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On the Digital Strategy Blog, we had already dedicated a post to one of the greatest e-commerce success stories : Alibaba . This e-commerce store is structured like many others that we use regularly. Even though it is based in China and operates mainly in that market, it has distribution to almost the entire world and has a gigantic catalog of products ranging from clothing to entertainment items.
However, Alibaba has been the talk of the town, as it continues to post astronomical results. According to Unilever 's CFO in an interview in April 2015, the platform's rapid growth is directly related to the slow reaction of consumer goods companies in China to changes in the market. While e-commerce markets such as the US and UK were already growing, the israel email list Chinese e-commerce market remained unchanged for several years.
However, growth, once it arrived, was here to stay. An analysis by the Xinhua news agency of the Chinese e-commerce market revealed that in 2014, more than 600 billion dollars were generated, figures that were not only higher than those of the USA (390 billion dollars) and the United Kingdom (99 billion dollars)… but were higher than the sum of the two!
Singles Day: the meaning of Alibaba's campaign
On November 11, 2016, Alibaba surprised the world once again by breaking a new record. By launching its Singles Day campaign – which has become an annual tradition since 2009 and is similar to Black Friday – Alibaba applied the best discounts of the year to its catalogue in order to clear stock, record sales and achieve customer satisfaction.
And the truth is that this initiative met the expected goals and even exceeded expectations: in total, revenue of 14.3 billion dollars was generated, 60% of the amount recorded in last year's campaign. Another interesting fact is that in less than a day, Alibaba managed to sell more than many e-commerce companies in foreign markets sell in a year.
But is this increase in sales a sign that the Chinese economy is finally changing?
Not necessarily. Many consumers, realizing that the Chinese economy is slowing down, have chosen to wait until November 11th – Singles Day – to make their purchases and save money.
Singles Day has been growing in China since Alibaba began promoting the campaign in 2009, and it is now the largest online sales event in the world. In 2016, Alibaba announced that approximately 40,000 sellers and 30,000 brands from 25 different countries would participate.
In total, more than 130 million Internet users visited the e-commerce app, Taobao , to make their purchases from Alibaba . Daniel Zhang , CEO of Alibaba , explained to the press that it is time for “the world to witness the power of Chinese consumption”. According to the company, more than 27 million purchases came from mobile devices during the first hour of the campaign.
