BEIJING, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Singles' Day, China's biggest online shopping festival, has just passed, with the major e-commerce platforms hitting over 300 billion yuan in sales in the 24-hour shopping event.
Developing from the 52-million-yuan sales revenue of Tmall, Alibaba's online marketplace, in 2009 to the offline-and-online national shopping carnival this year, Singles' Day has witnessed the growing enthusiasm of Chinese consumers and has become a "parade ground" for the transformation and upgrading of China's retail industry.
--- Singles' Day, global sales spree
In fact, the Singles' Day can mean much more. Domestic event as it once was, the shopping gala has, at its 10th anniversary, enlivened worldwide buyers and sellers. The experience and wisdom amassed in the rapid growth of China's e-commerce is driving the transformation of global business infrastructure.
In 2014, Alibaba launched Tmall Global and Amazon created direct mail service to China. Since then, cross-border e-commerce brands such as Vipshop International, NetEase Koala, and JD.com have sprung up, and now it is no longer a dream to buy global goods without leaving home.
For brands from all over the world, they are overwhelmed by the consumption desires of the Chinese consumers for imported products on this year's Singles' Day. For example, in the first 78 minutes of the shopping festival, the transactions on NetEase Koala surpassed its total transactions of last year. And a fortnight before this day, the air cargo prices perked up between Europe and Shanghai, Los Angeles and Hong Kong, while the prices between Europe and North America slightly declined.
All these fully demonstrate that with continued economic growth, China has ushered in an unstoppable trend of consumption upgrading. As for Chinese consumers, online shopping can satisfy their personalized and fragmented consumption demands.
At present, Chinese market continues to open up with Chinese government encouraging import-oriented cross-border e-commerce and continuously reducing import duties, which avails foreign brands to receive "consumption dividends" from Chinese consumers through e-commerce platforms.
Foreign brands which want to win the favor of Chinese consumers, will not only have to make better use of these platforms, but also to better understand Chinese consumers' demands and preferences by mining the accurate consumption data accumulated on the Internet, including that of the Singles' Day.
Therefore, they can formulate overall strategies from product R&D to stocking and promotion, and offer localized services that constantly respond to consumption changes.
--- Cross-border e-commerce booming
"Buying imported goods has become a popular consumption trend, with a shift from scarce and complementary goods to daily-use and personalized products," said Zhang Lei, CEO of NetEase Koala.
According to data provided by Tmall, on this year's Singles' Day, the platform has offered products of 3,900 categories, representing 19,000 overseas brands from 75 countries and regions, including Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.
At the just-concluded first China International Import Expo (CIIE), e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, JD.com, and NetEase Koala all announced large import plans.
"In the next decade or a longer term, China will be the best market in the world," announced Ding Lei, CEO of NetEase.
While Chinese consumers are "buying globally", Chinese e-commerce platforms begin to explore "selling globally" and turn to the global marketplace on this year's Singles' Day.
JD Logistics has announced its plan to create a global smart supply chain, which can deliver goods from China to global locations within 48 hours.
Likewise, Alibaba's logistics unit Cainiao claimed to send thousands of containers carrying 10,000 tonnes of parcels to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and other destinations.
Noticeably, this year marked the first time that AliExpress has guided overseas retailers to participate in Singles’ Day and sell their goods globally. Russian consumers, for example, can buy Turkish goods through AliExpress.
These efforts did pay back. Data show that buyers from over 210 countries and regions have placed orders on this shopping spree through platforms like Tmall Global, AliEXpress, Lazada, and Daraz.
At the same time, overseas e-commerce platforms backed by Chinese e-business investment or technical support also carried out promotions on the Singles' Day, as the shopping event is being more and more recognized by overseas markets. For instance, the proportion of Malaysian online shoppers knowing about the Singles' Day has seen a sharp rise from 69 percent in 2016 to 96 percent this year.
--- Chinese e-commerce players to help promote global e-commerce
Against the background of the booming e-commerce globally, the Chinese e-commerce players can play a bigger role in helping promote rapid development of the industry.
For example, they can help countries, especially those with imperfect digital commercial infrastructure, to improve their logistics and payment support systems. Through technology empowerment and resource integration, "Chinese experience" can be copied. The businesses and e-commerce platforms overseas can avoid detours and effectively connect with consumers.
Thanks to its overseas warehouses in Moscow, Madrid, and Paris and other places, Cainiao has managed to deliver parcels to recipients in half of Europe within 72 hours, greatly elevating the local e-commerce logistics efficiency.
Chinese experience of smart retail can also be exported. On this year's Singles' Day, AliExpress teamed up with Spain's Inglés, the largest department store in Europe with nearly a hundred years of history, to set up offline pop-up shops and thousands of self-pickup locations in Spain.
From membership to inventory, from value-added data to new commercial modes, the big data is driving a reconstruction of the consumers, goods and shopping scenes. China's retail industry is branching out as a big tree. Against this backdrop, global offline retailers would profit from China's innovative explorations.
“The world is flat” and the booming digital economy becomes a new driving force of the world economy. In sharing Singles' Day with global e-commerce and retail players, China is increasing its efforts to shape the global digital landscape with its increasingly mature and developed consumer Internet. (By Li Wenxin)
A single purchase
