Countdown to 11.11

Since its launch in 2009, Double 11 has become synonymous with online shopping festivals in China. It has also led to the launch of many other shopping festivals, such as 6.18 Shopping Festival, held June 1–18 and 8.8 Members Festival on August 8. These events are listed in Figure 1.

Source: Company reports/Coresight Research

Recent Festivals

Kitchen Appliances Mega Sale

This week, Tmall hosted the Kitchen Appliances Mega Sale that was held September 20–22. The event promoted kitchen appliances, such as rice cookers, microwaves, soy milk makers, electric kettles, coffee machines and water purifiers. Many brands participated in this sale, including Midea, Delonghi, Joyoung, Supor, Haier, Panasonic and Philips.

Source: Tmall

In this sale, a wide range of products was sold at discounts of up to 75%. A Midea microwave, for example, sold at a 76% discount on the regular price of ¥549 (US$ 80) and a Supor rice cooker sold at more than 75% off on its regular price of ¥1,499 (US$ 218). As of September 20, over 6,982 units of kitchen appliances had been sold at Tmall. The discounts offered on some of the products that featured in Tmall are listed in Figure 2.

Source: Tmall/Coresight Research

What’s New in New Retail?

AlipayHK Unstaffed Store

AlipayHK is showcasing its New Retail concept at AlipayHK Next Store—a 4,000-square-foot unstaffed store in Sino Group's Olympian City mall—which sells fashion items, and is open until October 1.

Source: Alibaba

The two new-age technologies that are used to run this store are: Smile recognition technology: The store's entrance makes use of this technology to detect the facial expression of a shopper’s smile and then generate a QR code. The shopper’s e-wallet then scans this QR code and opens the gate. RFID: When customers place their selected products onto the checkout desk, the RFID system there scans the products and generates a bill with a QR code. Consumers can then scan the QR code in their smartphones and pay for purchases made using Alipay. Besides AlipayHK Next Store, there have been many other noteworthy developments in New Retail and these are listed in Figure 3.

Source: Company reports/Coresight Research

Investments and Acquisitions in New Retail

To expand their New Retail capacities, Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com have invested in logistics firms, online marketplaces, content creation companies and brick-and-mortar stores. Listed in Figures 4, 5 and 6 are recent investments of and acquisitions by these companies, along with investment dates, investees and the industry segments they are in, and funding details.

Source: Company reports/Coresight Research

Source: Company reports/Coresight Research

Source: Company reports/Coresight Research