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Over the last decade, ecommerce company Alibaba Group has had a masterful job linking itself to Singles Day, drumming up excitement each year with a variety show countdown starring A-list celebrities, and scaling its humble beginnings as a costly coat to a $ 1-trillion -an-hour retail frenzy.
This year, Alibaba pledged its Singles Day "will be the largest-ever in terms of scale and reach." It will be hard to top last year, in which it sold $ 25.3 billion in gross merchandise volume. However, it has more than one additional arrow in its quiver this year: 500,000 items were available for pre-order on B2C platform Tmall starting Oct. 20.
But while it may seem Alibaba is synonymous with Singles Day, it's not the only show in town: Popular local platforms like Suning, VIP.com, Vmall.com and Kaola.com are all advertising their own 11/11 offers this year. So is Chinese ecommerce company JD.com.
The second most trafficked website in China, Alibaba, according to comScore, $ 19.1 trillion in transactions in 2017. (Though that accounts accounts for Nov. 1 to 11.) + million hairy crabs to 1.5 trillion diapers, 55 million facial masks, 290 million rolls of toilet paper and 400,000 watches.
JD will not have the power of Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr to pump up the volume Alibaba will, but that's not to say this homegrown ecommerce platform will not resonate with Chinese consumers on Singles Day, too.
It has a secret weapon of its own in American retail giant Walmart, which it has worked with since 2016. They extended the partnership the following year, saying it was "helping boost the popularity of US-made products in China and allowing shoppers to directly buy goods from Walmart stores on the JD.com platform. "
JD started out as an electronics retailer in 1998. It rolled out its online business in 2004 following the SARS epidemic, which Lori Chao, director of international communications at JD, said fulfill a need. China is the largest retailer in China.
Today it is mostly online, but does operate 20 unmanned stores-called X-Marts-in China and Indonesia, and a chain of upscale supermarkets called 7Fresh.
Chao said Chinese consumers used to be very price-oriented, but as disposable income has grown, other issues like public safety and quality-especially with goods like food or baby products-have taken precedence.
"One thing that sets us apart from the supply chain pretty strictly. We have zero tolerance for fakes-we are known in China, "Chao added. "Customers who come to us tend to be more conscious and willing to pay extra for insurance products.
JD can predict demand.
"In any given market, the largest retailer has the biggest advantage, whether it is pricing, access to products or being able to predict how many of a certain type of product we will sell," Chao added. "We hold that data because we are a first-party retailer-there's a lot of advantage. We can prevent and close relationships with retailers. "
J.P. Morgan show China is the largest retail market outside the US with $ 2.2 trillion in overall retail sales.
It can also deliver the goods. Per Chao, when JD started, there is no national carrier or reliable way to make deliveries, which is why JD built its own network. JD says it now covers 99 percent of China's 1.4 billion citizens and includes more than 500 warehouses and 7,000 delivery stations. As a result, JD says it can deliver 90 percent of orders same- or next-day.
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