When Alibaba kicks off its Singles Day extravaganza on Monday, it will for the first time in years not be headlined by its two mega sales stars, casting a pall over China’s biggest shopping event and leaving brands guessing how well they will do, reports Reuters. The event, which the e-commerce giant has built up from a one day November 11 sale to a nearly two-week festival, will begin with seven days of pre-sales to allow shoppers on its Taobao and Tmall marketplaces to place deposits to secure goods later at a discounted price.
In recent years, pre-sales were headlined by Li Jiaqi and Viya, known respectively as China’s livestreaming sales king and queen who sold everything from lipstick to rocket launchers on Taobao Live, Alibaba Group Holding’s livestreaming channel.
Last year, they pre-sold a combined RMB 18.9 billion ($2.61 billion) worth of products on opening day, accounting for about 3.5% of the entire event’s takings of RMB 540.3 billion.
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