Alibaba Group will kick off its annual 24-hour shopping extravaganza tomorrow with deals and deep discounts, and a performance by American pop star Taylor Swift.
The Singles' Day sale is now bigger than Black Friday. It comes as the $486bn Chinese retail juggernaut navigates through a major turning point, the resignation of its co-founder Jack Ma as chair, and aims to raise up to $15bn via a share sale in Hong Kong this month.
Singles' Day was promoted by Alibaba in 2009 and last year it sold $30bn on its platforms, dwarfing $7.9bn in online sales for Cyber Monday in the US. Yet the 27% sales growth was the lowest in the event's 10-year history, spurring a search for fresh ideas.
"This year will be the 11th 11/11 [November 11] festival, with more than 200,000 brands participating, 1-million new products on offer, and over 500-million users are expected to participate - about 100-million more than last year," Alibaba said.
Swift, whose latest album Lover has broken records in China, will headline the opening gala.
Alibaba's Singles' Day celebrations have featured US singer Mariah Carey and musician Pharrell Williams in the past.
Live-streamers are also set to play a prominent role in product promotions as Alibaba increasingly turns to online video influencers to increase engagement on its app.
It has partnered with Kuaishou and Douyin, two popular Chinese video apps, to help it broadcast product promotions, and in the run-up to the show even roped in US celebrity entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, who launched a Tmall stream to promote her KKW line of beauty products.
Its heavy marketing campaign underscores intensifying competition with smaller rivals such as Pinduoduo, which have outsmarted Alibaba in second- and third-tier cities with deep discounts and group-buying deals. Alibaba has been trying to expand its customer base beyond its core first- and second-tier city shoppers to less developed areas to combat slowing retail sales growth, describing it as a key strategy for the firm.
Pinduoduo will be also hold its own "Singles' Day" events tomorrow.
The e-commerce upstart has signalled its intentions to break Alibaba and rival JD.com's stronghold on wealthy Chinese shoppers, saying that half of the app's users now hail from first- and second-tier cities.
Alibaba also faces challenges of a regulatory crackdown and a slowing economy, hurt by US-China trade tensions.
Ahead of tomorrow's event, China warned Alibaba and JD.com to stop practices that could be deemed as monopolistic, state media reported earlier this month.
Reuters
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