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Alibaba was another big hit, Singles Day, after customers around the world shopped and online at the tenth edition of its shopping festival on Nov. 11. This year's gross merchandise volume – a measure of the dollar value of total transactions – therefore stands at $ 30.8 billion, although the company has recorded its lowest annual growth rate ever recorded for this event.
This figure means that the amount of spending is more than twice the size of Cyber Monday and Black Friday in 2017.
This is by far the biggest singles day to date. In just 15 hours and 49 minutes of spending, transactions exceeded the total of $ 25 billion in 2017, the company announced on Twitter.
As the world expects when the supercharged buying day will reach a ceiling, sales are already down. The final total of 2018 represents a 27% increase over last year. This is the lowest figure recorded by Alibaba in the Singles' Day sales story, down from 36% in 2017. It is still impressive given the size of the target each year.
The slowdown came in the wake of Alibaba's weaker revenue growth over the past seven quarters and a reduction in annual revenue forecasts, although revenues continued to grow at a brisk pace of 54% in the last quarter.
New growth fuel
Consumers are expected to tighten their handbags while an economic downturn hits China. The e-commerce giant, however, is not bothering to bet on the rising middle class of the country in the long run.
Buyers "are looking for new ways to improve their lifestyle and improve their lives," said Alibaba Executive Chairman Joe Tsai. said at a media event Sunday. "It will really offset a lot of the short-term cyclical effects."
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, more than 300 million of China's 1.4 billion inhabitants have entered the middle income bracket. This means that discretionary items will be at the root of most of the Chinese titan's growth in retail – and the upward trend in the market is already underway. Health supplements, small appliances and skincare products are among the fastest growing categories of GMV at Singles Day this year.
Alibaba also operated physical stores. The online retailer is on the verge of "digitizing the entire retail market," Daniel Zhang said. Current CEO and incumbent President Jack Ma will give the bar next year, the media said on Sunday. Over the past two years, Alibaba has met with very close rival JD.com to forge strategic partnerships with physical retailers who remain eager to reach Chinese consumers.
Alibaba's CEO, Daniel Zhang, launched the single-day shopping festival in 2009, while he was responsible for the company's business in Tmall (Photo Vivek Prakash / Bloomberg via Getty Images).
The sheer size of the GMV is shaded because it does not reflect the end income. A multitude of factors could increase the number. First, repayments can not be processed on November 11th. Many vendors pre-sell several weeks in advance, accepting deposits for items at that time, but only processing full payments on singles day.
Alibaba also aired a starry gala on the night of November 10 in an effort to increase sales. More than 240 million people – nearly one in five people in China – watched the TV show and the Singles Day TV commercials through two of China's largest TV channels, the Alibaba Youku. video streaming site.
Next ten years
As Alibaba enters its 19th year, it is turning to new sales channels. "The voice will be an important entry point," Zhang said. The company's efforts to prepare China to move from the mobile age to artificial intelligence include a rapprochement with Rokid, a new voice assistant.
Alibaba also targets international consumers. This year, merchants from more than 200 countries participated in Singles Day, including Alibaba's Lazada platform, based in Southeast Asia. "From day one, our dream was to create a global shopping day," Zhang said.
Listing 11.11 in New York
Alibaba celebrated another milestone this year: more than a billion packages were shipped during the shopping day. But the company is also under increasing pressure to solve its packaging waste problem.
"We need to redefine the packaging," Zhang said. It means more than using recycled materials. More importantly, the CEO wants the items to travel closer. This is made possible by algorithms that optimize inventory management. Alibaba could also rely on Ele.me, which it has acquired this year and which runs a fleet of food delivery companies, to handle neighborhood orders that may require little or no packaging.
Singles Day was first popularized as an antidote to Valentine's Day for the way the date is written in numbers: 11.11, which represents four singles. Nearly ten years after Zhang made it a first-ever sales promotion for Tmall, Alibaba's online sales platform for brands, this one-day event has become the biggest shopping festival ever. online to the world.
"We created this day for single people. Today, we have totally redefined the day in terms of how people buy, "concluded Zhang.
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