Alibaba will continue scaling up Singles Day, the retail giant’s Nov. 11 shopping holiday, for 2018. The event will become multi-country and multi-platform, and feature new promotions such as a shoppable fashion show.
Singles Day will feature 180,000 brands across the Alibaba marketplace Tmall, including both Chinese and global companies. Smaller brick-and-mortar stores also will participate, with 200,000 merchants in China offering online sales promotions.
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Lazada, which operates across Southeast Asia, will host its own sales for the first time. The e-Commerce retailer hopes to bring customers from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore into the Singles Day celebration.
Ling Shou Tong, Alibaba’s retail management platform, will provide its own online sales promotions, along with augmented reality (AR)-based red packets that offer discounts at 3,000 Tmall Corner Stores. Other promotions include:
- Ele.me providing delivery services for certain Starbucks stores across 11 Chinese cities, including all locations in Beijing and Shanghai;
- Hema designating “11.11” signature supermarkets, which will feature a number of promotions; and
- Koubei offering half-price discounts on catering, beauty and hair salons and karaoke bars.
Retailers should keep an eye on Singles Day: the 2017 version of the holiday raked in $25.3 billion in sales, a 39% increase from the previous year. In comparison, U.S. retailers brought in $5.03 billion online on Black Friday, and a record $6.59 billion on Cyber Monday in 2017.
