For years, my American and British colleagues have talked about Black Friday, a pre-Holidays phenomenon that has now spread to Australia, SEA and other markets. The Black Friday shopping event, originally limited to the day after American Thanksgiving, now kicks off earlier and earlier, and continues to set the tone for the entire holiday season. And Cyber Monday, the online shopping companion to Black Friday’s brick and mortar roots, continues to grow and expand as well.
But move over Black Friday. 11/11 Singles’ Day, 9/9 Super Shopping Day, and 10/10 Mega Shopping Festival are setting sales growth records for e-commerce sites and e-commerce sales across Asia in 2019. If this were a holiday trade war, there wouldn’t even be a contest.
One day each in three contiguous months. Incredible shopper activity occurs.
As these three shopping holiday events become staples in the APAC promotions calendar, we’ve only seen sales go in one direction – up! To help the market better understand the remarkable uplift Singles’ Day driven by these holiday shopping holidays, we’ve examined the key online trends and figures for our many APAC clients that allow us to report aggregated sales figures. Have a look at these 9.9, 10.10, and 11.11 Singles’ Day Statistics from the Partnerize Platform.
9.9 Super Shopping Day
Originally started by Shopee, September 9th, or ‘9.9’, has become a staple shopping spree day for retailers and brands across the APAC region. Coined Southeast Asia’s ‘Super Shopping Day,’ 9.9 sales have grown dramatically each year with 2019 seeing its biggest results yet. Shopee themselves saw triple growth on orders on their 2018 results.
For Partnerize clients, 9.9. promotions resulted in dramatic global sales results. Our travel and retail customers in Southeast Asia saw an average increase in daily revenue of 247 percent for the holiday compared to 2018. For the entire day, Partnerize customers in Southeast Asia drove 10 times their daily e-commerce average for conversions. It’s clear that word of outstanding offers spreads online like wildfire, across both traditional digital and social media.
10.10 Mega Shopping Festival
Part of the cashback reward program ShopBack’s annual ShopFest, October 10th, or 10.10, is a newer entrant to the promotional calendar, but has quickly seen much success. Brands across Southeast Asia utilized 10.10 to drive exclusive shopping offers and discounts for customers, to entice them as part of the wider ShopFest sales phenomenon.
While the global sales results aren’t yet as dramatic as for 9.9, 10.10 saw an increase in average order value of 135%.
11.11 Singles’ Day
Singles’ Day, or 11.11, was started way back in November, 2009 by e-commerce giant Alibaba. Originally limited to China only, Singles’ Day has now become a global shopping phenomenon and has been crowned the world’s largest 24-hours of shopping, completely eclipsing major shopping days such as Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day.
In 2019, Alibaba sold $38.5 billion worth of product – a whopping $5 billion more total sales than the previous record year. 2019 saw Singles’ Day spread wider than ever before and Partnerize brands certainly reaped much growth from the event. Partnerize brands across China and Southeast Asia saw, on average, a 359% larger order value than in 2018. They also saw a 151% increase in the number of conversions.
And there is another major selling event on the way in 2019: December 12 or 12.12. With 12.12 coming up next, we seem set to see the biggest shopping year ever! In 2020, it will be interesting to see how these crucial dates evolve, and how they expand globally.