The biggest retail event of the year, i.e. Singles' Day, took place again this year on November 11th. In this article, we present the statistics for 2020's Singles' Day for two of China's three main e-commerce platforms: T-Mall and JD. China's third major e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo, hosts Singles' Day sales primarily for higher premium, branded products which the platform is not traditionally known for but is trying to promote. Pinduoduo does not release Singles' Day statistics, and the company's general strategy is still to guarantee the lowest prices year-round for merchandise sold on the platform (which typically tend to be low premium goods).
Note: 11.11 sales lasted from November 1st to November 11th on both T-Mall and JD. However, many flash sales only happen on November 11th, while many sellers also accept pre-orders but release the products for sale on the actual date of November 11th. The statistics in this article reflect all sales revenue from 11.11 events during the entirety of the sales period.
T-Mall
The 11.11 event was originally founded by Alibaba Group for the company's Taobao e-commerce platform in 2009. T-Mall (also known as Taobao-Mall) was split from Taobao in 2011 so since then there have been two Alibaba e-commerce platforms: (1) Taobao, which focuses on individuals selling goods to consumers (i.e. the individual-to-consumer e-commerce model), and (2) T-Mall, which specializes on merchants that sell goods to consumers (i.e. the business-to-consumer e-commerce model). Since the split in 2011, only T-Mall continued to have 11.11 events.
This year, T-Mall generated revenues of RMB498.2 billion from their 11.11 event, a significant increase from RMB268.4 billion in the previous year. An important reason for this year's spike in total sales transaction volume is that the 11.11 event this year lasted for 11 days, whereas in previous years the event was only on the actual date of November 11th.
Record-Breaking Statistics
250,000 brands and over 5 million merchants participated in this year's 11.11 event
342 brands recorded sales that topped RMB100 million within 30 minutes
The highest number of transactions during the 11.11 event was 583,000 transactions in one second
Notable New Features in 2020
T-Mall developed a new 3D furniture visualization tool for this year, where customers can view a wide range of furniture items in sample rooms using virtual 3D models. 36 home decoration brands that used this tool and participated in the 11.11 event recorded over RMB100 million in sales.
JD
JD is a Chinese e-commerce platform that has built its brand value on the basis of being a provider of premium goods with good customer service and extremely fast and efficient delivery. The company has received a record-breaking volume of sales across its many sub-platforms during this year's 11.11 event, with a total transaction volume of RMB271.5 billion. Unlike Alibaba, the 11.11 event on JD was always hosted over a span of multiple days. This year, the 11.11 event lasted for 11 days.
Groceries
JD Chaoshi, an online supermarket run by JD, recorded 10 times the level of 2019's 11.11 sales. JD Shengxian, an online supermarket that specializes in only food products, recorded sales of 190,000 tons of food, 5 times the amount in 2019. The development of e-commerce platforms that sell fresh food products has been a huge trend in China this year, especially with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compared with the 11.11 event last year...
The amount of Qingdao shrimp purchased increased by 220 times
The amount of fish purchased increased by 100 times
The amount of Boston lobsters purchased increased by 13 times
Within 1 minute of the 11.11 launch...
1 million eggs were sold
Within 5 minutes of the 11.11 launch...
100,000 oysters were sold
Within 10 minutes of the 11.11 launch...
5 million Aiyuan oranges, a special jelly-like kind of orange, were sold
400,000 kg of apples were sold
Electronics
JD was initially known as a seller of authentic, high-quality electronics, before the company expanded its platform to include other product offerings. This year, JD's sales of electronic products continued to soar.
Huawei
The sales record for Huawei's newest Mate 40 phone exceeded RMB100 million just 7 seconds after the launch of the 11.11 event
The total gross merchandise value (GMV) of Huawei products sold is 100 times the amount from last year's 11.11 event
Laptops
The total GMV of high-end laptops sold is 260 times the number from last year's event
Household Appliances
3 brands recorded over 100 million in GMV within 1 minute of the 11.11 launch
Total GMV for household electric appliances exceeded last year's amount within the first 10 minutes of launch
Delivery
In spite of the record-breaking volume of sales, JD still lived up to its promise of fast and efficient delivery. This is partly due to the pre-order service, where customers could pre-order and pay a deposit, and the goods in the order would be shipped to their nearest delivery center ahead of the November 11th launch.
Delivery Statistics - Living Up to the Promise:
The first order was delivered within 6 minutes of placing the transaction
93% of the 11.11 orders were delivered within 24 hours
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