New Zealand brands again recorded a strong performance in Alibaba Group’s 2017 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which closed at 11.59pm on Saturday 11 November.
At the weekend, Alibaba Group reported RMB 168.2 billion (NZD36.81 billion/ USD25.3 billion) was settled through Alipay on Alibaba’s China and international retail marketplaces on November 11, 2017 with mobile GMV settled through Alipay accounting for 90 percent of total GMV.
“When we launched Alibaba Group’s Australia and New Zealand office earlier this year, one of our key goals was to grow the outstanding performance of New Zealand brands in previous 11.11 Global Shopping Festivals,” said Maggie Zhou, Alibaba Group’s ANZ Managing Director.
“We are thrilled that New Zealand brands have continued to see success on the world stage, adding further proof of the growing appetite for high-quality New Zealand goods among Chinese consumers.”
Standout performances from participating New Zealand brands included ecostore and Antipodes.
“The opportunity for ecostore to expand its consumer base is significantly increased through sale days such as 11:11”, said Pablo Kraus, Managing Director of ecostore. “Chinese consumers are very sophisticated and their demand for an eco-friendly lifestyle continue to grow, so ecostore is honored to be a brand that consumers choose for its reliability, authenticity and being safe for all the family”.
“11.11 presents an amazing opportunity for us to raise awareness of Antipodes in the China market,” said Elizabeth Barbalich, CEO and Founder of Antipodes. “The Chinese market is key for us, with traditional plant remedies long considered an essential part of Chinese medicinal and beauty practices”.
“Our Chinese customers value our high quality natural New Zealand skincare and makeup which has been scientifically shown to produce results. The active botanical ingredients from New Zealand that feature in our premium products, such as avocado oil, manuka honey and mamaku black fern, are a real point of difference. Couple that with our distinctive wallpaper packaging and New Zealand’s clean green image, and you’ve got an irresistible formula for the Chinese consumer.”
In a sign of New Zealand’s deepening engagement with Alibaba and e-commerce, the first global order on Alibaba’s platforms during this year’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival was placed by a buyer located in New Zealand. It was a purchase of a soy milk maker from Chinese brand Joyoung.
This year’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival saw 60,000 international brands and merchants available to Chinese consumers, with 225 countries and regions recording completed transactions. 167 merchants each generated more than RMB100 million (US$15.1 million) in sales, 17 merchants surpassed RMB500 million (US$75.4 million) in sales, and 6 merchants surpassed RMB1 billion (US$150.9 million) in sales.
“More than US$25 billion of GMV in one day is not just a sales figure,” said Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “It represents the aspiration for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully embraced the integration of online and offline retail.”
Key highlights from the 2017 11.11 Global Shopping Festival:
• Total GMV settled through Alipay was RMB168.2 billion (NZ $36.81 billion), an increase of 39% compared to 2016.
• Total mobile GMV settled through Alipay was approximately 90% of total GMV, compared to 82% last year.
• More than 140,000 participating brands and merchants.
• Alipay processed 1.48 billion total payment transactions, up 41% from 2016, and processed 256,000 transactions per second at peak.
• Alibaba Cloud processed 325,000 orders per second at peak.
• Cainiao Network processed 812 million total delivery orders.
• The first delivery arrived 12 minutes and 18 seconds after midnight.
