Here are nine brands that took the lead in showing their achievements according to WeChat.

Alibaba’s DingTalk beat WeChat in total downloads amid coronavirus outbreak

Brands like Innisfree, a beauty make-up brand, Septwolves, UrbanRevivo, Lily, Jack&Jones, VeroModa, MISS SIXTY, Ochirly, retailer Watson, Rainbow, Jiangxiaobai, have all been connected to the Mini Program’s live streaming. Let’s see some quick case studies below.

An Jiao La, a beauty make-up blogger recently launched a live streaming session at the webcast room of the “Perfect Diary Member Store” Mini Program.

This is the first time that she made sales in the form of a live streaming. She demonstrated beauty make-up products in front of over a hundred thousand people.

In two and a half hours, the live broadcast received 1.709 million likes. Products like Queen’s Day Gift Box, Make-up Brush Set were sold out, the average sales volume of the Mini Program live broadcast sessions increased by 8 times.

How Taobao’s social affiliate platform Taoxiaopu works

In February 2020, WeChat Mini Program live broadcast of the fashion brand Perfect Diary saw the average number of people watching the show increased three to ten times from the previous month, while the purchase conversion rate was two to three times higher than other platforms, according to WeChat.

The retail brand Han Guang Bai Huo first tested live broadcast of its franchised stores, which witnessed over 10 thousand views per session and online sales increase of 300% for a single item within one day.

VGRASS, a women’s apparel brand, presented a brilliant result of its debut webcast on the 26th of February – over 120K views of a single session, 740 thousand interaction and likes.

The short two and half hours live streaming created sales value of over 1 million yuan, with the average order value of 2,500 yuan while the highest single item price was 8700 yuan.

Another women’s apparel brand Eifini debuted on the 6th of February, the number of the Mini Program visits increased by 566% compared with the previous month while the sales increased by 372% over the previous month.

On February 21, the debut of the women’s apparel brand Inman‘s live streaming attracted over 1 million views and gained 260 thousand likes; and, total comments during the live broadcast exceeded 110 thousand.

BBG, a retail brand, launched the live streaming function on its Mini Program on February 26, within the first 30 minutes, the sales exceeded 400 thousand yuan, the click to purchase conversion rate of the debut session was 15.3%.

The number of new users of the beauty make-up brand Misifu’s Mini Program – Misifu Smart Store, increased by 500% over the previous month since the brand launched Mini Program live broadcast on February 18.

The sales increased by 300% and the average transaction value increased by 70% respectively as compared to the previous month.

The leisure clothing brand Fast Fish gained 200 thousand views through its debut Mini Program live streaming on February 5, which ended with sales of 500 thousand yuan. The next day, the sales soared to 1.3 million yuan.

Out of the 1.135 million yuan sales of the fashion branch Aike, which was gained during its debut Mini Program live broadcast back in November of 2019, about 200 thousand yuan was contributed by new users.

All the above-mentioned brands have leveraged WeChat Mini Program live streaming function, which was officially developed by the WeChat team.

Check out our business guide to WeChat Mini Program live streaming 

In the ninth year of the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event, this year’s Tmall Double 11 2017 will showcase:

Alibaba Economy at scale. 11.11 will demonstrate the technological innovation and global scale of the entire Alibaba Economy. More than 140,000 brands and hundreds of millions of consumers will participate in 11.11 this year. This shopping festival will be supported by Alibaba’s global cloud, payment and logistics infrastructure.

Consumers will enjoy seamless payment and consumer loan services provided by Ant Financial. Alibaba Cloud will serve as the core technology and computing backbone to ensure the best consumer experience throughout the festival. Cainiao Network expects over 3 million logistics personnel to facilitate the hundreds of millions of packages that will be generated from the festival.

The number of annual active consumers on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces reached 488 million, an increase of 22 million from the 12-month period ended June 30, 2017. See the performance highlights of Alibaba in Q3 2017 here.

