In the 1990s, students at several universities in Nanjing started a new tradition: celebrating November 11 as Singles' Day. Four units in the date (11.11) symbolize single people, favor the establishment of new relationships and... stimulate an incredible buying boom. Our colleague and friend, Julia Pohlmann, wrote an article about a unique digital commerce experience from China.
Numbers for appetite
From a holiday of lonely hearts, Singles' Day in China quickly turned into an analogue of the American "Black Friday" - a daily marathon of enormous discounts. Since 2013, manufacturers of various goods have been organizing an attraction of unprecedented generosity not only offline, but also on the Internet.
Thus, in 2013, the largest trading platform Alibaba (including its divisions Tmall and Taobao) collected $3.1 billion in just the first hour of operation on Singles’ Day. Last year, in the first hour and a half of the holiday, shoppers spent more than $5 billion on online sales. Moreover, 72% of orders were made through mobile devices (according to Alibaba Group). During all 24 hours of sales in 2015, the turnover of the Tmall platform amounted to $13.5 billion. The leaders were the following products:
- 64 million kg of apples
- 26 million kg honey
- 56 million kg of nuts
- 64 million TVs
- 13 million phones
- 11 million hours
- 6 million cars.
If these impressive volumes and amounts make your commercial director's eyes glaze over, encourage him to write down the factors that are important to consider when developing a successful Singles' Day campaign.
Standing out means selling
Regardless of the specifics of your product, the main recommendation is to become noticeable among thousands of other offers. Everything should work for this task: bright design, calls to action, “the most special offer” (“only today and very inexpensive!”), your bestsellers on the main banner, depicted in the “golden ratio”.
Of course, it's not just about design and creativity. You shouldn’t discount classic marketing tools:
- Flash sales or instant liquidation
Providing a limited edition product at a deep discount (up to 90%) is one of the favorite tools of Black Friday marketers.
- Group purchases
An effective way to grow your account's user base. The essence of the sale is to sign up a group of buyers to whom you will provide a group discount on the product. As soon as the required number of subscribers is reached, you open sales. This type of activity encourages buyers to join groups to get the maximum discount. And you, in turn, get subscribers and buyers in bulk.
- Limited edition
When using this mechanic, you can use various limiters: by time (XiaoMi often uses this type of attracting customers by offering to buy a product with a discount that is valid only for a certain period of time. For example, from 12 to 14 o'clock on Tuesdays). A “quantity limiter” also works well, when a limited quantity of goods is sold with a discount or bonus.
- Pre-sales
Some companies begin to attract attention to their products and services even a week before the official start of sales. 10 days before Black Friday, the product becomes cheaper (and is guaranteed to be in stock). The size of the discount increases as Singles' Day approaches: customers receive the maximum discount on November 11th. Although for some manufacturers, pre-sales work so well that by the main day of sales, all the goods are sold out.
What to expect this year?
In 2015, AliExpress, a Chinese e-commerce platform popular among Russian buyers, started the tradition of 11.11 sales in Russia. Singles' Day was supported by both Chinese and domestic companies.
This year, Russian and foreign online trading giants plan to continue the tradition of sales. Technosila and Philips, Redmond and Wikimart, L’Oreal and Lamoda, 220 Volt and Xiaomi, Apple, OZON and many other companies have already announced their participation in Singles’ Day.
What about you?
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Our Partners in China is Market Entry Team, enthusiastic professionals with over 17 years of experience in market analyses, product support, sales, marketing, PR, event marketing, brand and business development from market entry phase both in China and Russia on behalf of some of the world’s biggest (and smallest) brands. Are you planning to expand your business? Contact us more@meatelie.com, we speak Chinese! GET IN TOUCH # 13126965037 #Jenny
