Alibaba Singles Day festivities kick off

Capitalising on self-care and the ‘treat yourself’ mindset, potential is not the only thing this commercial fever dream of a holiday is rich with. The Singles Day event generated $139 billion in revenue last year for Alibaba. The festival takes place over nearly two weeks with seven days of pre-sales where customers place deposits on goods they can later secure once the official event goes live.

While Singles Day is yet to make a wide footprint in Australia, global retailers have their eyes on this event with 40,000 merchants from 90 countries participating, despite regulatory and supply chain hurdles.

Joining the mix this year is Inner Health, an Australian company that launched on Alibaba-owned ecommerce platform Tmall in China this year. China Marketing Director Icy Huang heads this expansion into the Chinese market. Through this year’s 11:11 Huang hopes to gauge a better understanding of consumers by leveraging the innovative sales tech on offer by the platform. From AR visualisations to shopping network style livestreams, consumer experience is elevated by this tech. Whether Inner Health plan to implement these technologies in Australia is yet to be determined. 

This year, Alibaba is focused on merchant support throughout the event. Alibaba aims to support merchants with initiatives such as loyalty member recruitment with the goal to attract, engage, and retain consumers. Cross-border support is a priority as they seek to improve logistics and digital infrastructure through live monitoring OMS. Alibaba will also provide merchants with access to business intelligence tools such as marketing analysis tools and financial support. According to a press release from Alibaba, logistics arm Cainiao has further streamlined warehousing, customs clearance, line haul and distribution for 11.11. It has increased the number of its import line haul routes by 20% and doubled the capacity of its self-operated bonded warehouses. Cainiao launched 400 line haul services spanning air, sea, road and rail to cover key import markets.

Pets, toys, perfume, and outdoor activities are tipped to perform well this year. 

“11.11 this year will have the most diverse range of products in the event’s history, with 17 million products available to more than one billion annual active consumers on our platforms in China, thanks to the support of our brands and merchants from around the world,” said Chui Xue, President of Industry Development and Operation Center of Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba Group. “We will introduce technology and business innovations while enhancing supply-demand matching and loyalty membership management, to support our brand and merchant partners. Ultimately, we aim to turn customer assets into the most important driving force for merchants’ long-term business growth.”

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