Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall Group simplifies shopping experience for 6.18 campaign

Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall Group is simplifying consumers’ shopping experience during its 6.18 mid-year shopping festival campaign. The 6.18 festival is known as one of the largest mid-year shopping events in China.

Kicking off on 20 May, the campaign allows users to take advantage of direct discounts and over HK$16bn (RMB15 billion) worth of vouchers, while supporting merchants through comprehensive efficiency-enhancement initiatives that include a HK$216bn (RMB200 billion) rapid settlement programme.   

These initiatives reflect the platforms’ strategic priority to invest in user experience. Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group and Taobao and Tmall Group, defined 2024 as a year of comprehensive capability upgrades for Taobao and Tmall and a year of significant investment. 

This year’s event will include two sales periods, from 20 May to 28 May, and from 31 May to 20 June, respectively. Instead of pre-sale periods, this year’s sales periods will now exclusively feature ready-to-ship items, shortening consumers’ wait time between placing and receiving their orders. 

The campaign will also feature greater price competitiveness that will be clear and easily accessible for consumers, including coupons to more than 35 million 88VIP members and coupons for livestreaming rewards, specific categories, and virtual sales venues. Furthermore, the “50% off-everything” virtual sale venue will offer millions of products, in addition to the 15% off sales venue and the “RMB50 off every RMB300 spent” deal. 

The Taobao and Tmall Group also upgraded the price guarantee feature for this year’s 6.18, allowing Tmall consumers to easily match prices and receive a refund on price differences until 5 July.    

Taobao and Tmall has allocated over HK$216bn (RMB200 billion) for a rapid settlement programme for eligible merchants, ensuring prompt payments upon product shipment.  

This initiative alleviates cash flow pressure for merchants, especially small and medium enterprises. Taobao and Tmall is partnering with Cainiao and Ant Group to provide logistics subsidies and shipping insurance deals. It is also collaborating with over 200 external platforms to further boost consumer traffic for merchants. 

More than 10 AI tools are available to all merchants on Taobao and Tmall. In the lead-up to the festival, the platform has granted all merchants free access to its market insight monitor “Business Advisor” and smart customer service chatbot Ali Xiaomi (Ali Assistant). Merchants will also have free access to other AI-powered tools to optimise operations, generate visuals for product listings, and improve marketing efficiency. 

Don't miss: Taobao revamps website as part of experience optimisation strategy

Most recently, Taobao upgraded its web version as part of its overall experience optimisation strategy, with the website and app complementing each other to improve user experience, product supply, and content supply.

After the update, Taobao said consumers who browse Taobao.com will notice a simplified sales experience, from staying logged in longer to seeing coupons and product details in their shopping carts.

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