Despite global economic challenges, Alibaba's 11.11 global shopping festival has been successful because of efforts to penetrate new markets and pivot towards localisation, according to an executive at the Chinese e-commerce giant.
The campaign's sales value reached 214 billion yuan (926 billion baht) as of 4.31pm local time, equivalent to total sales value logged for the event last year.
Liu Bo, president of Tmall and Taobao marketing and operation at Alibaba, said the company's move to explore new low-tier markets for product sales domestically and internationally has paid off.
A localisation strategy that tweaked products for local customers was also used.
According to Alibaba, total gross merchandise value (GMV) for the campaign reached US$1 billion (30.3 billion baht) in the first minute and eight seconds.
GMV reached $4.28 billion in the first five minutes and 25 seconds. Within 17 minutes, GMV hit 57 billion yuan, surpassing the total GMV of 2014.
The company reported GMV reached 100 billion yuan at 63 minutes and 59 seconds, 43 minutes faster than last year's event.
The top 10 countries selling products to China in the campaign's first hour were Japan, the US, South Korea, Australia, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and New Zealand, respectively.
The top import product categories bought by Chinese customers under the campaign are food supplements, facial masks, milk powder, make-up, diapers, skincare products, and infant and toddler nutrition products, respectively.
US pop star Taylor Swift made a splash on Chinese e-commerce giant's Alibaba shopping festival gala on Sunday to kick off its annual 24-hour shopping extravaganza in Shanghai. (Reuters video)
According to the company, the top 10 economies that bought products from China are Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Macau and Canada, respectively.
More than 200,000 brands from 78 economies participated in the campaign, which saw 1 million products offered.
Meanwhile, Shopee, a Singapore-based e-commerce site under New York Stock Exchange-listed Sea Group, held a similar campaign, called “Shopee 11.11 Big Sale”. The platform operates in Asean and Taiwan.
The company reported orders made through its platform in the first hour yesterday tripled from that of the same event last year. Shopee did not provide a sales figure.