During this year's "Double 11" shopping festival, many businesses have focused on new consumer demands, advancing the integration of online and offline retail, different forms of consumption, and demand and supply. These efforts have created fresh products and shopping scenarios that effectively unlocked the potential of the consumer market.
According to a plan jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce and other departments in 2024, the country will push for deeper integration between brick-and-mortar retail and the digital economy to foster new quality productive forces and improve retail efficiency.
Between 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 and 7:59 p.m. on Oct. 31, foot traffic at JD MALLs nationwide climbed 30 percent year on year, and sales of home furnishings jumped 191 percent. JD MALLs are the physical stores of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com.
Within 24 hours of the launch of the "Double 11" shopping festival on Chinese on-demand delivery company Meituan, on Oct. 31, sales of products in the 3C and home appliance categories, including brands like Xiaomi and OPPO, more than doubled year on year.
Data from Taobao, Alibaba's online marketplace, showed that on the first day of the "Double 11" shopping festival on Oct. 15, late-night snack orders across 270 Chinese cities on Taobao Flash Sale, an instant retail business, surged more than 200 percent year on year, supermarket and convenience store orders rose 670 percent, and sales of beverages, baked goods, and fresh produce more than doubled.
This year's "Double 11" shopping festival shows how integrated consumption models are breaking down industry boundaries and offering consumers richer, more diverse choices.
The booming automotive aftermarket offers a vivid example.
Between 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 and 7:59 p.m. on Oct. 31, JD.com saw tire sales soar more than fourfold year on year, in-store car wash orders jump 165 percent year on year, sales of car-charging equipment climb 80 percent year on year, and car insurance transactions surge 188 percent year on year.
Industrial goods have also joined the shopping festival.
"Through our cooperation with JingDong Industrials, a unit of JD.com, client communication costs have dropped by 40 percent. During this year's 'Double 11' shopping festival, the number of corporate clients we serve has grown 58 percent year on year, and the average order value has increased 172 percent year on year," said an executive of Delixi Electric.
From the start of the "Double 11" shopping festival through Nov. 11, JD Global Sales, covering Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and other regions, saw both transaction value and order volume more than double year on year. In over 10 countries where JD.com offers cross-border free-shipping services, transaction value jumped more than 300 percent year on year, and the number of users placing orders increased over 400 percent year on year.
For the first time, Taobao launched its "Double 11" shopping festival simultaneously in 20 countries and regions, offering versions in five languages to reach global consumers. The platform invested 1 billion yuan (about $141 million) in overseas marketing to help 100,000 merchants double their sales overseas.
