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Singles’ Day Sales Smash World Records, Hitting Success via VR

| Nov 13, 2016 10:26 PM EST

Alibaba's Singles' Day smashes world records once again, but overall growth is slower this year.

Alibaba's Singles' Day, the one-day online shopping festival of China's biggest technology company, smashed sales records with an increase of 32 percent.

Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said, "Back in 2013, $5.14 billion was our one-day GMV. Now we can achieve it in one hour."

Zhang added that the first hour of Singles' Day orders was coming in 175,000 per second.

Analysts say that the booming e-commerce industry of China's economy attributes to the record-breaking sales this year. Added features like shopping via virtual reality is a big attraction for shoppers.

"If brands could do it themselves, it would encroach on Alibaba's ecosystem. So this way the company is pre-empting that and building their own VR mall to keep these brands in their ecosystem," said Jack Chuang of OC&C Strategy Consultants.

He added, "Pokemon Go has done a lot to accelerate the acceptance of augmented reality and gamification. Both will do well and can be expected to be widely used by online retailers over the next few years."

Duncan Clark, chairman, and MD of the business advisory BDA China said that Alibaba has put in entertainment in the marketing mix that attracted shoppers even more.

"In China, shopping is entertainment," Clark said. "A lot of people [in inland cities] are tuning in to live broadcasts for products. Hundreds of thousands of people follow internet celebrities who use these platforms to sell."

Access to Tmall and other Alibaba online shopping platforms also contribute to the boost of revenue and shoppers' access to goods.

According to Jessie Qian, head of consumer markets at KPMG China, "There are several factors contributing to the growth in mobile users. First of all, it's the access to cheaper mobile phones and secondly, the confidence in the third party payments (systems)."

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