China's Singles' Day -- the world's largest offline and online shopping day far and wide -- is just around the corner on November 11 and this year's celebration might yet break last year's sales records despite the slowdown in China's economy.
China's business community is looking towards this holiday, more popularly called 11.11 or the bare sticks holiday in China, to massively boost sales and consumption as it's done so since the start of the century. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the world's largest retailer and e-commerce company, is expecting to do well this year. It's dominated 11.11 sales and will do so again, according to analysts.
In 2018, Alibaba reported a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $30.8 billion across all of its e-commerce platforms. This amount was a 27% higher than its Singles' Day record in 2017. GMV refers to the total value of goods sold by a company across all its platforms.
It was also higher than the sales of all US retailers combined on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2018, according to American market research company, Forrester. In 2018, total Cyber Monday e-commerce sales reached $6 billion. Sales on Black Friday (including Thanksgiving) came to $8.2 billion for a weekend total of $14.2 billion. This year's Black Friday weekend will set another record for U.S. e-commerce but won't come anywhere near Alibaba's record sales alone.
The U.S. Black Friday shopping spree this year will take place on Nov. 28 while Cyber Monday is scheduled for Dec. 2.
During 11.11 in 2018, Alibaba delivered more than one billion packages during the 24-hour spending extravaganza as hundreds of millions of people spent lavishly in this shopping frenzy.
Since it was cooked-up by four bachelor Chinese university students in 1993, Singles' Day has morphed from its original intent as a "Bachelors Day" celebrating singlehood into one where more singles get married than on practically any other day of the year. Singles' Day, which was also intended as an "anti-Valentine's Day," is now an occasion for single people to meet, for others to go on blind dates and for partying.
For Singles' Day 2019, Forrester forecasts Alibaba will generate $37 billion in GMV, or a 20.5% jump compared to 2018. It also projects there will be from $1.5 to $1.8 billion online sales with 50 million online buyers in Southeast Asia.
Other major Asian retailers such as Lazada, Shopee, JD.com and Rakuten are also bracing for sales records. All the major e-commerce players have rolled-out their Singles' Day preorder campaigns. Alibaba launched its campaign on Oct. 21, Shopee started on Oct. 24 while JD.com set its preorder period from Oct. 18 to 31.
This year, Alibaba will broaden its 11.11 product range to include entertainment and real estate, among others. It will allow consumers in China to buy tickets to Disney Parks, car care services, home decoration, and renovation services online. Alibaba also plans to sell 10,000 apartments on its auction platform.
Lazada, Shopee, Rakuten and beauty brand Whoo, among many others, have launched live streaming features.
