Introduction Singles’ Day, held annually on November 11, began as a festival of young Chinese people celebrating their pride in being single. Alibaba started promoting the day as a shopping festival in 2009 and officially named it the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. Last year, the festival recorded GMV of $30.8 billion on Alibaba’s platforms. This event is so important that merchants on Tmall, Alibaba’s B2C e-commerce platform, can sell as much in one day as they normally would in a month. We look at the scale of growth in 2018 on Tmall and Tmall Global in two separate reports. In this report, we continue our countdown to the 2019 Singles’ Day to help merchants prepare for and make the most of the huge opportunity, looking at how retailers can leverage the Juhuasuan platform and Alibaba’s marketing platforms for better Singles’ Day results. Introducing Juhuasuan Juhuasuan is flash-sale platform that offers a wide range of products from domestic and international brands. Consumers in China can access Juhuasuan from both Taobao.com’s main page and the Taobao app. [caption id="attachment_96035" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Shoppers can log onto Juhuasuan from Taobao’s website and its app (highlighted in blue boxes)[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_96036" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Juhuasuan tab on Taobao.com and Taobao app that lead consumers to the Juhuasuan main page
Source: Taobao[/caption]   Juhuasuan helps established brands on Taobao and Tmall drive traffic and grow market share, and helps lesser-known merchants to build brand awareness and attract new customers. During Alibaba’s 6.18 Mid-Year Shopping Festival, Juhuasuan added over 300 million new customers and more than 4,700 products achieved sales of over ¥1 million, according to Alibaba.  Juhuasuan benefits retailers the most in the days immediately before and after 11.11:

• Before 11.11: By offering products at lower prices, Juhuasuan can help new and mid-size merchants drive traffic to their stores starting September through November. .
• After 11.11: Juhuasuan provides stock clearance solutions to boost inventory turnover rates.

Juhuasuan’s Three Business Models On Juhuasuan there are three basic business models: inventory group buying, brand group buying, and theme group buying. In inventory group buying, merchants choose a single product to sell at a discount, and that product is displayed individually on Juhuasuan’s main page. For brand group buying and theme group buying, companies have to offer multiple products, and the products are grouped together by brand or theme. 1.Inventory Group Buying In inventory group buying, merchants sell single products, usually a best-selling or newly launched product. Merchants apply to participate, Juhuasuan reviews participating products and selects only specific items offered at attractive price points. For relatively new products with potential, merchants should take their associated purchase rate and conversion rate into consideration. On Juhuasuan’s main page, there is a tab showing deals that start the following day, and customers can ask to be notified when the sale starts. Many companies new to online marketing may need to ensure they make the most of the opportunity and avoid some of the more common mistakes, such as unappealing product images; unclear selling points, benefits and product details. [caption id="attachment_96037" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Example of Inventory Sale Section on Juhuasuan Main Page
Source: Juhuasuan.com[/caption]   2.Brand Group Buying Brand group buying allows merchants to sell multiple products under the same brand. Their offering can contain only one brand (for example, a package of various Nivea brand products), or only one group brand (for example, P&G packaging different brands it owns such as Tide and Safeguard), or only one chain brand (for example, Metro offering a package of carrying products. [caption id="attachment_96038" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Example of a brand sale portal listing
Source: Juhuasuan.com[/caption]   3.Theme Group Buying Theme group buying offers one-stop shopping for similar products from multiple brands for consumers with specific demands. Juhuasuan selects merchants to participate only if they map to specific events such as a festival or holiday or specific function such as all skin whitening or sun protection. Juhuasuan will also consider groups of products made of similar materials such as all organic foods or that cater to the demands of a specific group of consumers such as sports enthusiasts. Participating merchants should clearly present the solutions provided and featured promotions on the main page. [caption id="attachment_96039" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Example of Theme Sale Portal Picture
Source: Juhuasuan.com[/caption]   Juhuahan Participation Requirements Basic Merchant Requirement: Merchants on Tmall and Taobao must follow Taobao’s Sales Activities Standard Rules and must also meet certain criteria as follows: [caption id="attachment_96040" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Taobao[/caption]   Brand Marketing with Alibaba for 11.11 To switch from product selling to brand selling, brands need to improve customer management to create new and repeat customers, before, during and after 11.11. Here, we discuss Alibaba’s brand marketing tools and how to use these tools to promote for 11.11. Alibaba’s Uni Marketing aims to transform marketing into a process of identify, target, reach and retain customers. With help from Alibaba’s marketing and customer management platforms including Databank, Customer Engagement Management (CEM), UniDesk, Dianxiaomi and Qianniu, brands can manage and maintain long-term relationships with customers. This is how they work:

• Databank: An online dashboard that shows how many consumers are interested in or purchase a brand’s product and where they are in the product cycle. It also tracks the performance of various Alibaba’s campaigns. By analyzing the data it accumulates, brands can act on insights to create more accurate marketing.
• Customer Engagement Management (CEM): A management platform that groups customers to support personalized marketing for each group. Retailers can also use it to manage customer loyalty programs.
• UniDesk: A dedicated ad-serving platform for brands with numerous media-planning features such as data-driven content creation and event-based marketing campaigns. It can be used within the entire Alibaba ecosystem, or with external media partners such as Sohu or Sina. The data collected on the platform flows back to Databank for analysis.
• Dianxiaomi: A text-only smart chatbot powered by AI for customer service that handles customer queries and complaints.
• Qianniu: A mobile app for sellers to manage online stores, with functions that help organize sales, inventory and customer support.

How to Promote with These Tools

• Before 11.11:

1.Attract New Customers

Retailers can use Databank to turn consumer data into valuable insights. It first integrates offline new customers (store VIPs, Weibo and Wechat followers) and online customers from various marketing channels. Then it conducts a customer search analysis to attract different groups of customers using personalized advertisements and pages. Databank also features a well-designed store homepage offering perks to create an account such as coupons for new members, and works with celebrities and KOLs on Weitao to drive traffic and new customer acquisition.

2.Make the Most of Existing Customers

Sellers can select inactive members (no purchase made in the past 90/180/365 days) through CEM and synchronize them with Databank to identify leads to acquire new customers, analyzing customer characteristics, grouping by transaction frequency, discount sensitivity and message sensitivity to inform marketing strategies. Sellers should also target existing members and VIP customers to promote exclusive deals or privileges to drive customer loyalty.

• During 11.11:

By leveraging Databank, linked with UniDesk and combined with CEM, sellers can convert potential customers into buying customers. Sellers should ensure they optimize their homepage, detail page and relevance matching with personalization, comments and group labels. Sellers should also highlight special offers for loyalty club members and VIP customers.

• After 11.11:

To transform new customers into repeat buyers, retailers must provide targeted after-sale care and secondary marketing. Alibaba’s Dianxiaomi and QianNiu Consumer Service Platform support these. Key Insights By leveraging Juhuasuan, merchants can drive traffic and gain visibility in the crowded Taobao and Tmall marketplaces to gear up for 11.11. Leveraging Juhuasuan and Alibaba’s numerous marketing platforms, retailers can better identify, target, reach and retain customers.