The e-commerce giant’s focus on enhancing customer experience and strategic investments has resulted in notable year-over-year growth, despite challenging market conditions.

Strategic Initiatives and Business Review

Alibaba’s strategic initiatives have significantly impacted key sectors, including e-commerce, cloud computing, digital media, and logistics. The company’s focus on improving user experience, technological advancements, and expanding international commerce has paid off.

• E-commerce: Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall Group saw a 4% year-over-year revenue growth, reaching RMB 93.2 billion, driven by a 5% increase in customer management revenue. The group also reported double-digit growth in online GMV and orders.
• Cloud Computing: The Cloud Intelligence Group reported a 3% revenue increase, reaching RMB 25.6 billion, with a notable 45% rise in adjusted EBITA. This growth was driven by higher adoption of public cloud services and AI products.
• International Commerce: The Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group experienced a 45% revenue increase to RMB 27.4 billion, thanks to strong performance in cross-border e-commerce, particularly from AliExpress.
• Logistics: Cainiao Smart Logistics Network’s revenue surged by 30% to RMB 24.6 billion, primarily due to increased demand for cross-border fulfillment services.
• Local Services Group: Reported a 19% revenue increase to RMB 14.6 billion, driven by Ele.me and Amap’s strong order growth.
• Digital Media and Entertainment Group: Revenue slightly decreased by 1% to RMB 4.9 billion, despite growth in Alibaba Pictures and Damai.

Financial Highlights

Alibaba’s financial results for the March quarter demonstrated resilience and strategic growth:

• Revenue: The company reported a 7% year-over-year increase in revenue, totaling RMB 221.9 billion (US$30.7 billion).
• Income from Operations: Despite a 3% decline, income from operations stood at RMB 14.8 billion (US$2.0 billion).
• Net Income: Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders decreased by 96% to RMB 919 million (US$127 million), mainly due to investment losses.
• Adjusted EBITA: Non-GAAP adjusted EBITA decreased by 5% to RMB 24.4 billion (US$3.3 billion).
• Share Repurchases and Dividends: Alibaba repurchased US$12.5 billion worth of shares in fiscal 2024 and announced a US$4.0 billion dividend.

Alibaba’s Q1 2024 results highlight the success of its strategic initiatives and investments in enhancing customer experience and technological infrastructure. The company’s focus on e-commerce, cloud computing, and international expansion positions it well for future growth. As Alibaba continues to innovate and adapt, it remains committed to delivering value to shareholders and capturing new market opportunities.

Jingdong (JD.com) total 11-day sales during Double 11 2020 grew by 32% YoY and reached 271.5 billion yuan (US$41.02 bn) in GMV. Tmall’s 11-day Singles’ Day sales reached 498.2 billion yuan (US$75.27 billion) with an increase of 26% YoY.

Tmall Historial Double 11 Sales

CIW Premium subscribers can download this year’s update on Double 11 here.

Double 11 Sales 2020

Lenovo reported total sales of 1.3 billion yuan in the first hour of the first day (1 Nov). Xiaomi received total sales of over 1 billion yuan in less than 20 minutes of the first day.

Tmall Double 11 Sales

In just two minutes, Tmall’s smart home sales exceeded 100 million yuan on the first day. And more than 1 million smart home devices were sold in one hour.

As of 1:00 a.m. on Nov 1, the total sales of Tmall Smart Speaker ranked first in the smarter speaker category. Among them, the total sales of smart screen products increased 14 times year on year.

By 1:51 am on Nov 1, 100 brands, including Apple, L’Oreal, Haier, Estee Lauder, Nike, Huawei, Midea, Lancome, Xiaomi, Adidas had a total sales of more than 100 million yuan (US$14.95 million). The most popular categories are 3C and cosmetics.

Update (11 Nov): According to the data of Taobao Live, the proportion of GMV via live streaming exceeded 60%, and the number of live streaming merchants increased by 220%. Taobao Live promoted more than 4 million employment opportunities.

Alibaba Tmall Double 11 total GMV in 2020 reached 372.3 billion yuan (US$56.46 bn) as of 00:30 am on 11 November.

Update (12 Nov): Tmall’s 11-day Singles’ Day sales reached 498.2 billion yuan (US$75.27 billion).

