Shanghai 4th in 11/11 spending

SHANGHAI ranked fourth in terms of Singles Day spending with 17.3 billion yuan (US$2.47 billion) of the total 268.4 billion yuan worth of products sold on “Double 11” shopping spree on Tmall on Monday.

That was 24 percent more than last year.

The top three spenders were Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.

More than 69 percent of shoppers were born after 1980 and their favorite brands included Nike, Apple, Huawei, Uniqlo, Midea and Dyson, according to Alibaba.

Other top spending provinces included Shandong, Sichuan and Henan. The combined spending of Beijing residents was up 15 percent to 13.8 billion yuan in the sixth place among domestic regions.

Regions with the fastestgrowing transactions were Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Fujian, Tianjin, Tibet and Guangdong.

The top 10 countries selling to China through Alibaba’s cross-border platforms were Japan, the US, South Korea, Australia, Germany, France, the UK, New Zealand, Italy and Canada.

This year’s shopping event included a million new products on Alibaba’s platforms with the e-commerce giant moving away from just offering bargains during the annual event. As many as 299 brands saw their 24-hour sales surpassing 100 million yuan, including not only big names such as Apple, but also homegrown businesses such as Li Ning, Bosideng, Perfect Diary and HomeFacialPro.

Fifteen brands recorded 1 billion yuan in sales, with Honor, Haier, Nike and Midea among them. As of 8pm on Monday, 80 imported brands participating in the Singles Day event for the first time recorded sales of 100 million yuan on Tmall Global, the imported goods section.

Top-selling categories included nutritional supplements, facial masks, infant formula, makeup and skincare.

JD said Singles Day sales growth picked up to 27.9 percent this year from 25.7 percent a year ago with total sales in the 11-day period standing at 204.4 billion yuan.

Consumers in lower-tier cities added 60 percent and contributed to 70 percent of new users on its site.

JD said it saw 125 brands with combined sales surpassing 100 million yuan with 16 achieving sales of 1 billion yuan.

It now has over 15 million paying members and their average spending was four times that of ordinary shoppers.

Sales in lower-tier cities through its online-to-offline affiliate JD Daojia, which connects with offline merchants and supermarkets, increased by 5.7 times year on year with dairy and fresh food the most popular categories.

The staff of Dada, the cooperative delivery company with JD Daojia, distributed nearly 1.5 million packages to consumers between 10am and 12pm on Monday.

Walmart, which holds a minority stake in Dada-JD Daojia, saws sales climb 70 percent from a year ago.

Jiang Fan, the president of Taobao and Tmall, said that the e-commerce giant had shown the world what the future of consumption looks like for brands and consumers.