One
of the oldest professions in the world has been buying and selling of goods.
The famous silk route(more than a thousand years old) originated from China to
Rome supplying wool, spices and a whole lot more. The global trade map is now
connected and interdependent on each other with the economy of a country
depending heavily on trade. In the 1950’s, the US, post WWII, to revive
consumerism created the concept of “Black Friday” though it became more popular
in the later decades. In the mid 2000’s, the National Retail Federation coined
the “Cyber Monday” concept to make people buy online. This has led to a
worldwide phenomenon with perhaps a $100 Billion in sales changing the fortunes
of companies for good every year.
E-commerce
companies such as Amazon, Walmart, Tmall, Lazada, JD.com, and a host of others
have immensely benefited. Many companies have banked on these two days to
catch up on their yearly revenues.
Circa
2009: Not
to be left behind, China based Alibaba Group kick started the 11.11
and later the 12.12. campaign that zoomed way ahead of their US counterparts.
The 11.11. campaign is meant to celebrate Single’s Day in China wherein, nearly
$30 Billion of sales happen (sales of $7 plus billion is generated in the US).
The 12.12 campaign was created to catch up on the lost discounts and ensure no
one misses the bus. The 11.11. campaign has not been restricted to the Asian
markets but has also spread to Australia and certain countries in Europe also.
A thumbs up
for the ASEAN economy
In terms of
brands, what had started with just 27 brands in the ecommerce platform Tmall in
2009, today has a jaw dropping 180,000 international brands from pin to plane
including cars, fashion, electronics, cosmetics, household and food from over 230
countries.
Buyer’s in a
tizzy
Though Tmall
has a huge stake in terms of sales, others such as JD.com launched their own
dates (June 18) and saw sales of $24 Billion. Not to be left behind is
Suning.com with August 18 and Amazon too picking up July 16 as their annual
date with an estimated sale of $4.19 Billion across 17 countries.
The devil
lies in the details
As mentioned
earlier, in 2018, Alibaba Group raked in $30 billion in just one day and was
higher by a $5 billion compared to last year. Not to be left out, Shopee
had 11 million orders to fulfill which was 4.5 times more compared to
2017. Local ecommerce players such as Malaysia’s Street saw its Gross
Merchandise Value (GMV) go up by 6 times against the daily average in the whole
of 2018. SELLinALL touched 10X GMV from 2018 11.11.Based on these numbers, it
is obvious there are no losers here and everyone is benefiting from
this. A study by Google and Temasek states the digital economy is expected
to touch $240 billion in the next five years with the ecommerce market alone
taking the lion’s share of $102 billion.
Google has
reported a spike from countries like Malaysia and Vietnam two weeks before
11.11 and 12.12. Delivery companies based on analytics, searches and past data
even went to the extent of pre-packing popular items three days before the
sales to ensure deliveries are not affected.
Have Mobile,
Go Mobile
Based on
reports, mobile penetration and cheaper data has helped e-commerce companies
garner higher sales with mobile specific promotions (via apps) leading to
higher sales compared to non-mobile sales. Malaysia and Vietnam have been
leading the pack in the South East Asian countries (SEA) successfully.
With over 72
percent of all online traffic to e-commerce platforms coming from mobile
devices, study shows there are more than 350 million Internet users as of June
2018 in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam put
together, with 90 percent of mobile users connecting to the Internet through
their smartphones.
Pick and
Choose
Banking on
the festival and celebrations fever plus the huge appetite for discounts, there
are so many other sale dates such as the Chinese New Year (the mother of all
sales), Valentine Day, Christmas, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, 5.20 and 9.9 with
China taking the lead in every way possible with the rest following. India too
has its sales with Amazon and Walmart led Flipkart paving the way.
Possible
Year-long sale
With over 10
sale dates from just one platform and a host of competitor platforms offering
their own version of sale dates, the possibility of having a year-round
discount sale across platforms is likely possible and this is definitely good
for companies like Singapore based www.sellinall.com which
focuses on South East Asian eCommerce market.
The chances
of selling older products to ensure the latest products are bought and
displayed is very likely. Let us not forget, space is a premium in countries
like Singapore and Hong Kong yet the desire to own more is unlimited.