Here's How Much Alibaba Earns During Singles' Day Sale Compared To Black Friday, Cyber Week
Singles' Day is over and the 11-11 shopping day has posted another record sales.
The once unofficial shopping holiday thought up by Alibaba in 2009 has now spread across China's online and brick-and-mortar stores and over several days. Hundreds and thousands of brands are trying to beat each other with bigger discounts in an effort to secure more customers.
This year's Singles' Day sales rose to an estimated $156.4 billion across major e-commerce platforms, Fortune reported. This posts a growth of 2.9% from last year's numbers and eclipses Cyber Week sales in the U.S. for the past five years.
But what's even more interesting is that Alibaba's gross merchandise value (GMV) alone has beat sales on Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday across the United States since 2018!
GMV considers the total value of placed orders without taking into account the amount of potential item returns by consumers.
According to data from Statista, in 2018 Alibaba's GMV was at $30.8 billion while U.S. consumers spent just $24.2 billion across the five-day Cyber Week sale.
The sales gap kept growing and in 2021, it was at a whopping $50.6 billion -- $84.5 billion for Alibaba and $33.9 billion for Cyber Week.
In 2022, amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Alibaba refused to disclose its exact numbers but said it was "in line with 2021" numbers. As for Cyber Week, it increase by a lowly $1.4 billion.
So what did consumers spend most on during Singles' Day 2023?
According to a report from Bain and Company, 77% of surveyed consumers say they would spend more on necessities and less on big-ticket items like appliances and furniture this year.
Health and Wellness items also sold well, with Alibaba reporting an increase of 300% in road bike sales, Fortune reported.
Consumer electronics also posted higher sales. Xiaomi said it had record-breaking sales on Singles' Day, selling over $3.11 billion worth of products from Oct. 23 to Nov. 11.
What's next?
Black Friday is just around the corner and is expected to rake in billions again this year. Black Friday will be on Nov. 24, 2023, a day after Thanksgiving.
Kicking off the holiday shopping season in the U.S., stores have started offering huge discounts and promotions as early as the first week of November. Brands like Walmart even ran celebrity-packed ads to announce its early Black Friday deals.
While it remains to be seen how much this year's numbers will be, multiple analysts have already forecast that holiday 2023 will see an increase in sales with the possible e-commerce holiday sales total hitting $278 billion to $284 billion this year, Deloitte predicts.
