In 10 days the United States and several other countries like Brazil will celebrate the Black Friday, a day celebrated by marketing companies and feared by the logistics area. This sales action, created in the United States a few decades ago, takes place the day after Thanksgiving Day (the fourth Thursday of November) and is known for the large discounts offered by retailers to clear their stocks for Christmas. , which end up attracting millions of buyers, both in physical and virtual stores.
Black Friday is one of the biggest sales phenomena in the world and a critical moment for many companies. However, few know that in China there is a day that manages to surpass all the marks reached by Black Friday and each day attracts more and more companies and consumers. This is Single's Day.
The event was first celebrated in 1993 when students at the Chinese University of Nanjing chose 11/11 to celebrate singleness, due to the repetition of numbers one on the date. Just as there is Valentine's Day, when couples celebrate their relationships and present each other, the idea was that on this day singles could reward themselves and buy themselves everything they wanted.
Taking advantage of the e-commerce boom in China, in 2009 the Alibaba Group invested heavily in marketing on singles day, offering special offers for “Double 11” (or Duplo 11, in Portuguese). Despite Chinese traditionalism, which values the family, Single's day was a success and the Alibaba group is now reaping the rewards of the investment.
Figure 1 – Advertising on the Taobao website for Single's Day 2015
Source: https://www.internetretailer.com/static/uploads/thumbs/Taobao_1111_png_280x280_crop_q95.jpg
Singles Day took place last week and Alibaba broke the record for the biggest online shopping day in the world. In 2015, the group sold 5 billion dollars in the first 90 minutes of the day alone, a value similar to the expected sum of American sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday together. In total, US$ 14,3 billion were sold throughout the day, spent mainly on the Alibaba group's online shopping platforms, such as Taobao.com e Tmall.com. More than 40.000 merchants and 30.000 brands participated in the festival, which included a mega show on TV to encourage consumers to buy.
Figure 2 – Growth on Single's Day compared to Cyber Monday
Source: Business Insider
The expectation is that more than 310 million orders will be shipped, a challenge for logistics professionals in China, who need to ship the equivalent of a normal month of sales in one day. There will be around 1,7 million couriers, 400.000 vehicles and 200 planes involved in the operation.
Figure 3 – Delivery operation of a Chinese company after Single's Day 2015
Source: Business Insider
Attracted by the strength and growth of the Chinese economy, now the second largest in the world, large US retailers such as Macy's, Nordstrom e Neiman Marcus participated this year in the date and the trend is that this expands year by year. According to the founder and president of the Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, the idea is that by 2019 consumers from all over the world will be massively participating in the event.
In Brazil, the platform AliExpress, the export-oriented arm of the Alibaba group, is already by far the company that sells the most online in the country (in units sold). The relationship is reciprocal: Brazil is one of the company's main markets and has been gaining more and more attention from the group. In this way, it is to be expected that Singles' Day will fall to the taste of Brazilians and become a fashion around here. But are our retailers ready to support Single's Day, Black Friday and Christmas together, three events very close together and with great sales potential?
The challenge starts now, as apparently this is a path of no return, and those who are not prepared will be left behind!
References
<http://www.businessinsider.com/how-alibaba-made-143-billion-on-singles-day-2015-11>
<http://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-singles-day-sales-2015-11>
<http://exame.abril.com.br/negocios/noticias/os-planos-do-alibaba-para-o-brasil>
Fernanda Monteiro
More than 11 years of experience in training and consultancy projects, focusing on Logistics and Supply Chain. In consultancy, he carried out projects such as Transformational Logistics Plan, Diagnosis of logistics operations, Strategy and Calendarization of Transport Operations, Measuring the Cost of Serving, Market Study, Mapping of Inventory Reduction Opportunities, Review of the S&OP Process, Management Plan Training and Implementation of Commercial Processes in companies such as Nestlé, Raia Drogasil, Ipiranga, Lojas Americanas, B2W, Coca-Cola, Andina, Embraco, Martins Atacado, Loja do Mecânico, Santo Antônio Energia, Ecoporto and Silimed. She is currently one of the teachers of the Inventory Management Course taught every six months by ILOS. She worked on the development and management of Online Courses in Logistics and Supply Chain, Supply Processes, Demand Planning, Inventory Management and Industrial Management. Still in the training area, she was responsible for applying ILOS business games in companies such as Raia Drogasil, Fibria, NEC, Novartis and Moove.
