Alibaba's Single's Day 2020 shopping festival kicks off early to record numbers

The 11.11 Global Shopping Festival — a.k.a. Single's Day — has kicked off early, and business is already booming, according to a report from Alibaba.

With two shopping windows (1 to 3 November and 11 November) featuring special offers and discounts this year, merchants and consumers have more opportunities than ever before to make the most of the annual shopping event, which seems to grow bigger and bigger with each passing year.

The 2020 festival began with a five hour livestream on the evening of 31 October. Broadcast on Hunan Satellite Television, Youku and other platforms, the event brought in 70 celebrities and 17 Taobao Live studios to entertain and encourage shopping from the moment things began at midnight.

According to Alibaba, hundreds of millions of consumers immediately took to Taobao and Tmall to place their orders, with the first delivery (for mosquito repellent) arriving approximately 11 minutes later, setting a new record for the unofficial shopping holiday.

With some concerned about how the challenges of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic might affect the success of this year's Single's Day shopping, those concerns were quickly relieved by impressive sales and growth numbers.

During their presales event last week, Taobao Live posted nearly US$7.5 billion in sales in just the first 30 minutes — a 400% increase over 2019, according to the South China Morning Post.

After midnight on 1 November, in addition to a huge boost in sales for imported goods, like wine and bird's nest seeing also seeing 400% YoY growth in gross merchandise value (GMV), 100 brands including Nike, Huawei and Apple, reached GMV exceeding RMB$100 million in the first 111 minutes after midnight. Imported coffee beans were also a hit, seeing a 92% growth in GMV over 2019.

With two more days left in the first shopping window and the big day itself on 11.11, it's shaping up to be a good year for business in China.

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