After the announcement that there won’t be a Double 11 gala this year, many are discussing if it’s the end of shopping festivals. However, it seems for many platforms and brands, it is still a great time to sell.
Double 11 galas started in 2016 with Alibaba’s Tmall and has been one of the biggest events of the year, overshadowing even the Chinese New Year galas. There were 4 different galas from various platforms in 2020. The Tmall gala returned with a lower profile after the pandemic in 2023. However, we won’t see one from Alibaba this year as PDD and Douyin, the Chinese TikTok sister app vies to be the top platform.
This doesn’t necessarily mean bad sales for the platforms. On 4 November, it was reported that by 30 October, the gross merchandise value (GMV) across platforms had reached 845 billion RMB (91.48 billion USD). 80.3% of the sales were made by conventional e-commerce platforms while 19.7% by livestream platforms. The largest category in sales is home appliances with its 132.4 billion RMB GMV (14.33 billion USD) and a 15.7% market share, followed by mobile phones and electronics, then fashion. The rise of appliances and electronics is partly due to state- and provincial-level subsidies this year.
Taobao and Tmall group saw huge growth with 373 brands making over 100 million RMB (13.93 million USD) in transactions as of 31 October. Alibaba’s 88VIP membership also saw an increase as member purchases grew 60%, the average purchase amount grew 30% and membership views grew 50% year-on-year (YoY). JD.com, meanwhile has seen two-digit growth in transaction amounts, number of orders and users. Over 16,000 brands have more than tripled their sales.
With some top streamers making a comeback, the Double 11 this year is surprisingly resilient. However, with more sales events across the year and events, Double 11 is now longer than ever. There seems to be less need for designated shopping festivals. But old habits die hard since Black Friday still exists (albeit starting earlier than usual), so Double 11 might remain for some time.