• 250,000 brands in total participated in Double 11 this year, of which 31,000 are overseas brands. Within these overseas brands, 2,600 participated in 11.11 for the first time.
• 357 emerging brands became top sellers in their respective subcategories. More than 1,800 emerging brands surpassed their GMV from Double 11 last year and, of these, 94 emerging brands enjoyed sales growth of over 1,000%.
• Under Alibaba’s Spring Thunder initiative, 1.2 million merchants and 300,000 factories focused on overseas trade from more than 2,000 industry clusters across China participated in Double 11.
• AI customer chatbot handled over 2.1 billion queries during the 11-day period.
• The United States was the top country selling to China by GMV.
  • Other top-selling countries to China, in alphabetical order, include: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and UK.

JD.com Double 11 Sales

Jingdong (JD) released the first day Double 11 report, and the turnover of the whole day increased by more than 90% year on year.

According to JD big data, FMCG products such as milk and dairy products, shampoo, rice, biscuit cake and paper drawing have become the top five categories in terms of sales, while 3C household appliances such as mobile phones, washing machines, flat-panel TVs, refrigerators, laptops and other household appliances rank first by total sales.

JD Plus, which recently reached 20 million members, saw a lot of activity on Nov 1st. The number of new users on Nov. 1st increased 113% YoY.

JD’s C2M home appliances, which have quickly become popular for their high cost-to-performance ratio also performed well. Twenty products from this line selected as priority quickly exceeded sales of RMB 200 million yuan on the first day.

Personal care home appliances grew 180% on the first day of sales, among which makers of hair dryers, electric razors and more such as Dyson, Philips, Flyco, Panasonic, Braun and Oral B were highest ranked in terms of sales.

Mobile phone sales in half an hour saw 314% growth. JD’s special mobile phone for the elderly saw eight times growth in the first 15 minutes, while users who participated in JD’s trade in program in the first 30 minutes increased 465%.

JD Luxury saw whole day sales on Nov. 1 up 138% YoY. In the first 30 minutes, 127 brands including Ferragamo, Ralph Lauren and Tod’s saw sales up 10 times YOY. International jewelry brands were up six times.

Update (11 Nov): JD Double 11 total GMV in 2020 since 1 November exceeded 200 billion yuan (US$30.33 bn) as of 00:09 am on 11 November. Here are a few quick highlights:

• In 6 seconds sales generated from live-streaming exceeded RMB 100 million yuan
• In the first 11 minutes, JD private label sales exceeded sales of the whole day on Nov. 11^th last year
• Haier, Midea, Gree and other brands sold over RMB 100 million yuan in products in one minute
• Huawei Mate 40 sales in 7 seconds exceeded RMB 100 million yuan
• Over 100,000 computers were sold in 10 minutes
• The turnover of JD Super, JD’s online supermarket increased 10 times YOY in the first five mins of sales
• JD Fresh increased 5 times YOY in the same timeframe
• JD’s international business saw transaction volume increase more than 120% YOY in the first 10 minutes
• JD’s imported goods supermarket saw turnover increase 2.5 times month-on-month
• 93% of first party orders placed during the Singles Day Grand Promotion have been delivered to customers in 24 hours

JD’s Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) home appliances, which quickly became popular in the market because of their high-cost performance and ability to meet consumers’ demands, were highly sought after during the Singles Day period.

Twenty products hand selected by JD as development priorities quickly exceeded RMB 200 million yuan when the official sales period kicked off on Nov. 1^st.

C2M relies heavily on JD’s supply chain abilities. JD helped with sales forecasts for 33,000 brands and 5 million products and automatically deployed them to the locations nearest to users in advance.

Update (12 Nov): Jingdong (JD.com) total sales during Double 11 2020 grew by 32% YoY and reached 271.5 billion yuan (US$41.02 bn) in GMV.

Starbucks saw one-day GMV growth of over 90% YoY on 11 Nov to 200 million yuan.

Other Platforms

Suning reported 5 billion yuan sales across all channels as of 00:19 am on 11 Nov.

Gome GMV increased by 166%. In terms of online platforms, the sales of general merchandise increased by 237% month on month, and that of maternal and infant commodities increased by 314%.

Xiaomi reported total sales of 14.3 billion yuan across all platforms in the 11-day sales.

Come back soon; we’ll update with the latest information on Double 11. You can subscribe to e-newsletter or paid subscription. 

Dossier: Double 11

How JD penetrates lower-tier cities with social e-commerce initiative

Double 11 Introduction

Alibaba Tmall Double 11

Alibaba Taobao kicked off its Double Eleven Global Shopping Festival (“Double 11”), the largest annual shopping festival in China, on 21 October 2020 with new innovations and features to meet rapidly changing consumer trends.

