Alibaba sees Singles’ Day campaign pay off with strong sales in 4 popular categories

The top-performing product categories for Alibaba’s Singles’ Day campaign were home appliances, consumer electronics, beauty and apparel

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A pedestrian walks by an advertisement promoting Tmall’s Double 11 shopping promotion in Shanghai. Photo: VCG via Getty Images

Ann Caoin Shanghai

Published: 9:00pm, 11 Nov 2024Updated: 1:37am, 12 Nov 2024

Alibaba Group Holding says this year’s Singles’ Day campaign has seen strong demand in four product categories – home appliances, consumer electronics, beauty and apparel – in a sign of consumer-spending recovery on the mainland, as the world’s largest online shopping festival drew to a close on Monday.

Taobao and Tmall Group (TTG), Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce unit, said a total of 139 home appliance and furniture brands – including Haier, Midea Group and Dyson – each rang up 100 million yuan (US$14 million) in gross merchandise value (GMV), considered as a sales milestone for many merchants in the annual event also known as Double 11 or 11.11. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

More than 9,600 brands in that category doubled their sales as of Sunday midnight, according to TTG, which credited government subsidies and discounts on the platform for helping boost demand.

For consumer electronics, Apple, Huawei Technologies, Xiaomi, Oppo and 30 other brands also racked up 100 million yuan each in GMV. More than 1,100 brands, including Vivo and spin-off iQOO, doubled sales from a year ago as of Sunday midnight. These results came on the back of the strong performance in this category when Alibaba kicked off direct sales in late October.

As of Sunday midnight, a total of 79 beauty brands and 66 apparel brands also crossed the 100-million-yuan GMV mark, according to TTG. The best-performing apparel brands include Uniqlo, which recorded sales of more than 1 billion yuan during the campaign, as well as UGG and Victoria’s Secret.

An express delivery rider hands over a Singles’ Day package to an elderly man on November 11, 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE

TTG also touted the performance of live-streaming e-commerce to boost sales. As of Sunday midnight, over 100 live-streaming rooms promoting sales for Taobao and Tmall recorded a total GMV of more than 100 million yuan, which the Alibaba unit said was a record-high for the platform.