Alibaba kicks off grand 11.11 Global Shopping Festival
BEIJING: Alibaba Group has kicked off its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, an annual online shopping frenzy for consumers worldwide.
For the first time, the Alibabaowned Lazada is hosting the megasale for customers in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, offering the biggest discounts of the year from LazMall and Lazada Marketplace.
Highlights of the month-long celebration will be the 24-hour mega sale that starts right after midnight on Nov 11.
Shoppers can also search for their favourite merchandise on AliExpress and TaoBao.
As this year marks the 10th anniversary of the event, the Chinese e- commerce giant promised that the celebration would be the largest ever.
“In view of the speedy digital transformation around China, the festival achieved an astonishing growth in the past decade.
“This change in shopping trends has showcased the sustainable development and success of Alibaba and its partners,” said its group chief executive officer Daniel Zhang at the launch of the festival here on Friday night.
This year, 180,000 Chinese and international brands are offering fast- moving consumer goods, beauty products, automobile and home decorations to the consumers.
More promotions and programmes including a series of star-studded entertainment events and angpow-grabbing frenzy have been lined-up for those within China.
Apart from this, the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival Gala Celebration held at Shanghai’s Mercedes Benz Arena will be shown live by Youku video hosting platform on the evening of Nov 10.
The “Double 11” festival is the most anticipated event for online shoppers due to its huge discounts of up to 60% on an assortment of goods offered by local and international brands.
Initially held to celebrate China’s Singles’ Day, it began with just 27 merchants and a sale of 52mil yuan (RM31.36mil) in 2009.
Last year, shoppers spent a staggering 168.2bil yuan (RM101.44bil) in 24 hours.
“We began with a small dream – to launch an online event – and never expected it to grow to today’s scale.
“We believe that e-commerce will eventually change people’s lifestyles, (and therefore) we have to innovate new ways to serve our customers,” said Zhang.