Status: 11/12/2021 10:40 a.m.
The world’s largest discount campaign, “Singles Day”, brought Chinese online retailers a record turnover in the billions – although less advertising was done than in previous years.
The Chinese e-commerce groups Alibaba and JD.com have once again broken sales records for this year’s “Singles Day”. Although the advertising frenzy was significantly lower than in previous years and the growing importance of sustainability was emphasized, sales rose strongly during the consumer festival – albeit not as strongly as in previous years.
During the eleven-day campaign until November 11, Amazon’s Chinese competitor, Alibaba, achieved a sales increase of 8.45 percent to the equivalent of 73 billion euros compared to the previous year. It’s the lowest growth rate ever for the Chinese online giant, grappling with strict regulatory policies from Beijing and growing competition. Competitor JD.com reported an increase of 28.6 percent to 47 billion euros in sales compared to the previous year.
Alibaba is suffering from growing competition
For Alibaba, the campaign this year was particularly important in order to assert itself against the ever increasing competition. The online retailer is growing more slowly than the competition in the important home market. In addition, the stock market value fell within one year by around 260 billion euros because the Chinese authorities sentenced the company to a record fine in the billions in May.
In order to push the sales campaign, Alibaba accompanied “Singles Day” with events such as live streaming offers from the sellers and concerts. Due to the ongoing corona pandemic, all appearances were only online. The British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who is known for his role in the BBC television series “Sherlock Holmes”, took part in the Alibaba virtual gala.
The Chinese “Singles Day” is the world’s largest discount campaign, which even surpasses Cyber Monday in the USA. Originally, on November 11th, China’s students considered it a kind of “anti-Valentine’s Day” for single people because the date is all ones. Alibaba had started the sales campaign in 2009, and due to its great success, it was extended to eleven days last year.