Alibaba launches 2021 11.11 Global Shopping Festival
China’s Alibaba Group is kicking off its 13th annual 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which this year will focus on sustainability and inclusiveness.
The event will be the biggest to date, with a record 290,000 brands participating. In addition, Alibaba’s Tmall will be offering more than 14 million deals to over 900 million consumers in China.
The festival will be held across two sales windows with the first running from 1 to 3 November and the second on 11 November, the day of the main event.
Chris Tung, chief marketing officer of Alibaba Group, said: “Over the last 12 years, 11.11 has showcased the tremendous consumption power of Chinese consumers and pushed boundaries for the global retail sector.
“This year’s festival marks a new chapter for 11.11. We believe we must leverage the power of 11.11 to encourage sustainable development and promote inclusiveness to consumers, merchants and partners across our ecosystem.”
Alibaba said livestreaming will be a key consumer engagement mechanism for participating brands and merchants this year as they look to build awareness and drive sales.
Tmall will be showcasing energy efficient and low impact products throughout the event and will be issuing RMB100 million worth of “green” vouchers to incentivise people to shop for more environmentally friendly products. In addition, Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao Network will introduce package recycling across 10,000 Cainiao Post Stations in 20 cities in the period to reduce the festival’s carbon footprint.
Alibaba will also be encouraging consumers to share their “Goods for Good” purchases with their friends and family on social media and will make a RMB1 charitable donation for every successful share. Launched in 2006, Alibaba’s “Goods for Good” programme allows merchants to donate a proportion of their sales to charitable organisations of their choice, while consumers can support their favourite charities through their purchases. The donations from this year’s festival will provide support to groups that help elderly citizens living in solitude, “left-behind children” in remote areas, and low-income workers.
