E-Commerce giant of China Alibaba breaks all sales records on Singles Day, the largest twenty-four-hour shopping event in the world. Gross stock value, a figure that reveals sales all over the shopping platforms of Alibaba, beat last year’s almost $30.5 billion (213.5 billion yuan) record on Monday afternoon local time and kept increasing the rest of the day. At the end of the shopping event, GMV stood at around 268.4 billion yuan, just under a rise of 26 percent from the value posted last year. That sluggish growing rate than the 27 percent seen on Singles Day of last year. In dollars, the figure of GMV was about $38.3 billion.

It was the eleventh edition of the yearly Singles Day event, also named the Double 11 shopping festival, because it happens on November 11. During the twenty-four-hour period, that started at midnight in Hong Kong and Singapore, Alibaba offered massive discounts on its e-commerce websites as Tmall. Last year, Singles Day sales of Alibaba surpassed the spending by consumers during any single United States shopping holiday like Cyber Monday or Black Friday. To uplift sales, Alibaba extended the number of discounted products in 2019’s sale event and put a heavyweight on live streaming through its platforms to help sell items. Live Streaming has become a major part of the shopping experience on e-commerce websites in China.

Online personalities usually communicate with their followers and talk about products as well. Similarly, on Wednesday, Kim Kardashian announces her fragrance brand KKW while came on a live stream, and this brand will be available for sale on Tmall.

The slowdown of the Chinese economy and Alibaba’s latest Record of its shopping Event

The new sales record of Alibaba comes as it faces a decelerating economy of China and hard competition from national rivals. However, Alibaba, the tag usually associated with the super shopping event, competitors Pinduoduo and JD.com all offer their own sales for customers all over the world. On the other hand, JD.com was already offering Double eleven discounts on its website before the actual day. Even, e-commerce platforms of Southeast Asia also jumped on the bandwagon.

GMV hit around $12.01 billion for Alibaba in the first hour, and within one & a half-hour, the sales exceeded the total reached on 2016’s Singles Day. Some of the top-selling items for Alibaba early in the day included the 5G version of Huawei Mate 30 Pro, along with Apple iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone Pro Max. Because of the continuous trade war between the United States and China, there was some concern that the U.S. brands could face the snub from Chinese consumers. The United States was the 2nd country by GMV with respect to countries selling to China.

CEO of WPIC (an e-commerce tech & marketing firm), Jacob Cooke, said that apparel and jewelry were the most liked product categories from the retailers of America. Cooke added, no downturn recorded there. There is no sign that there is a gush decline for the brands of the United States.

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