These include the participation of Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform; broader consumer reach and bigger promotions, “double” the number of shopping windows that will spotlight more brands, products and special offers, and the popular live streaming technology creating more fun and engagement for Chinese consumers with the largest international presence to date.

For many brands, Double 11 is the single biggest growth driver every year and this year will be no exception. Check out Double 11 2019 performance.

Read our guide on Double 11 here.

Deepening Engagement to Create “Double” Opportunities

This year the Taobao/Tmall Double 11 Festival expands the concept from “single” to “double,” enabling merchants to double up on promoting their products to consumers across China not just once, but twice, according to Alibaba’s official announcement.

A new sales window will be added from November 1 to 3 on Taobao/Tmall platforms, ahead of the main event on November 11, with the aim of providing merchants, specifically new brands and small businesses, the opportunity to showcase their products and tell their brand stories amid the pandemic.

Double 11 has become one of the most important new product launch events of the year for many brands. This year, more than 2 million new products will be introduced, which is double the amount compared to last year.

Double 11 will be offering more opportunities for merchants both online and offline to engage with consumers as well as provide a better consumer experience overall.

This year’s Taobao Double 11 experience will also be enhanced by Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform, which brings together nearly 2 million local service providers offering special promotions in more than 100 cities.

Offline small- and micro-merchants across China, such as street stalls and neighborhood grocery stores, will be able to participate in the excitement of Double 11 by connecting with consumers through Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform.

Big Growth Driver for Participating Brands

Alibaba launched Spring Thunder Initiative early this year as a continuous effort on merchants empowerment and Double 11 is yet another milestone to help merchants regain growth.

This year’s Taobao Double 11 Festival will feature 14 million value-for-money products from more than 250,000 brands available on Tmall.

Also, to cater for the needs of customers in lower-tier cities, Taobao Deals’ “RMB1 Sales” campaign will enable consumers to purchase goods at huge discounts with free shipping.

To meet Chinese consumers’ increasing demand for international products, Tmall Global will bring more than 2,600 new overseas brands to Chinese consumers for the first time. Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce platform Kaola will also join Double 11 for the first time, featuring products from 89 countries and regions.

Live streaming and Logistics Core to the Event

Live streaming is expected to take the center stage of this year’s Taobao/Tmall Double 11.

In addition to sessions hosted by top live streamers, about 400 company executives and 300 celebrities will also hold individual live streaming sessions. Taobao Live will offer sessions ranging from cosmetics, electronics, to cars and houses.

New features like online property viewings and virtual vehicle test drives will provide a more realistic and engaging experience to help consumers with their buying decisions. Alibaba’s DAMO Academy will use artificial intelligence technology to create its first virtual live streaming host while Fliggy will host travel-related live streams.

This year’s event will have the largest international presence since it was founded in 2009.

AliExpress now sells to more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. Lazada was the first to bring the shopping festival concept to Southeast Asia across six markets – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Shopping festivals such as Double 11 have also become one of the key industry growth drivers as local small-and-medium businesses participate in this biggest event alongside LazMall, the region’s largest online mall with more than 18,000 local and international brands.

This year Lazada will continue its “shoppertainment” features ranging from live streaming to new consumer games and innovations such as voice search to find items.

Alibaba’s robust technology and logistics infrastructure is the backbone of the Double 11 Shopping Festival. Cainiao will charter approximately 700 flights during Double 11. More than 50% of this year’s cross-border parcels are expected to be delivered twice as fast as its usual speed.

JD Double 11

JD also kicked off its Double 11 2020 campaign on 21 October 2020. JD is expected to be the first choice of consumers buying 3C products (mostly computer, consumer electronics, and communication products) in this year’s Singles Day promotion, according to Nielsen.

Double 11 Pre-sales

Nearly 140 million items were sold during the pre-sales period from October 21st to 28th, an increase of over 42.3% from the same period last year, of which JD.com sales increased by 85.5%, according to O&O Consulting.

Products worth more than RMB 1,000 yuan accounted for 48.3% of JD’s pre-sales. Pre-sales of medicine and health care on JD increased by 378% YoY while home furnishings increased by 79.3%. One of the reasons cited for the increase is people’s yearning for a sense of security and stability after a very tumultuous start to 2020.

During the pre-sales, home appliances, computer and office supplies, maternal and child, medical and health care and other categories saw growth of over 100% YoY, indicating that after the epidemic consumer demand to “settle down” has become more important.

