Alibaba Tmall kicks off 2021’s 618 Shopping Festival on 24 May. This year’s pre-sale activities are obviously ahead of schedule. The balance will be paid on June 1, and the discount will last for 20 days.
There are some new “situations” in this year’s 618 festival.
On the one hand, 618 has become an important opportunity for online shopping of high value and large commodities; on the other hand, it’s also a good time for families to stock up, including the sales of home appliances, 3C, food, beauty products, and etc, which will reach the peak in the first half of the year during 618.
At the same time, many big brands lead the promotion activities, and the promotion discounts also attract many new consumers.
Smart and high-quality differentiated products have become the hot spots trends in the field of home appliances, driven by promotions from both home appliance brands and major e-commerce platforms.
Get an introduction of 618 Shopping Festival here.
80% of the enterprises, surveyed by Chinese media Yibang, participated in Tmall 618, more than half of them invested more than 30% of the 618 budget in Tmall, and 40% of the enterprises surveyed expected that more than half of the 618 sales would come from Tmall.
50% of the enterprises interviewed said that in the past year, Tmall had the highest conversion among all platforms.
CIW Dossier: 618 Shopping Festival provides a perspective of the merchants regarding the performance, advertising budget, and sales expectations on the top e-commerce platforms for 618 shopping festival.
Update (21 June 2021): During this year’s “618” (June 1-20), the State Post Bureau observed more than 6.59 billion pieces of parcels, a year-on-year increase of 24.24%, and an increase of 84.16% compared with the same period in 2019.
China’s total 618 sales in 2021 reached 578.48 billion yuan, an increase of 26.5% YoY, according to data from Syntun. Top 3 channels by total sales are Tmall, JD, and Pinduoduo. Download CIW Dossier: 618 Shopping Festival to get more sales insights.
Alibaba Tmall 618
Over 67% consider Tmall as the top platform for 618.
Among the enterprises surveyed, 51% invested more than 30% of their budgets in tmall. Among them, 10.6% of enterprises allocate more than 80% of the ad budget on the Tmall platform; most allocate 30% to 50% of their total 618 budget on Tmall.
Tmall is giving away RMB10 billion (US$1.57 billion) in consumer coupons and subsidies to help further stimulate post-Covid consumption during Tmall 618 Festival 2021.
According to the official introduction of Tmall, huge discounts will be launched from June 1 to June 20. The specific activities are as follows:
- 20 yuan off every 300 yuan purchase with a total subsidy of 10 billion yuan
- 88vip members will receive additional 520 yuan
- Beauty products at flagship stores are cheaper than duty-free stores
A total of 250,000 brands participate in this year’s Tmall 618, which is 2.5 times that of last year. A total of 13 million products participate in offering discounts, of which 1.4 million are new products.
Tmall merchants almost all started the official live streaming for this year’s 618 shopping festival. About 100 celebrities have locked in Taobao Live to interact with fans. More than 500 CEOs have already made time for Tmall 618 in the agenda to face consumers and offer more brand discounts.
For more established brands, this year’s 618 festival is all about membership engagement. Shoppers who have signed up their favorite brands’ membership on Tmall can expect more additional benefits.
Tmall 618 sales
Millions of loyalty-program members on Tmall helped drive sales for 25 brands, which had each exceeded RMB100 million in transactions on June 1.
As of June 16, brand merchants have acquired nearly 60 million new members during Tmall 618, and some saw more than 50% of the transactions come from members. On June 1 alone, the first day of Tmall 618, there were 25 brands with a turnover of over 100 million yuan from members.
Since the beginning of this year, Tmall has strengthened its membership operation. The exclusive rights and benefits of brand members will be revealed many times in the search results and commodity display pagse, and various tools such as exclusive rights and benefits of members and member interaction are also provided for merchants.
About 20 brand merchants exceeded 10 million member milestone on Tmall. Alibaba didn’t disclose detailed sales value this year.
Tmall Hey Box: Alibaba’s best seller incubator for top brands
JD.com 618
Jingdong announced it will focus on live streaming, short videos, graphics, and quiz to enrich its content marketing for the ongoing 618 Grand Promotion at a kick-off event on May 20 in Beijing.
JD.com will invite more than 300 celebrities, and executives from nearly 600 brand partners to participate in various promotions through live streaming during the promotion.