Power of the Chinese consumer. Alibaba expects that hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers who visit its platforms on November 11 will have access to over 60,000 international brands and merchants to satisfy their increasing demand for goods and products from around the world. This year, Tmall will, for the first time, leverage its popularity outside China to bring over 100 domestic Chinese brands to international markets, targeting millions of overseas Chinese consumers in Asia and the rest of the world.

New Retail implementation. Alibaba’s New Retail model with integrated online-offline customer offerings will be showcased in store locations across China. More than 1,000 brands will convert nearly 100,000 physical locations into “smart stores” and our channel distribution solutions make it easy for more than 500,000 local neighborhood stores and Rural Taobao service centers to sell to consumers in lower-tier cities and rural villages.

Tmall Double 11 Sales Stats 2017

Total sales on Tmall Double 11 Shopping Festival reached 168.2 billion yuan in 2017 from 225 countries and regions, 90% from mobile.

167 merchants each has total transactions of over 100 million yuan. Nike store became the first one with over 1 billion yuan in apparel category.

Top 50 Tmall Stores on Double 11 2017

1. Suning
2. Xiaomi
3. Honor (Huawei)
4. Haier
5. Nike
6. Uniqlo
7. Sharp
8. Adidas
9. Linshimuye (furniture)
10. Midea
11. Quanyou (furniture)
12. GREE
13. Huawei
14. Gujia (furniture)
15. Heilan Home
16. PurCotton
17. Sanzhi Songshu (snacks)
18. P&G
19. Dyson
20. GXG
21. Balabala (children apparel)
22. New Balance
23. Semir
24. Peacebird
25. Jack Jones
26. Pechoin
27. Veromoda
28. ecovacs
29. Lancome
30. Zara
31. ONLY
32. Estee Lauder
33. Hisense
34. Anta
35. Philips
36. Gap
37. Chando
38. Eifini
39. Fotile
40. HSTYLE
41. Vivo
42. SK-II
43. Olay
44. Skyworth
45. Little Swan
46. Meters/bonwe (Apparel)
47. Xilinmen
48. Li Ning
49. Siemens
50. Bosideng (Apparel)

Outdoor sports

1. Nike
2. Adidas
3. Anta
4. New Balance
5. Li Ning
6. Sketchers
7. Puma
8. Xstep
9. Under Armour
10. Camel

Tmall Sales Progress on Double 11 2017

• 1 billion yuan: 28 seconds (vs. 52s in 2016)
• 10 billion yuan: 3 mins 1 seconds (vs. 6m 58s in 2016)
• 19.1 bn yuan: 5 mins 57s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2012)
• 36.2 bn yuan: 16 mins 10s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2013)
• 50 bn yuan: 40 mins 12s (vs. 2 hrs 30m 20s in 2016)
• 57.1 bn yuan: 1 hours 49s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2014)
• 91.2 bn yuan: 7 hours 22m 54s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2015)
• 100 bn yuan: 9 hours 4s(vs. 18 hrs 55m 36s in 2016)
• 120.7 bn yuan: 13 hours 9m 49s (exceeds total Double 11 sales in 2016)
• 168.2 bn yuan at 24:00

Alibaba Cloud processed 325,000 orders per second at peak. Alipay processed 1.5 billion payment transactions in total, up 41% from 2016, and processed 256,000 transactions per second at peak.

Other E-Commerce Platforms Double 11 Stats 2017

Total orders from 1 Nov till 7:46:58 on 11 Nov exceeded 100 billion yuan on Jingdong (JD). Total transactions on JD during the eleven days’ online sales reached 127.1 billion yuan with over 50% growth.

Netease Kaola total Double 11 sales value reached 4 times as much as last year’s. It reached the total transactions of last year’s Double 11 in the first 28 minutes. Kaola has 25.6% market share in China’s cross-border e-commerce market in Q3 2017 ranking first according to iiMedia.

Total orders on AliExpress exceeded 10 million as of 19:50 on Double 11 2017. It covers 184 countries and regions in the first two hours.

Find out more Singles Day 2017 Insights »

China’s B2C apparel market reached 307.74 billion yuan (US$46.37 bn) in Q2 2017 with an increase of 47.3%.

Tmall has 80.7% market share in China’s B2C online clothing market in Q2 2017, followed by JD (8.7%) and Vipshop.

