Alibaba to make 11.11 shopping festival global

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has announced that it will bring its 11.11 shopping festival to international audiences outside China through a series of livestreamed events.

The annual shopping event, now in its 12th year, is looking to boost growth and consumer engagement for online and offline merchants, by livestreaming events in English to be held from 3 to 4.30pm GMT on November 10 and 11. These events will feature live exclusive access to Alibaba executives, interviews with leading brands, industry experts and celebrities, as well as behind-the-scenes looks into 11.11 activities, explained the company.

“Global brand recovery” is a key focus for this year’s 11.11 festival, Alibaba added, and it states that the shopping event will be an “important growth driver” for both domestic and international merchants “whose business took a hit this year from Covid-19”.

The festival will bring more than 250,000 brands to about 800 million consumers and the number of new products debuting on Alibaba’s business-to-consumer platform Tmall, alone, will exceed 2 million. That’s twice the number of new products from last year. Additionally, luxury shoppers will see promotions from nearly 200 brands, including Cartier, Montblanc, Piaget, Balenciaga, Vacheron Constantin and Chloé.

Unlike in previous years, the shopping event will span two sales periods from November 1 to 3 and November 11 and will also feature deals and discounts in non-traditional categories such as apartments, automobiles, home decoration and other services.

Jiang Fan, president of Taobao and Tmall, said in a statement: “Innovation lies at the heart of the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, and we are more committed than ever to empower businesses to capture opportunities and growth through new ideas and initiatives in this year full of challenges.

“The pandemic has fundamentally changed consumer shopping preferences and accelerated digital transformation of many businesses. Through our expansion from ‘single’ to ‘double,’ 11.11 will be offering more opportunities for merchants both online and offline to engage with consumers as well as provide a better consumer experience overall.”

This year’s 11.11 experience will also be enhanced by Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform, which will bring together nearly 2 million local service providers offering special promotions in more than 100 Chinese cities. Offline small-and micro-merchants across China, such as street stalls and neighbourhood grocery stores, will be able to participate in the 11.11 event by connecting with consumers through Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform.

Image: courtesy of Alibaba