According to JD’s own data, from October 21st-29th advanced orders for health equipment, Chinese and western medicine, and traditional nourishment on JD’s platform increased more than 10 times compared with the same period last year.

Orders for fitness and exercise equipment increased more than three times, while health-conscious small home appliances increased four times YoY.

In terms of key sub-categories such as computers, electrical appliances and home furnishing, JD’s pre-sale volume of mid and high-end goods exceeded peers, especially in the home decoration category.

O&O data finds that consumers have a tendency to turn to JD for purchases in the durable consumer categories such as large household appliances, computers, and household appliances, with the platform making up 62.7%, 82.6% and 82.7% of pre-orders respectively by category.

The program, named “AliExpress Connect,” is practically an affiliate platform dedicated to content influencer campaigns. On AliExpress Connect, influencers can access collaborate with AliExpress or brands that are selling through the marketplace.

AliExpress Connect is the official platform for connecting influencers and social media experts to hundreds of thousands of premium AliExpress merchants and brands. Millions of quality products can be advertised to consumers across over 220 countries and regions through popular platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, VK, TikTok and more.

The influencers can complete the agreed tasks to get cash at the Task Center and receive their advertising fee by creating exciting brand-centered content or sharing news about ongoing promotions. Two profit models are available including “fixed fee” and commission-based CPS model.

AliExpress has been working with local influencer agencies in Europe, to nurture influencer talent and create a new business approach that goes beyond the traditional one-off cooperation with brands, according to Xinhua News.

It looks similar to Amazon’s Influencer Program with a more flexible requirement. Anyone with an AliExpress buyer account can join. However, the “affiliate” has different roles:

• Buyer: anyone who likes to share product information
• Influencer, whose social media account has a minimum of 10,000 fans or followers
• Group owner, anyone who owns an online community such as Facebook Group administrator
• MCN

Anyone in the Connect program can profit from CPS but the “fixed fee” model is for brands to work with influencers (or via MCN).

Check out China online shopping market overview Q1 2020

Tmall Double 11 global shopping festival 2018 is expected to double its sales value in the UK, according to the e-commerce delivery firm ParcelHero. 

Many well-known retailers such as New Look have launched their flagship stores at Alibaba’s Tmall and marked good sales during Double 11. Meanwhile, lots of users in the UK have participated in the shopping festival through AliExpress, Alibaba’s cross-border export retail platform.

Tmall generated US$25.3 billion in global market during the shopping festival last year, dwarfing the combined sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which was US$14.48 billion.

AliExpress will play a far more important role in this year’s Double 11, considering it has become one of the popular e-commerce platforms in many European countries, such as the UK, Spain, Poland, France, and Italy. It is also expanding quickly in Eastern Europe at over 50% growth.

Besides a wide variety of products, Alibaba also provides a set of infrastructural services including payment, logistics, and technology to European partners.

This year’s Double 11 mega-event will last for 48 hours to be truly global. Stating at midnight on November 10, 2018, in Sydney, promotional activities will be held in correspondent countries.

Furthermore, AliExpress has collaborated with Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics network, to create a European e-commerce hub centered at Belgium Liège Airport. Thanks to that, the best-selling products stored at overseas warehouses would be able to be delivered within 72 hours to half of the European markets.

Continue to read Alibaba Taobao’s marketing strategy for Double 11 in 2018 »

AliExpress, Alibaba’s cross-border online retail platform, reached an accumulated 150 million overseas buyers, with a 50 million newly added users since April 2017. Meanwhile, its monthly visits exceed 200 million on the site worldwide.

Benefited from the Belt and Road Initiative, AliExpress is gaining popularity in the emerging markets like the Middle East and Eastern Europe. At its “8.28 Promotion” on August 28, AliExpress saw rising growth in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Spain, etc. Especially for the Middle East, the transactions grew as much as 252%.

Rising Social E-Commerce

Soon later, a new strategic partnership was established among RDIF, Mail.Ru, MegaFon, and Alibaba on September 11, who are forming a joint venture AliExpress Russia.

Notably, Mail.Ru is the biggest social networks in Russia with 100 million Russian users. The two leading social networks VK and OK are all its subordinate platforms. The whole AliExpress business will be further integrated with social networking in Russia.