The online retail market in China reached 1.59 trillion yuan (US$244.6 billion) in the second quarter of 2017 (up 31.2% over Q2 2016), with B2C sales accounting for 860.5 billion yuan (US$132.4 billion), an increase of 32% over the second quarter of 2016. Read more »

Also read: China cross-border e-commerce market 2017

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

China’s online retailing market will grow to $1.7 trillion by 2020 compared with $750 billion last year, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs.

Goldman expects penetration to increase from 16% last year to 25% in 2020, up from a previous forecast of 22%.

While there have been concerns of a slowdown following the deceleration in growth to mid-20% in 2016, we expect online retail growth to sail on at 23% CAGR over 2016-2020, continuing to grow at nearly triple the pace of offline retail.

Related: 14 Chinese retailers made it to Top 250 retailers list

Goldman expects China’s online and offline FMCG market to reach $2 trillion by 2020, with online penetration rising from just 5% last year to 13%.

While Goldman predicted FMCG online GMV growth would average 34 percent annually between 2016 and 2020, growth is expected to remain strong in major, more mature product categories including clothing and consumer electronics. Currently apparel, footwear and accessories make up almost a quarter of all e-commerce sales, with Alibaba the dominant e-tailer, according to Goldman.

Goldman believes AR/VR with offline experience stores will part contribute to rise in apparel online penetration (from) 31% in 2016 to 49% by 2020. It estimated the online apparel market would reach RMB 2 trillion in GMV by 2020, with Alibaba’s dominance to continue with over 70% market share in the B2C market (Tmall).

Goldman predicted average spending would increase at a combined annual growth rate of 10% from 2016 through 2020 as incomes grow and as consumers buy a wider range of products and more branded goods through the internet.

The total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 3,175.7 billion yuan in December 2016, up by 10.9% yoy (nominal growth rate. The real growth rate was 9.2%) according to National Bureau of Statistics of China. In 2016, the national online retail sales of goods and services in China was 5,155.6 billion yuan, increased by 26.2% yoy.

Alibaba annual active buyers on its China retail marketplaces reached 443 million, an increase of 4 million from the 12-month period ended in September. Jingdong annual active customer accounts increased by 46% to 226.6 million in 2016 from 155.0 million in 2015.

Also read: China cross-border e-commerce insights 2016/2017

via Alizila

The total transactions of China cross-border e-commerce market reached 6.3 trillion yuan (US$920 billion) in 2016, including retail and B2B according to a Chinese research company iiMedia. And, it’s expected to reach 8.8 trillion yuan (US$1.28 trillion) in 2018.

The total number of cross-border shoppers in China exceeded 410 million in 2016 and is expected to reach 740 million in 2018. The growth was 78.3% in 2016 and will slow down to 27.6% in 2018.

The total transactions of China cross-border e-commerce market reached 6.3 trillion yuan (US$920 billion) in 2016 from 5.1 trillion yuan in 2015, including retail and B2B. It’s estimated to reach 7.5 trillion yuan in 2017 and 8.8 trillion yuan in 2018.

In China cross-border retail e-commerce import market, Kaola.com (Netease) led in 2016 with 21.6% market share by total sales value, followed by Tmall (18.5%), Vipshop (16.3%), JD Worldwide (15.2%), Jumei (12.4%), and Xiaohongshu (6.5%).

73.6% cross-border online shoppers in China are female; 30.9% have monthly income of between 5,001 and 8,000 yuan; 84% are between 19 and 40 years-old; 45.2% live in the east (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, etc). Tier-1 and tier-2 cities accounted for 77.4% all cross-border online shoppers in 2016.

46.2% chose mobile as primary devices for cross-border online shopping. 48.2% installed 2 to 3 cross-border online shopping apps.

Near one third (31.4%) of users open cross-border shopping apps 2-3 times per week; 58.5% spend 11 to 30 minutes every time.

27.3% users on average shop cross-border products once a month; 58.5% at least once a month.

42% spend between 301 and 500 yuan per order.

