Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo kick-start Singles’ Day promotions on same day

Posted by Admin October 14, 2024 Shopping

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Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce business unit, launched at 8pm on Monday the presale stage of its promotion for Singles’ Day – also known as 11.11 or Double 11, referring to the shopping extravaganza originally observed on November 11 – as the company anticipates a record-high volume of users taking part in this year’s festival. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

“This year’s 11.11 is unfolding as Chinese consumer sentiment is improving,” Alibaba vice-president Liu Bo, who serves as president of Tmall, said in a statement. “We are making unprecedented investments to incentivise our users and support our brands and merchants to drive high-quality growth.”

JD.com and PDD Holdings-owned Pinduoduo also rolled out their respective Singles’ Day promotions on the same day, marking a departure from 11.11 campaigns over the past few years. The three e-commerce rivals used to launch promotions on different days partly to avoid direct, side-by-side comparison of their respective sales numbers ahead of November 11.

Alibaba Group Holding offered discounts of at least 50 per cent and free nationwide shipping when it first promoted Singles’ Day as an annual online shopping event in 2009. Photo: Shutterstock

The annual Singles’ Day festival, which was initiated by Alibaba in 2009 as a 24-hour online retail event, has become a proxy for many investors to track consumer spending in China as well as an important barometer of the country’s economic health.