainment; computer and office; mother and kids; beauty and health; automobiles and motorcycles.
“This day demonstrates the power of domestic China consumption, and the Chinese consumer’s strong demand for international products,” said Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang. “We never think about China’s economy. We think about how to meet and how to create demand among consumers,” he told reporters.
When Alibaba launched the festival in 2009, “we never dreamed it could be such a huge shopping day,” Zhang added. “We are very happy to see the huge demand by Chinese consumers for international products, and we believe this is just the beginning. Globalization will be a long journey, but we want to bring this 11.11 festival from a China shopping day to a global shopping day in the coming decade,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chinese rival JD.com announced that its orders shot up by 130% on Singles Day, which culminated an 11-day sales event. About 74% of orders were placed via mobile devices, including social media platforms. Absolute figures were not disclosed.
“Our record-breaking sales and accelerated growth for the day show that what truly matters to Chinese consumers is the quality, reliability and authenticity that only JD.com guarantees,” said Haoyu Shen, CEO of JD Mall. “Across all product categories, from electronics to apparel to fresh food, we have seen tremendous growth because our customers trust JD.com to provide the highest product quality, most efficient service and fastest delivery.
In contrast to Alibaba, which delivers through a network of partners, JD.com has its own in-house delivery network. It operates 7 fulfilment centres and a total of 166 warehouses in 44 cities, and in total 4,142 delivery stations and pickup stations in 2,043 counties and districts across China, staffed by its own employees.
