Recap of the 2020 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival
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Edited by Zhang Nan from the Alibaba Cloud Research Center
Introduction
The 12th annual Double 11 Global Shopping Festival finished recently. Tmall used the themes “Together as One” and “Let’s Cheer Up!” along with painted bright colors for this year’s Double 11 to give light to the pandemic and the negative situations of 2020.
The world is facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the pandemic, and China’s economic recovery is at the forefront. The enthusiastic participation in Double 11 each year shows the vitality and potential of China’s consumer market. Alibaba hopes that through the digital tools and marketing channels of its various ecosystems, all brands can find new opportunities for business growth. Double 11 is not only a festival for Tmall; it is a festival for consumers worldwide, contributing to a more open pattern of double-cycle development all over the world.
2020 was an unprecedented year, including the happenings of the 2020 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival. Let’s take a look at all of the new surprises.
The Best Shock Resistance: A Creation Peak of 583,000 Transactions per Second
At 0:00:26 on November 11, Tmall’s orders peaked at 583,000 transactions per second, 1,457 times that of the first Double 11 in 2009, and exceeding the highest transactions of 544,000 in 2019. Alibaba Cloud has once again withstood the world’s largest traffic peak.
The Best Technologies: Xiaomanlv and Cloud-Native Are Applied
Ten cutting-edge technologies that Alibaba planned to apply during the 2020 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival were announced in advance. The 2020 Double 11 used some of the best technologies Alibaba has to offer.
Two months after creation, the logistics robot “Xiaomanlv” launched in real-world scenarios. Xiaomanlv was responsible for delivering more than 30,000 packages at Zhejiang University. Zhejiang University became the world’s first university to use purely robot-automated delivery services.
The world’s first multilingual “livestream with real-time translation” works with background noise, accents, colloquial language, and slang. It offers high-quality translation in 214 languages, breaking international e-commerce communication barriers.
Alibaba’s AI virtual hosts appeared in livestreams on Taobao using realistic human voices, emotions, and movements.. They can listen and speak to tens of millions of viewers and also dance, rap, and perform a variety of complex moves.
Alibaba Cloud’s Hangzhou data center is the world’s largest liquid-cooling data center. The center will save 70 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in a year, resulting in over 70% energy savings.
Alibaba’s AI algorithm was applied in the clothing workshops to **identify defects as small as one-tenth the diameter of a strand of hair. The recognition accuracy is above 90%, exceeding human detection levels, and the improving efficiency five times over.
The O&M robot Tianxun was officially on duty in data centers. It can automatically inspect and handle faults. Data Centers are about to enter the “unmanned era.”
Cloud-native was fully implemented on the core system, making the 2020 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival the world’s largest cloud-native practice.
The Double 11 Global Shopping Festival is the perfect combination of technology and application. Technology creates new business forms, and Double 11 has become a big stage for the large-scale application of new technologies.
The Most Comprehensive: Alibaba Digital Economy “ALL-IN”
The Alibaba digital economy shows the most comprehensive online and offline services and commodities thus far.
- E-Commerce: This year’s Double 11 provided consumers with new categories that do not normally use e-commerce, such as real estate, cars, and home decoration planning.
- Service and Experience: All businesses in Alibaba’s digital economy participated in Double 11, including the payment platform “Alipay,” the local service company “Ele.Me,” the travel platform “Fliggy,” and ticketing platforms “Taopiaopiao” and “Damai.” Besides **physical commodities, Double 11 also provided catering, beauty, travel, entertainment, and home services.
- Live Streaming: Live streaming is an effective way to promote the sales of commodities by interacting with consumers. During Double 11, more than 400 company executives and 300 celebrities participated in livestreams.
The Most Economical: Two Sales Periods with More New Brands and Small Enterprises
From “single” to “double,” the 2020 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival is divided into two sales periods from November 1 to November 3 and on November 11. Traditionally, Double 11 is dominated by large and well-known Tmall brands. Zhang Yong, President of Alibaba Group, said, “Merchants need to resume performance growth after the pandemic through Double 11. The change in the sales cycles during Double 11 helps merchants improve their sales performance. By creating a second promotional period, more businesses, especially new brands and small businesses, can participate.
The Most International: Kaola’s Participation for Global Consumers
The tourism restrictions imposed by many countries and regions have affected global tourism development. To meet Chinese consumers’ increasing demand for imported products, Tmall International brought more than 2,600 new overseas brands in Double 11.
The cross-border e-commerce platform Kaola participated in its first Double 11 and provided products from 89 countries and regions.
During Double 11, Cainiao ordered nearly 700 charter flights to allow cross-border parcel delivery twice as fast as normal.
2020 also marks the 10th anniversary of AliExpress. AliExpress is committed to becoming an innovation platform for global consumers and businesses with coverage of more than 200 countries and regions.
The Most Lively: 800 Million Consumers and 2 Million New Products
About 800 million consumers were expected to participate in the 2020 Double 11 Global Shopping Festival, with more than two million new products debuting on Tmall. Nearly 200 luxury brands participated in this year’s Double 11 activities as well.
In 2009, Tmall held the first Double 11. In 2009, 27 brands participated, but a decade later, and more than 250,000 brands participated in 2020.
Double 11 is not only a shopping festival; it is the realization of Alibaba’s technological innovation and vision for a better life.
