Singles’ Day 2019: How It Became the World’s Largest Shopping Event

Can you imagine sales of US$ 1 billion in 1 minute and 7 seconds? That’s what happened on Alibaba.com, as soon as Singles’ Day began on 11th November 2019. We explore the phenomenon and trace its roots from idea to ‘explosion’.

Singles’ Day represents more than shopping. Many parties and events are organized around it, a lot of them around the theme of finding love, and rather ironically, many couples choose to get married on Singles’ Day! This year, retailers took the excitement and entertainment up many notches – Alibaba held an opening gala with a performance by Taylor Swift, while Tmall hosted a live stream with Kim Kardashian to launch her line of fragrances. Thanks to live streaming, it’s estimated that Alibaba’s opening gala was viewed online by 240 million viewers.

It’s possible that shopping first came into the picture to encourage single people to pamper themselves on this day, but Singles’ Day has evolved to become the world’s largest shopping spree. 

Let’s understand the phenomenon—

What Is Singles’ Day?

Singles’ Day is a unique day of celebration for young people in China. It all started in 1993 at a University in China. It was conceived as a day for single people to celebrate their status, sort of like an antidote to Valentine’s Day. The date was chosen as 11 November, or 11-11, as the digit 1 resembles a single person.

Singles’ Day – the E-Commerce Sensation

In 2009, Alibaba converted this relatively unknown day into an international shopping festival – a move that has yielded great returns, considering that their 2019 Singles’ Day sales have crossed $38 billion. Other e-commerce portals have also moved huge volumes of merchandise – JD.com reported over $25 billion in sales, though the total value of e-commerce sales thanks to Singles’ Day 2019 is yet to be reported accurately.

As just these two sellers account for sales of over $63 billion, Singles’ Day is far larger than even the biggest American shopping festivals. In fact, CyberMonday in 2018 had sales of just over $7 billion. It’s no wonder that brands have been taking notice – over 200,000 brands from over 200 countries participated in Singles’ Day 2019. Buyers are tempted by the deals on offer, as most participating brands offer huge discounts over the 24-hour period.

China is a huge market, and online shopping accounts for almost 20% of consumer spending there, as compared to about 11% of American consumer spending. So global brands are looking at the Singles’ Day shopping festival as a way to get in on the action.

Alibaba’s Singles’ Day 2019 sales of over $38 billion also showed huge growth from the 2018 figure, which was over $30 billion – indicating the growing popularity of this festival. Alibaba calls this festival ‘Double11’, and live tweeted the sales figures through the day. Post the festival, they are now working round the clock to ship and deliver the goods sold, and are reported to be using high-speed trains for this purpose, as well as regular cargo flights and road transport. 

4 Ways in Which Singles Day Fosters Innovation in E-Commerce

Singles’ Day is the time for the most innovative ideas in e-commerce to be presented. 2019 was no different.

1. Interactivity
 

Retailers offered buyers a number of interactive games, and a fashion show called ‘See Now, Buy Now’ allowed viewers to instantly buy the garments the models wore. It’s interesting to note that as over 90% of the sales happened from mobile devices, being mobile-friendly remains of paramount importance.

2. Inventive discounts
 

Alibaba drove transactions and engagement across its various platforms and subsidiaries though innovative discounts. Buyers got direct price reductions or coupons that could be used online or at high-street stores. There were various promotions offered during events leading up to the shopping festival. Incentives and discounts were offered across Alibaba subsidiaries in shopping, social media, travel, music streaming, etc.

3. Live streaming
 

The increasing popularity of live streaming was an interesting development. Users could place orders while they watched videos of the products, which fostered a more interactive, entertaining and interesting experience. Sales from video streaming accounted for about 7.5% of the total sales on Alibaba. Live streaming became an effective way to capture consumer attention and help them discover products, as well as tempting them to buy right away. This is similar to traditional TV shopping but adapted to e-commerce. 

4. Voice Commerce
 

An interesting new trend was the rise in the use of voice commands for shopping. Singles’ Day 2019 included over one million orders that were placed and paid through voice commands. These inputs came through Tmall Genie, the smart speaker from Alibaba AI Labs. This number could rise significantly in 2020, which we will report back on.

Key Takeaways for Marketers From Singles Day 2019

For marketers everywhere, Singles’ Day is exciting to observe and there are many insights to be gained. The young Chinese consumer provides a peek into the future, possibly into what more and more consumers are going to be like and behave like. The applications of technologies such as video streaming and voice-command-based shopping will have applications for all of us, too.

Although Singles’ Day started in China, it is becoming increasingly global in flavor. We already saw that a number of international brands participated this year in order to get a share of the Chinese e-commerce market. At the same time, Singles’ Day is also spreading into more countries. This is partly thanks to the e-commerce portal Lazada, which is a subsidiary of Alibaba, and drove Singles’ Day into Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Most of all, Singles’ Day is going to be an extremely interesting space to watch how e-commerce will grow, how new technologies will impact buying, and how buyers will gain.

How are you going to capitalize on the Singles Day phenomenon? Tell us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. We’d love to hear from you!