Alibaba And JD.com Keep Double 11 Revenues Secret. The Chinese Consumer Is Clearly Changing

Keeping quiet on the final results of Double 11, China’s biggest e-commerce giants face stiff competition and changing consumer sentiment. 

As the 14th Double 11 came to an end, depressed consumer sentiment in China and the huge shift in consumption habits meant that this year’s shopping festival didn’t reach the feverish growth of previous years.

In an unprecedented move, neither Tmall nor JD.com announced their GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) results for this year’s Double 11, also called Singles’ Day. Tmall reported that the sales volume was the same as last year which reached $74.56 billion (540.3 billion RMB), while JD.com indicated that their performance surpassed the industry growth rate and reached a record high after last year’s $48.17 billion (349.1 billion RMB) GMV — though specific numbers weren’t given. Moreover, the live gala ceremonies usually held by Alibaba, JD.com, and Pinduoduo didn’t occur, possibly to avoid big gatherings and COVID-19 transmission.

A more diverse marketplace

However, the shopping fever hasn’t cooled down completely. Tmall disclosed that in the first hour of the festival on October 31, the turnover of 102 brands exceeded $13.8 million (100 million RMB). Despite only launching its commerce functionality in 2020, Douyin’s GMV increased 629.9 percent year-on-year on the first day of this year’s Double 11 event. It’s clear that newcomers are catching up fast in their shift from content sharing to e-commerce. Since each platform comes with their own bankable influencers, the likes of Douyin’s most popular content maker Crazy Little Brother Yang, who boasts over 100 million followers, are likely to be pivotal in growing sales.

Despite China’s two main tech giants keeping quiet about their GMVs, according to Syntun, an independent big data monitoring company, the total GMV from all major e-commerce platforms surpassed 1 trillion RMB for the first time. Traditional e-commerce platforms netted around 934 billion RMB, whereas newer streaming to e-commerce platforms like Douyin garnered around 181 billion RMB, according to their report. Then there was additional input from new retail platforms and community group buying e-tailers. Continue to read the full article here