A buying frenzy kicked up a notch in China as the annual Nov 11,
Singles Day sales event saw brands ringing up billions of yuan in online
sales and customers snapping up imported items via e-commerce. The shopping gala, entering its final stretch at midnight on
Wednesday, is a sign of consumer vibrancy and economic strength in
China, with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating the shift to e-commerce
among consumers across all income levels, experts said. Tmall, Alibaba's business-to-customer platform, saw 342 brands hit
100 million yuan ($15 million) in sales between Nov 1 and the first 35
minutes of Nov 11. Among these, 13 brands, including Apple, Huawei and
Midea, achieved 1 billion yuan. For its twelfth edition, the traditionally 24-hour bonanza, a
brainchild of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has been prolonged for the
first time. Alibaba added a new shopping window from Nov 1 to Nov 3,
posting preferential offers in a bid to spur consumer buying that had
been hampered by the pandemic. The shopping festival, expected to draw over 800 million consumers
and 5 million businesses, is set to become "the barometer of China's
continued economic recovery", said Jennifer Ye, PwC consumer markets
leader for the Chinese mainland. "A 'revenge buying' spree following COVID, and new consumption
patterns such as direct sales via livestreaming and private domain
operations, have driven demand and sales," she said. "We expect the
sales to grow further this year with more intense competition among
sellers." Key data points confirmed such forecasts: Alibaba reported gross
merchandise volume on its platforms reaching 486.9 billion yuan from Nov
1 to 11 pm on Wednesday. While the merchandise volume for Nov 11, 2019, was 268.4 billion
yuan, an apples-to-apples comparison is unlikely, given the event's
extension this year. Over at JD, another major e-commerce player posting sales offers,
accumulated sales from Nov 1 through to 2:26 pm on Wednesday topped
243.1 billion yuan, surpassing total sales of 204.4 billion yuan last
year. With COVID hindering transnational travel, digital vehicles are
quickly becoming the primary way for foreign merchants to tap into the
Chinese consumer market. The sales of JD Worldwide, the company's cross-border commerce unit,
surged by over 120 percent on a yearly basis in the first 10 minutes,
while JD's imported goods supermarket saw sales rise by 2.5 times
month-on-month within 30 minutes. Over 1 million bottles of Estee Lauder's eye cream, a long-time
darling at overseas counters or airport duty free shops, were snapped up
on Tmall from the start of the campaign to 10 am on Wednesday, while
South Korean brand Whoo recorded 1 billion yuan worth of transactions
for a skincare set during the same period. Products from Japan, the United States and South Korea were the most
popular with customers shopping for imported goods via Tmall Global, the
platform's cross-border arm. The most sought-after categories included
nutrition supplements, facial skincare products and infant formula. China is looking to nurture a strong domestic market and spur buying
in an all-around way, an important pillar to shore up the new
"dual-circulation "development pattern. Consultancy Oliver Wyman found in a recent survey for this year's
shopping festival, 86 percent of consumers would be willing to spend the
same as or more than what they did last year, indicating a further
recovery in consumer buying since the pandemic. "China's appetite for consumer goods-on steroids post-COVID-continues
to amaze the rest of the world," said Jacques Penhirin, the Oliver
Wyman partner who led the survey. Customers across all income levels are converting to online shopping,
which puts new requirements on business owners, said Jonathan Cheng,
who leads the retail practice of consultancy Bain & Co in China.
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