Double-11 shopping frenzy: Reflection of China's consumption recovery

As the world's largest shopping festival, Double-11 is of great significance. According to Alibaba, the total gross merchandise volume (GMV) of the 11-day campaign had exceeded 372.3 billion Chinese yuan ($56.3 billion) by 00:30 on November 11. Major brands from all over the world have prepared enough goods for this online shopping bonanza.

With its strategic victory in the fight against COVID-19, China's social life is basically back to normal, and Chinese consumers are ready to reward themselves.

In order to seize opportunities, China's major e-commerce platforms started pre-sale activities a few days before November 11. Just after 00:00, November 1, the major players received a large number of online orders during pre-sale activities.

Alibaba and its competitors, JD.com and Pinduoduo, witnessed great business within minutes after the opening of the festival, regarded as a symbol of China's consumption recovery.

In the third quarter, China's economy grew by 4.9 percent, the best performance among the world's major economies. The sustained recovery of consumer spending is the key to the country's economic recovery.

Compared with previous festivals, this year's Double-11 has many highlights. Firstly, live-stream e-commerce is undoubtedly the most eye-catching feature, and it's also the new mode of e-commerce with the most rapid development.

A large number of celebrities have flooded into the field of live-streaming, which has penetrated many parts of the business world and consumers' lives.

The development of e-commerce has impacted people's consumption patterns in a big way, the most prominent of which is the improvement in the quality of consumers' lives.

For example, the diversification of demand has improved significantly, and the choices of goods and services have subsequently increased, which shows a consumer-centered transformation of the supply side of e-commerce.

In addition, the differentiation, diversity and high value-added products provided by e-commerce platforms are increasing, and the proportion of service in e-commerce sales is getting higher and higher, which are obvious signs of the high-quality development of the e-commerce industry.

The new e-commerce with algorithm recommendations and social media is constantly iterating the "search mode" of traditional e-commerce. Taking Pinduoduo as an example, by using algorithm recommendations and social media marketing, it has transformed the sales mode from "consumers searching for products" to "products searching for consumers."

In order to upgrade consumers' experience, e-commerce giants have completed a logistics revolution.

For example, through the presale mode, JD.com has started warehousing production the moment when consumers pay a deposit. The presale goods arrive at the nearest express station before the final payment is made. When the balance is received, JD.com can deliver the goods to consumers within minutes.

Under the background of fierce competition among various platforms, Netease has withdrawn from Double-11 competition this year. Netease claims that it will not engage in complex promotion and return to the essence of rational consumption this year.

Perhaps after more than ten years of development, Double-11 will see more new consumption concepts emerge.

Liu Chunsheng is an associate professor at the Beijing-based Central University of Finance and Economics, and deputy dean of Blue Source Capital Research Institute.