It never occurred to AliExpress that the Middle East should embrace so many possibilities, especially after the AliExpress Direct, a new oil plan for the Middle East initiated, parcels can be delivered to the Middle East at fastest in 7 days. Meanwhile, AliExpress enhanced its cooperation with local social networking and KOLs in Saudi Arabia and UAE.

AliExpress has developed social marketing plans in the emerging markets like the Middle East, Poland, and France since last year. Collaborated with overseas web celebrities through AliExpress, some shops have already achieved explosive growth in transactions.

This year’s Double 11 gala will last for 48 hours to be truly global. Stated at midnight on November 10, 2018, in Sydney, promotional activities will be held in correspondent countries. Moreover, AliExpress sets to team up with global web celebrities to help global consumers select goods of high quality.

China online retail grew by over 28% as of end-August this year »

Alibaba Group reported total revenue of RMB50,184 million (US$7,403 million) for Q2 2017, an increase of 56% year-over-year. Tmall recorded 49% year-over-year growth for physical goods GMV. 

• Revenue from core commerce increased 58% year-over-year to RMB43,027 million (US$6,347 million).
• Revenue from cloud computing increased 96% year-over-year to RMB2,431 million (US$359 million); it reached a key milestone of exceeding one million paying customer
• Revenue from digital media and entertainment increased 30% year-over-year to RMB4,081 million (US$602 million).
• Revenue from innovation initiatives and others increased 21% year-over-year to RMB645 million (US$95 million)

Tmall recorded 49% year-over-year growth for physical goods GMV in the quarter ended June 30, 2017. Fashion and apparel, consumer electronics and fast moving consumer goods, or FMCG, were among the key categories that experienced robust and reaccelerating GMV growth during the quarter according to Alibaba.

JD’s GMV for Q2 2017 increased by 46% to 234.8 billion yuan (US$34.6 billion).

Alibaba has established Tmall as a leading brand-building and distribution platform that is capturing increasing digital marketing and commerce spending from owners of both domestic and international branded products that are doing business in China. During the quarter, international brands such as Moet Hennessy, Victoria’s Secret, Roland and Abercrombie & Fitch established Tmall flagship stores to engage with and sell their
products to consumers on its platforms.

Annual active consumers (annual active buyers) on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces reached 466 million, an increase of 12 million from the 12-month period ended March 31, 2017. Mobile MAUs on its China retail marketplaces reached 529 million in June, an increase of 22 million over March 2017.

Net income was RMB14,031 million (US$2,070 million), income from operations was RMB17,513 million (US$2,583 million) and adjusted EBITDA was RMB25,124 million (US$3,706 million). Operating margin was 35%, adjusted EBITDA margin was 50% and adjusted EBITA margin for core commerce was 63%。

Integration of online and offline retail experience

In May 2017, Alibaba completed the privatization and the acquisition of a controlling stake in Intime Retail Group for HK$12.6 billion (US$1.6 billion). Intime is a leading department store and mall operator in China with 49 department stores and shopping malls as of June 30, 2017.

Alibaba expects Intime to support its strategy to transform conventional retail, especially in soft goods and branded products, by leveraging Alibaba’s  substantial consumer reach, insight, and technology.

International expansion

Revenue from Alibaba’s international commerce retail business reached meaningful scale at RMB2,638 million (US$389 million) in the quarter ended June 30, 2017, representing a 136% year-on-year growth, driven by strong growth in its Southeast Asian platform Lazada (Alibaba increased its ownership in Lazada to 83%)and its China outbound platform AliExpress.

Lazada launched “Taobao Collection” in Singapore and Malaysia, which expands Lazada’s product offering by giving local customers access to products from China.

In June, Alibaba hosted Gateway ’17 in Detroit, Michigan – a conference where 3000 U.S. small businesses, farmers, brands, and entrepreneurs attended to learn about how to sell to China using Alibaba as their gateway. Businesses such as Gerber, Stadium Goods, and 100% Pure shared their experiences on how Alibaba has helped them grow their businesses by tapping into the China market, which is good for the Chinese consumer as well as for business growth and jobs creation in the United States.

On September 25, Alibaba will host a similar event in Canada to educate and engage Canadian businesses in selling to China.

In July Alibaba launched its first AI-powered voice assistant, Tmall Genie, which was developed by Alibaba’s AI Lab leveraging Alibaba’s AI technology. The Tmall Genie assists with shopping, ordering local services, searching for information, controlling smart appliances and playing multi-media content, including educational stories and music for children.

