Live commerce to continue driving Singles' Day sales
- By Zhang Liying
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 10, 2021
Live commerce will remain a major driving force of sales during this year's Singles' Day — also known as Double 11 — according to a recent survey report released by global consulting firm AlixPartners.
Livestreaming is now a necessity for brands to get consumers' attention on the annual shopping event, while most consumers use livestreaming for the specific goal of researching a product prior to buying, said the report.
The survey results showed that 97% of respondents intend to watch livestreams planned specifically for Singles' Day, while 76% said they would start doing so before the actual date to preview products and research ahead of time, an increase of 14% compared to last year.
The most popular content involves personalized discount offers promoted in corresponding social groups or free gifts and other exclusive offers during livestreaming, said the report.
The online shopping promotion held annually on Nov. 11 was launched by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2009. The day is celebrated by many Chinese young people as Singles' Day, because 11-11 resembles four "bare branches," a Chinese slang term for bachelors.
According to the report, consumers' preference for online channels in one or more steps of the purchase journey is continuing, especially in first- and second-tier cities, an obvious change in consumer behavior precipitated by COVID-19.
In the survey, 36% of respondents said they found it both safer and more convenient to buy online and would prefer that channel on Singles' Day so as to limit physical interactions.
Last year, more than 800 million shoppers, 250,000 brands and 5 million merchants took part in the shopping spree, according to Alibaba's e-commerce platform Tmall. Sales on the platform exceeded 372.3 billion yuan ($56.29 billion) between Nov. 1 and 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 11.
In the AlixPartners survey, 85% of consumers said they planned to spend the same or more than last year, with half of the total consumers intending to spend more than 3,000 yuan ($470) during this year's event.
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