Alibaba announces kick-off for 11.11 shopping festival
Alibaba has today (8 September) officially announced the kick-off for its annual 11.11 shopping festival. Created by Alibaba in 2009, 11.11 day (so called because it takes place on 11 November) now generates more sales than “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” combined.
At this year’s 2015 Annual New E-Commerce Entrepreneurship Summit held in Hangzhou, China, Alibaba Group chief executive officer Daniel Zhang announced that globalization and offline-to-online (O2O) will be the key themes of this year’s 11.11 shopping festival.
Zhang commented: “Globalization is a critical priority for Alibaba Group’s strategy in 2015, as evidenced by the very encouraging growth in the number of international agreements and activities over the past several months.
“We are working closely with international brands, foreign governments, trade associations, and global retailers to make this year’s 11.11 shopping festival a truly and unprecedentedly global shopping experience for consumers, and a gateway for new brands and companies trying to reach the China marketplace and our 367 million active users.”
The 11.11 shopping festival began in 2009 with just 27 merchant participants. Last year, more than 27,000 brands and merchants took part and the festival generated 278 million orders for a total of US$9.3 billion (RMB 57.1 billion) of gross merchandise volume.