The top product category for cross-border online shopping is skincare and makeup (43.2%), followed by baby products (41.5%) and apparel & shoes (36.1%). Only 20.4% bought cross-border health care products online; but, 37.2% expressed intention to buy in this product category in the future.

Apparel is the most popular product category for China online shoppers according to McKinsey. And, the most frequent online purchases are packaged and fresh food.

40% of Chinese consumers buy food online, in contrast to just 10% of their US counterparts.

The total transaction value of China online apparel market exceeded RMB434.9 billion (USD70.75 billion) in 2013 with a YoY increase of 42.8%, which accounted for 23.1% of the whole China online shopping market.

It is estimated that in 2014, the total transaction value would increase to RMB615.3 billion (USD100.1 billion) with a YoY increase of 41.5%, accounting for 22.1% of the whole China online shopping market.

Read more: Alibaba Has over 86% Share of China Mobile Shopping Market in 2014

Sora Aoi launched her own product “Spakeys G-Self silk bra” on Weibo with a limited number of 528 sets, each highly-priced at RMB 1,288. This product was launched for a limited time of 5 hours and 28 minutes and all were sold out.

Sora Aoi’s Popularity on Weibo

Sora Aoi is best known in China as a Japanese AV idol who has over 14.9 million fans on Weibo. Within 6 hours since she opened the Weibo account, its total number of followers reached 400 thousand, exceeding that of her Twitter account.

“Bra” is a clever choice of product for the perception of Sora Aoi’s character on China internet.

Pre-launch Campaign on Weibo

A simple post on Weibo was published on 19 May 2014 to “leak” the product idea, mentioning and asking (@) Xiaomi Tech’s founder Lei Jun for the advice of e-commerce strategy.

It was taken by China internet users as a piece of very entertaining news and got re-posted for about 23,730 times. A few reasons behind:

• E-commerce itself is a popular topic on China internet; some experts and celebrities in e-commerce industry shared news and some even provided suggestions
• Underwear designed by AV idol was news worthy and interesting
• The details were not released which got China internet users curious
• Mentioning a celebrity got the news viral; besides the wide exposure on Weibo, many main news media published articles on this news

Pre-sale Publicity on Weibo

As one idea from an e-commerce celebrity fan, Sora Aoi “recruited” 1,000 fans on Weibo to “experience” her own designed G-self underwear. This small campaign not only engaged its fans but also won her product great exposure through Weibo.

It’s a “hot” topic and many regular China internet users re-posted the news and submit their request to experience it. “1,000” quota is very limited considering she has over 14 million fans. And each was carefully selected including some grassroots celebrities and influencers to further push the exposure.

Product Launch Promotion

Spakeys G-Self Bra was not simply launched for purchase. Price tag over RMB 1,000 for underwear may face a lot of difficulties getting sold well on the Internet. But all 528 sets were sold out within planned 5 hours 28 minutes.

Time and quantity limit. The limited number of 528 sets and limited time of 5 hours and 28 minutes are telling the fans to “hurry up”, allowing online users little time to carefully consider and do comparison shopping.

Incentives and sales strategy. The product launch post carefully targets two groups of people, both of whom are very interested in the product: one who can afford and are willing to pay; one can not (or considering the bra too expensive).  For the former group, the sale promotion gave away silk scarf worth over RMB 1,000 to push the sales. For the other group, it encouraged them to share the news by giving away 180 sets to the lucky ones who re-post it.

The whole product launch consisted of several carefully crafted campaigns to promote the high-end underwear brand Spakeys via G-self series bra. It definitely got the awareness and exposure but I don’t think that’s enough for influencing high-end underwear brand. And, the question now is, how and whether or not Spakeys can capture and capitalize on this product launch.

My suspicion for the whole “Sora Aoi” bra campaigns is, it’s more of a marketing promotion than a self-owned product launch. The “Spakeys” brand’s official website spakeys.cn, after whois analysis, is owned by Xianyidai Co., Ltd. which happens to be an underwear company.

This is a deep collaboration between an influencer and a manufacturer, which is a commonly seen business model in China. Live streaming is another popular sales channel in China you could check out.