Shopping gala focuses on quality growth, AI dividends

When tech heavyweight Alibaba launched Singles Day on Nov 11 in 2009, it was just a 24-hour promotional event. But its rapid evolution over the past 16 years has seen it stretch into a nearly four-week extravaganza and become the world's biggest online shopping gala.

In the past, smashing records for gross merchandise volume, or GMV, through discount-led sales had come to characterize the promotional campaign.

However, chasing high GMV is no longer the focus of Singles Day, or Double Eleven shopping spree. Major e-commerce platforms are shifting toward a technology-driven high-quality growth model that places emphasis on the improvement of efficiency and experience.

This year's promotional gala has witnessed the large-scale adoption of artificial intelligence technology to improve merchants' operational efficiency, offer shoppers personalized recommendations and bolster the sales of products, industry experts said.

They highlighted the significant role of the shopping carnival in unleashing domestic demand potential and promoting the recovery of the consumer market, given that boosting consumption is a top priority for China's economic growth this year.

Online retailers have extended the promotional period and stepped up efforts to provide discounts and shopping subsidies this year, while simplifying promotion methods, with direct price cuts the preferred strategy to attract price-conscious consumers.

Data from Tmall, Alibaba Group's business-to-customer platform, showed that in the first hour after the shopping carnival kicked off at 8 pm on Oct 20, 80 brands witnessed their sales surpass 100 million yuan ($14 million).

Within the first hour of the gala, the turnover of more than 30,000 brands doubled year-on-year, while the sales of over 18,000 brands exceeded that of the entire day last year.

According to JD, another major e-commerce player, as of 11:59 pm on Tuesday, the number of users placing orders grew by 40 percent year-on-year, and the order volume increased by nearly 60 percent on a yearly basis.

Consumer electronic products witnessed robust growth in sales. During the shopping festival, the turnover of AI-enabled tablets and large-screen smartphones via JD's online marketplaces surged by 200 percent and 150 percent year-on-year, respectively.