The Madness of The Singles Day

Most consumers rely on online shopping for deals to kick off the holiday shopping season, buying everything from apparel to kitchen stuff and spending record amounts in the process.  Past year Alibaba‘s 10th Singles Day event set a 24-hour sales record. The Chinese eCommerce giant announced that sales reached $30.8 billion (213.5 billion yuan) for the 24-hour period, as measured by gross merchandise value, which is total sales value for merchandise sold but excludes marketplace revenue from fees and other services. Alibaba’s Singles Day sales haul easily exceeded the spending by consumers during any other US shopping holiday. 

What can you do to stay on top during this madness shopping rush? You need to simplify the customer experience and drive higher engagement. There are billions of opportunities to engage your consumers, improve customer experience and Mitto is always there to support you in your ideas with its high-quality service at the essential time for your business growth. 

The Beginning Of Time 

Every year on November 11 (for the past ten years), online shoppers “run wild” and fill their digital shopping carts with heavily discounted products. Deep discount, limited time offers, and festive mood in between brought Singles Day shopping experience to a whole new level as it is the most awaited shopping season in regions of South East Asia and attracts millions of users from all over the world. 

Singles Day formerly known as a Single Stick Holiday began as an anti-Valentine’s Day in the 1990s when students at Nanjing University started celebrating their singledom. Initially, it didn’t have much to do with shopping. However, in 2009, Chinese e-commerce, Alibaba, the largest online commerce company in the world, saw an opportunity to expand their business and began to promote Singles Day as a shopping celebration. Additionally, it was an excellent chance to boost sales between China’s Golden Week national holiday in October and the Christmas season. Now it’s an excuse to spend money on yourself and make yourself feel good, a day when everybody, regardless of their single status, can treat themselves. 

Name Of The Game 

Guāng gùn Jié (光棍节 — bare sticks holiday or Single Sticks’ Holiday refers to the festival started by Nanjing students to celebrate their lives as bachelors and until 2012, Alibaba used this well-known traditional term. However, due to Alibaba’s commercial influence, the holiday became known as Double 11, or Shuang Shi’yi (双十一). This is because the holiday occurs on November 11th (11th month & 11th day) each year – four ones or four singles standing together, pair of elevens. 

Whole Number Of Madness 

In the first year, consumers spent 50 million yuan (around $7 million). By 2011 more than 700 million was spent across Alibaba’s platform during the Singles day.When sales almost quadrupled the following year, Alibaba trademarked Singles Day. Last year on its 10th anniversary, it was announced that sales reached $30.8 billion (213.5 billion yuan) for the 24-hour period making the event of this multi-billion-dollar sale more significant than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. The first $1 billion was generated in just one minute and 25 seconds. 230 countries participated in the transaction, 180.000 international brands and retailers were available to Chinese consumers; 10 top countries selling to Chinese consumers were Japan, the United States, Korea, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, New Zealand, Italy. Shoppers purchased everything – clothes, home appliances, electronics, and even cars.*  

Based on its growing trend and market demand, the number of participants in 2019 is likely to top 500 million during the world’s largest shopping event. 

Stay On Top With SMS 

It’s crucial to have a dedicated mobile strategy and think digital around Singles Day. Send SMS to your users with the following content: 

• remind them about the date and time-November 11th, precisely at midnight 
• notify about limited availability, which can make this shopping more excited and wanted 
• to prepare their shopping list early as there are things consumers can forget or don’t realize they need 
• inform on additional promo vouchers that can be used to gain further discounts 
• offer hot deals 
• give exclusive offers 
• promote irresistible package deals for a better price 
• send promo codes 
• make discounts as an incentive for specific actions 
• make it fun, festive, interactive 
• send a survey when the sales period is over for your next year’ strategy 

  Just keep the conversation going. List of possibilities is getting longer each day, so don’t stop, send an SMS and stay on top! 

* Source https://www.practicalecommerce.com/