All is quiet on New Year’s Day – on Singles’ Day, not so much
Together with about 35,000 of my closest friends, I was lucky enough to catch the U2 concert in Auckland last Saturday. Bono and the boys didn’t disappoint, showing a generosity and a warmth that’s rare among bands of this calibre.
There’s also a personal connection with Aotearoa that U2 seems to value. Part of that was their former roadie the late Greg Carroll (they invited his family to the show) who is honoured in the song One Tree Hill. Likewise, the symbolism of choosing New Zealand as the kick-off for their first world tour in four years.
They also put on a pretty impressive video tribute to women leaders in New Zealand, including a hat tip to Jacinda Ardern and Kate Sheppard among others.
While the show was positioned as a celebration of The Joshua Tree, they opened with two favourites from their War album – Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year’s Day.
New Year’s Day was the song that changed their trajectory from postpunkers to mainstream rockers. While it’s normally interpreted as a teenage love song against a snowscape, New
Year’s Day was originally about the Solidarity movement in 1980s Poland.
It’s about their leader Lech Walesa and the lifting of martial law on New Year’s Day, 1981.
This divergence between origins and extrapolations came to mind this week as I received three pieces of electronic direct mail on November 11, all touting huge discounts from local merchants for 24 hours. All three were aligned with Singles’ Day.
November 11 is Singles’ Day in China, an occasion started by unpartnered folks as a protest against Valentine’s Day. November 11 (being the 11th day of the 11th month) was chosen as it was seen as a pictograph of four single people.
Ten years later Alibaba adopted it as a promotional tool, suggesting that singletons celebrate their unattached status by availing themselves of online bargains. The first Singles’ Day sale on Alibaba in 2009 involved just 27 merchants and sales of $32 million.
This year it turned over sales of US$40 billion (NZ$62b) involving more than 200,000 brands.
Singles’ Day was picked up and reshaped in other markets, morphing into Cyber Monday in the United States and Black Friday in Northern Europe and Oceania.
Today, few people outside China have any idea of how it all started. Indeed, research by PriceSpy found that 73 per cent of New Zealanders hadn’t heard of the phenomenon, though many would have bought through related promotions.
Given the shadow it throws across the e-commerce landscape, it’s interesting to see what hints Singles’ Day provides about the future.
The first is that, massive though it is, the growth of this e-commerce event is starting to taper. Research by McKinsey found that although the event grew at 50 per cent for its first five years, its rate of gross merchandise sales growth is slowing. In 2016 and 2017 it slowed to 44 per cent, then, last year, to 27 per cent. The final numbers are still coming in but it looks like 24 per cent this year.
Coincidentally (or not) that’s close to where Statista.com is picking that e-commerce will end up plateauing in terms of percentage of total retail. Statista is picking that globally, e-commerce will peak at 22 per cent in 2023. Here in Godzone, we’re hovering around 9 per cent according to NZ Post, so the Singles’ Day trajectory suggests there’s a bit of growth left yet.
A related learning is the extension of online Single’s Day to offline stores. Department stores, supermarkets and even coffee chains are increasingly offering big in-store discounts to stem the loss of revenue to online competitors. Locally in New Zealand we saw the same thing with companies like Repco and Harvey Norman offering big instore discounts last week.
And while we think about Singles’ Day as being about smaller businesses, increasingly it’s a big players who are taking advantage. Last year Fonterra, Comvita and A2 Milk enjoyed strong sales off the back of Singles’ Day promotions. Standing back a step, this suggests the evolution of a retail event into wholesale leveraging.
Another learning is the rise and rise of the global consumer. Singles’ Day prompted copycats in the northern and western hemispheres; and consumers are increasingly doing a global ‘‘pick and mix’’ of all the promotions.
Friends of mine here in New Zealand plan their Christmas shopping by starting with Ali Express on Singles’ Day, then follow it with Cyber Monday in the States with Amazon and Ebay, then finish with Black Friday in the UK.
U2’s other opening salvo last Saturday was Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Sunday is soon likely to be the only day left standing that doesn’t have an associated cyber sale.
Mike ‘‘MOD’’ O’Donnell is a professional director, adviser and facilitator. His Twitter handle is @modsta and he reckons Boy is U2’s best album, particularly on vinyl.