The Latest Shopping Innovations From Tmall’s Global Festival

Over the weekend, Tmall hosted its annual ‘See Now, Buy Now’ fashion show in Beijing, kicking off the company’s month-long lead up to Alibaba’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival.
The four-hour fashion show reportedly showcased more than 60 domestic and international brands, featuring products from Estée Lauder, Levi’s, Adidas, Guess, I.T, M.A.C, G-Star Raw, and Swatch.
As usual, consumers were able to purchase products from their mobile devices, as they appeared on the runway. But, in addition to its ‘See Now, Buy Now’ shopping function, Tmall also gave attendees the ability to vote for their favourite outfits.

The new ‘Play Now’ functionality allows consumers to choose their favourite outfits on the runway and create a live trend report that gives instant feedback to brands participating in the catwalk.
“Tmall Collection is our annual extravaganza to showcase the hottest trends in fashion. We created the ‘See Now, Buy Now’ concept two years ago, and we are excited to boost consumer engagement to a new level with the ‘Play Now’ feature, enabling viewers to share their views with brands in real-time,” said Jessica Liu, president of Tmall fashion and luxury.
“The ‘See Now, Buy Now’ show provides a powerful sales channel for the world’s leading brands and also has the potential to reshape the fashion industry with the interactive component tailored to the always-online Chinese millenials,” she said.
According to Tmall, the live show attracted 57 million viewers – more than triple the number of people who tuned in last year. The runway event was streamed on the Taobao app, Alibaba’s video platform Youku, social media platform Weibo, and short video app Tik Tok.
In celebration of the shopping festival’s 10^th year, the event also featured a number of celebrity guests including American fashion designers Anna Sui and Jason Wu, American singer, Jaden Smith and Chinese singer, Chris Lee.
Alibaba kicked off its 10^th annual shopping festival on Friday, claiming this year’s event would be the company’s biggest yet.
“On the back of China’s explosive digital transformation, the Festival’s astounding growth over the past decade has powered the steady growth of quality consumption sought by Chinese shoppers. The evolution also showcases the development of the Alibaba ecosystem over time expanding well beyond e-commerce,” said Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang.
According to Zhang, more than 500,000 products were made available for pre-order, while new promotional coupons can be accessed on Taobao for mobile and Tmall for mobile.
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