Love for Singles Day in China is in crisis
Singles Day, or China's Black Friday, has made e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com rich for years but this year the competition from Douyin and Pinduoduo, owned by ByteDance, and the weak economic recovery of country make us less optimistic. Facts, numbers and comments
November 11th in China is a very heartfelt date, especially for lonely hearts. Established in 1993 by some students of Nanjing University, Singles Day, the day of the year dedicated to singles, has become the fortune of e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com, with a turnover which far surpasses the American Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
In fact, how can you gratify yourself more than with a nice gift to yourself? This year, some big sellers will begin pre-sales nearly 20 days early, hoping to attract up to 1 billion consumers.
LOVE AND CAPITALISM
Singles Day was born from the idea of some students at Nanjing University to celebrate singles and the date 11/11 is not random as it is a clear reference to a single individual. Over time, capitalism won out and, according to Forbes , since 2009 it has been advertised by e-commerce company Alibaba as a 24-hour shopping day where thousands of international and local brands offer discounts on the marketplace and in stores company online.
Over the years its popularity has increased more and more, reaching – according to Quartz – “a sort of cultural peak on 11/11/11”. For the more romantic Chinese, however, it has also become one of the most popular dates for getting married. In 2011, in particular, a higher than average number of marriages were recorded in Hong Kong and Beijing and the Wall Street Journal explained that one of the reasons is the pronunciation of the numbers "11/11/11", which is similar to Chinese idiomatic expression meaning "forever".
A PARTY FOR ALIBABA
Returning instead to the seedier consumerism, in 2012 Alibaba even registered the term "double 11" and Singles Day became the largest shopping holiday in the world, surpassing the sales of the US Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
In 2022, Quartz recalls, Alibaba's 24-hour sale brought in 262 billion yuan ($36.7 billion), more than triple the money earned last year on Amazon Prime Day.
THE STRATEGIES OF ALIBABA AND JD.COM
The current consumer crisis in China is causing local e-commerce giants to move early this year and focus on rock-bottom prices to entice customers. Specifically, Alibaba Group Holding's Taobao and Tmall Group will begin pre-sales of 80 million products ahead of Singles Day on the evening of October 24, expecting to attract around 1 billion consumers. This was stated by Alibaba itself, which also owns the South China Morning Post which reported the news .
Rival JD.com, on the other hand, has already started sales at 8pm on October 23rd and guarantees the best price for over 800 million products for 30 days. If this is not the case, it undertakes to compensate for the price difference. The company also said sellers participating in this year's Singles Day increased 1.5x compared to 2022.
Taobao and Tmall Group, meanwhile, said they had a "record" number of participating products, brands and merchants for this year's sales season, with around 46,000 global brands and merchants offering imported products and more than 1 million brands and merchants who confirmed their digital marketing plans for the event.
PREDICTIONS FOR SINGLES DAY 2023
But despite the efforts, according to Li Chengdong, founder and chief analyst of the e-commerce consultancy firm Dolphin cited by the SCMP , this year Alibaba and JD.com in addition to having to deal with "China's weak economic recovery ”, they will also have to contend with competition from companies such as Douyin and Pinduoduo, owned by ByteDance.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/lamore-per-il-singles-day-in-cina-e-in-crisi/ on Sat, 28 Oct 2023 05:02:24 +0000.