Alibaba draws $74B in sales during 11.11 shopping event

Dive Brief:

Alibaba's Global Shopping Festival brought in RMB498.2 billion, or $74.1 billion, in gross merchandise volume over the 11-day effort, a 26% increase from 2019, according to a press release emailed to Retail Dive. The U.S. was the top-selling country by gross merchandise volume, the company said.
More than 470 brands participating in the event reached over RMB100 million ($15.1 million as of press time) in gross merchandise volume. During peak activity on the platform, the company processed 583,000 orders per second, the company said.
Over the 11-day period, the Cainiao Network processed more than 2.32 billion delivery orders. The company's customer chatbot handled more than 2.1 billion queries during the event, per the press release.

Dive Insight:

Per figures shared with Retail Dive, Alibaba's Global Shopping festival drew about 800 million consumers. The company is continuing to improve its digital infrastructure to help businesses large and small find success in the digital economy, Jiang Fan, president of Taobao and Tmall, in a statement.

As it grows its technological infrastructure, the e-commerce giant is also engaging other partnerships to expand its luxury footprint. Earlier this month, Alibaba entered into an international "global strategic partnership" with Farfetch and Richemont to develop Farfetch shopping channels on Alibaba's Tmall Luxury Pavilion, Luxury Soho and international marketplace Tmall Global.

Nike, Apple, Adidas and other notable brands saw rapid sales during this year's Global Shopping Festival. The company stated that more than 250,000 brands participated in this year's sales events. The e-commerce giant's Singles Day events drew $38.4 billion in 2019, $30.8 billion in 2018 and $25.3 billion in 2017.

Alibaba mentioned that its livestreaming capabilities have become essential marketing tools for the platform. Per its press release, more than 30 livestreaming channels were featured on Taobao Live that each raked in more than RMB100 million, or $15.1 million, in gross merchandise volume. As Alibaba leads the way for livestream shopping overseas, other companies like LG and TikTok have experimented with livestream commerce in the U.S.