Alibaba Group Launches 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival
Focus on Globalization and Engage Chinese Consumers with
Entertainment, Interactive Content, Virtual Reality, O2O, and Storefront
Personalization
HONG KONG–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) today announced the launch of its 2016 11.11
Global Shopping Festival, unveiling more than three weeks of marketing
promotions, entertainment programs, and new product offerings from
around the world to engage Chinese consumers on the world’s busiest and
largest shopping day.
From mobile live streaming, virtual reality shopping, interactive games,
to an eight-hour live-streamed fashion show and a star-studded countdown
gala, Alibaba is pioneering a variety of innovative ways to enable
almost 100,000 merchants to build their brands, market, engage, and sell
to the hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers shopping on Alibaba’s
marketplaces throughout the festival.
At a press conference in Hong Kong attended by dozens of representatives
from international brands, including Macy’s, Costco, Metro, Watson’s,
Swisse, Kanebo, and eMart, Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of
Alibaba Group, said, “11.11 Shopping Festival has become the global
retail benchmark over the past seven years, and we have raised the bar
again this year to redefine the retail experience for consumers together
with our merchants from around the world.”
Zhang continued, “11.11 has evolved far beyond a 24-hours sales event.
From today through November 11, consumers will discover, explore, play,
watch, comment, share, recommend and shop across our entire ecosystem
with our merchants both online and offline. Leveraging our robust
infrastructure, global merchants have been empowered with unprecedented
capability to seamlessly engage and serve customers through new
technology and new environments.”
The 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival will unfold with a primary focus
in the following four areas, in order to support the global growth
strategy of Alibaba and scale of the event:
-
Entertainment and Interactive Engagement
Entertainment and
interactive content will play a significant role in engaging all
consumers this year which will help merchants explore new and creative
ways to market their brand and products. Some activities include:-
On October 23, Tmall will host an eight-hour fashion show in
Shanghai, the largest of its kind in China with 50 international
brands and 160 models participating. The show will be streamed
live via the Tmall and Taobao mobile apps, during which viewers
can pre-order items in real-time as they appear on the catwalk. -
From October 21 to November 11, more than 600 international brands
will be streaming live broadcasts on Tmall to educate and excite
targeted consumers about their brand and 11.11 product offerings. -
Alibaba will pilot “Buy+”,
the world’s first complete virtual reality (VR) shopping
experience, during this year’s 11.11 festival. Shoppers will be
virtually transported to select retail stores internationally, and
experience the entire shopping process from product selection to
payment, all through VR. -
The 11.11 Global Shopping Festival Gala on November 10 will
feature a series of interactive activities between brands and
consumers to drum up excitement towards the countdown of 11.11.
Katy Perry will be the headline performer and global ambassador of
the event, as well as a line-up of other international celebrities
which will be announced at a later date.
-
Online to Offline (O2O) Initiatives
This year’s
11.11 will showcase Alibaba’s ability to seamlessly integrate data
obtained online with offline activities, including marketplace data,
logistics, media, and entertainment. Alibaba believes that the future
of commerce is not pure e-commerce, but an integrated, holistic online
and offline experience. Below are a few examples of the power of O2O
during 11.11:-
Alibaba will release a location-based augmented reality (AR)
mobile game about two weeks before November 11. Consumers can
follow the Tmall Cat mascot on an adventure across the Alibaba
online and offline retail ecosystem to earn special promotions and
prizes. Participating merchants include Suning, Intime shopping
malls, Beijing Joy City shopping mall, Shenzhen Coastal City
shopping mall, as well as global brands such as Shanghai
Disneyland, KFC and Starbucks. -
Alibaba is working with more than one million offline stores
across various product categories to present consumers with an
integrated online-to-offline experience across products, members
and services.
-
Personalization through Big Data
Each user will have a
unique and highly-personalized shopping experience for 11.11 this
year. Driven by data, everything from product recommendations, search
results, newsfeeds, to user-generated content etc., will be
specifically tailored to the individual consumer.-
Consumers will enjoy highly relevant products and content that
meets their interest and lifestyles. -
Brands and retailers will have the ability to customize their
storefronts, product selection and marketing materials targeted at
different demographics.
-
“Buy Globally”: Alibaba is the premium gateway to China for
international brands and merchants to sell quality international
products and services to Chinese consumers. -
“Sell Globally”: Alibaba is introducing a new pilot program to
help global merchants sell beyond China. The company is in its
early phases of expanding its infrastructure, including logistics
and payments, in order to allow consumers overseas to purchase
international products through Tmall. Hong Kong and Taiwan are the
first markets outside mainland China where this will be available.
About the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival
The 11.11 shopping festival began in 2009 with participation from just
27 merchants as an event for Tmall.com merchants and consumers to raise
awareness of the value in online shopping. Seven years later, 11.11 has
become a global event with participating merchants in the tens of
thousands, buyers in the millions, and total sales in the billions.For additional history and facts from last year’s festival, as well as
the latest news and updates on the 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival,
please visit Alizila http://www.alizila.com.About Alibaba Group
Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The
company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce. It
envisions that its customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba, and
that it will be a company that lasts at least 102 years.Contacts
Alibaba Group
Cecilia Kwok, +852 9132 7709
ceciliakwok@alibaba-inc.com
or
Sharon
Chan, +1 415-361-8219
sharon.chan@alibaba-inc.com -
Consumers will enjoy highly relevant products and content that
-
Alibaba will release a location-based augmented reality (AR)
-
On October 23, Tmall will host an eight-hour fashion show in