The company will also invite KOLs and celebrities to create short videos to assist promotion. More than 1,000 professional buyers or KOLs from different categories will be invited to share their favorite products to drive more traffic to JD.com.
JD will hold two galas through live streaming inviting celebrities to bring consumers the festive atmosphere of 618. Leveraging JD and WeChat’s strength, JD will offer live streaming through 10 WeChat accounts.
Over 30,000 new brands and stores were launched during 618 on JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, with over 2.4 million new products.
Shoppers in Nanjing, Jiangsu province are the most active, taking the crown for the largest order volume.
Group buying is most used in Harbin. The average amount per group buy order in the chilly capital of Heilongjiang province in Northeast China this year exceeds RMB 1,000 yuan.
Other top competitors for 618 include Kuaishou, Douyin (TikTok), Pinduoduo, and Meituan.
JD & Douyin (TikTok)
JD signed a 20 billion yuan collaboration agreement with Douyin (TikTok). And, JD’s products are integrated on Douyin in this year’s 618 festival and users can buy JD products on Douyin directly without being redirected to an external page.
JD 618 Sales
In the first three minutes on Jun. 18, JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, saw sales increase 10 times, and in the first two minutes, packaged foods exceeded RMB 300 million yuan while the maternal and baby category exceeded RMB 200 million yuan.
In the first hour on Jun. 18, JD Fresh saw sales increase 70% YOY. Looking at sub-categories, seafood, meat, eggs and poultry, and fruit and vegetables increased 160%, 105% and 80% respectively. Sales of food which require little effort to prepare increased 160%.
JD.com reported a total transaction of over RMB 343.8 billion yuan for its 18-day 618 shopping festival 2021, representing a growth of 27.7% YoY from the same period in 2020 (RMB 269.2 billion yuan).
The pet category has boomed. Post-90s consumers spent an average of RMB 507 yuan per month on pet products in 2021. During 618, smart pet products increased 47% YOY.
Luxury products. Sales of Ferragamo, TOD’s, and BALLY increased 150%, 232% and 600% respectively. In addition, over 20 designer brands saw sales increase over 15 times YoY on JD platform. Consumers continue to embrace the convenience of buying luxury products online.
Sales of imported gaming phones on JD Worldwide increased by nearly three times. Imported dry cat food increased by 108%.
During the 18-day promotion, sales of JD’s online real estate business increased 230% YOY. Sales of housekeeping and cleaning services increased 6.3 times while the order number of car maintenance increased 285%.
Genetic testing service sales increased 23 times, making it the fastest-growing category of healthcare services on Jingdong. Oral health product sales increased 447%.
The top five international brands are Aptamil from Germany, Estee Lauder from the U.S., A2 from Australia, Nintendo from Japan, and Sulwhasoo from Korea. In the fresh food category, 5 million Zespri kiwis and 260,000 durians from Thailand were sold during the 18-day sale.
Social e-commerce Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade
618 Sales performance of other brands and platforms
Xiaomi 618
From June 1 to 18, the total GMV across all Xiaomi’s platforms exceeded 19 billion yuan (US$29.37 bn), with a year-on-year growth of 90%.
Its sales volume of smartphones ranked first among all Android phones, the TV category won first place in the sales volume / sales values. Xiaomi 11 Pro is the best selling model on both JD and Tmall.
Xiaomi’s offline sales channels saw 123% YoY increase in total transaction values. Live streaming delivered 1.34 billion yuan in total sales, an 92% growth YoY.
Douyin (TikTok) 618
Douyin 618 started on June 1st and ended at 8 a.m. on June 19th. The top 5 best-selling brands are:
- Chuchu (new brand)
- WHOO
- China Gold
- Shepinhui
- Huawei
Apple ranks sixth overall or second after Huawei under “3C electronics” category.
The top five are expected to have sales of more than 100 million yuan. Unfortunately, Apple, Adidas, Nike, and other international brands are not expected to exceed 100 million yuan in sales on Douyin, according to Chinese media Yibang Dongli.
Douyin saw the largest new user growth of over 392% YoY among post-00s, followed by post-90s (+225.9% YoY).
This is Apple’s second year of participation in 618 and saw a sales increase of 16% YoY, according to data from Counterpoint Research.
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