In August, with Marriott, Alibaba established a joint venture to provide a completely new travel experience for hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers with personalized VIP experiences, cashless travel and an integrated loyalty program.

E-commerce development in China’s rural areas in H1 2017

A girl from Chile bought her father a watch as a gift at US$41.01 from Alibaba’s retail platform AliExpress on 10 April 2017. What she did not know is that she is recorded by Alibaba as the 100 millionth customer.

AliExpress.com is Alibaba’s cross-border B2C e-commerce platform with users from over 220 countries, with 60 million active buyers during the past 12 months. Its daily visitors are over 20 million.

Having reached the 100 millionths overseas buyer on AliExpress, Alibaba is upgrading Cainiao’s cross-border supply chain and logistics capabilities and management.

Cainiao, global parcel tracking platform of Alibaba Group, has integrated data with Russia Post, reducing the parcel time from 50 days to 15 days. Transaction values of Russian online buyers on China’s online platforms through Yandex increased by 30 times in 2015. In 2016, Chinese websites accounted for 52% of total cross-border trading e-commerce transactions in Russia.

Cainiao has also set up an overseas warehouse in Spain to achieve fast order fulfillment. A buyer in Madrid received his parcel after 5 hours of placing the order during a promotion in March 2017.

Delivery time from China to Chile has been reduced to 20 days from 45 days; and, time from China to Mexico and Columbia is reduced by half to 25 days.

Continue to read China online shopping market forecast 2017-2019

Chinese websites accounted for 52% of total cross-border trading e-commerce transactions in Russia in 2016 according to Russia E-Commerce Association.

Transactions of Russia cross-border online trading totaled US$5.1 billion, among which the total online purchases from Chinese online shopping websites were US$2.6 billion. 90% of cross-border delivery packages were from China.

The retail industry in Russia saw decreasing sales in the recent years but its online shopping grew rapidly with a growth rate of 21% reaching 920 billion rubles (US$16 bn) in 2016. It’s estimated to grow by at least 25% and reach 1.2 trillion rubles (US$21 bn) in 2017.

Russia’s light industry is not developed; and, products such as key chain, mobile phone cases, lighting and other large quantities of goods are from China. Smartphones and laptops from Xiaomi, Huawei, and Lenovo have become very popular in Russia.

The most popular e-commerce platform in China among Russian buyers is Alibaba’s AliExpress in 2016, according to Russia’s Independent.

Chinese goods attract Russia consumers only because of the low prices; but, the quality is not high. This may become the obstacle for China’s online shopping platforms to further expand.

Continue to read: Digital marketing focus of advertisers in China in 2017

A total number of more than 60 China’s e-commerce websites entered Russia in 2015 including AliExpress, Jingdong, TradeEase and other start-ups according to Yandex.

Transaction values of Russian online buyers on China’s online platforms through Yandex increased by 30 times in 2015 compared with 2014 and accounted for 57% overseas retail revenues of Yandex which was almost 9.5 times last year’s sales.

A total number of over 1 million packages were sent to Russia during Double 11 and Black Friday shopping season in 2015 according to China Times.

Overall, a total number of payments to China’s online trades through Yandex increased by 38 times and total payment users expanded by three times. Russian online shoppers made about 50 million orders on China online shopping platforms.

Shoppers in Russian Federation central administration region accounted for 34% total Russian consumers on China’s online shopping platforms, followed by Volga region (19%) and Northwest region (14%). Shoppers in the Ural region (9%), North Caucasus (2.6%) and the Far East administrative region (2%) were relatively few.

Russian online shoppers mainly purchased apparel, shoes, children products, mobile phones and the like from China’s e-commerce platforms. Most Russian consumers preferred bank card and Yandex Wallet to pay for orders and 85% buyers on China’s online platforms paid with bank cards and Yandex Wallet.

Convenient global internet environment and improving logistics services were best contributors towards cross-border online shopping market. SF Express expanded its China-Russia delivery services several days ago. Packages could be delivered with 30 kilograms instead of 2 kilograms and could be dispatched in 10 to 15 days.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

Alibaba Group, China’s e-commerce giant, profit tripled to $2 billion in Q2 2014, and it is raising $21 billion in an IPO and here are six videos helping you have a better understanding of its marketplaces.

Impact of Alibaba Online Marketplaces

A short video from chairman and co-founder of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma.

Introduction of Alibaba Marketplaces

Taobao

Tmall.com

AliExpress

Alipay

Alibaba v.s. Amazon: Who’s Making More Money?