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Alibaba, JD.com post healthy presales for Singles’ Day but consumer spending may be slowing
- Alibaba and JD.com, China’s leading e-commerce platforms, recorded robust sales during the first round of the Singles’ Day shopping spree
- However, a third of consumers recently surveyed by Bain & Company said they expected to spend less on Singles’ Day this year
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Tracy Quin Shanghai
China’s leading e-commerce platforms reported strong sales for the first checkout window of this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, despite a cooling economy and weakening consumer sentiment.
Alibaba Group Holding said 102 brands on its retail network, which includes its flagship sites Taobao and Tmall, surpassed 100 million yuan (US$13.8 million) in gross merchandise value within an hour after the first round of sales opened for payments on Monday.
Those brands include homegrown white goods maker Haier Group, Midea Group and subsidiary Little Swan, and TCL Technology, all of which crossed the 100 million yuan mark within the first second, Alibaba said. Haier went on to surpass the 1 billion yuan mark in five minutes, while its live-streaming channel on Tmall crossed 100 billion yuan in the first 20 minutes, making it the first among its peers to reach that milestone.
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Live stream views on Taobao Live in the first hour rose 600 per cent from last year, the Hangzhou-based company said.
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‘Flying Wolf’, China’s first AI-powered 3D automatic sorting system
‘Flying Wolf’, China’s first AI-powered 3D automatic sorting system
Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, kicked off its presales on October 24, allowing consumers to pay a deposit for products to secure discounts. Payments are to be completed during a two-part checkout period, the first of which opened at 8pm on Monday, while the second one begins at the same time on November 10.
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JD.com, one of Alibaba’s main domestic rivals, also reported swift sales.
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