E-commerce giant Alibaba to upgrade its ‘double 11’ festival into a global shopping carnival.
China’s largest online marketplace Alibaba plans to take its annual festival ‘double 11’ beyond borders by transforming it into a global online shopping carnival, the company stated on October 13, 2014. If all goes as planned, the November 11, 2014 festival will be the group’s first shopping event on a global scale.
The November 11 festival last year resulted in sales conversion to a whopping $5.75 billion at Taobao and Tmall (Alibaba’s marketplaces) in just over 24 hours, making it the largest online shopping festival in China.
To facilitate cross-border sales, Alibaba has set up servers overseas for the first time, which would enable a quick and seamless cross-border shopping experience on the day, considering a large number of people would visit the Tmall site. The group has also set up warehouses overseas with strong logistics partnerships with firms and customs authorities.
So far, the company has stated that over 20 countries and 200 merchants have confirmed participation in the ‘double 11’ 2014 event. The current decision has been made to accomplish the company’s long-run target of 100 billion Yuan in sales, as well as expand their product range, leading to a rise in the average purchase value in China and expansion of their customer base.
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