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Nov. 12 (NBD) – The gross merchandise volume (GMV) of Alibaba's e-commerce arm Tmall reached 213.5 billion yuan (30.7 billion U.S. dollars) and the number of its delivery orders totaled 1.042 billion on the Double 11 shopping festival (hereinafter referred to as Double 11), creating new world records. 

It is worth noticing that within a mere ten minutes, T-mall eclipsed this year's Prime Day event which saw 4.2 billion U.S. dollars in sales in 36 hours.

Data shows the GMV of Tmall on the special shopping day increased from 52 million yuan (7.5 million U.S. dollars) in 2009 to 168.2 billion yuan (24.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017. 

E-commerce titan JD.com also broke its own record with GMV reaching 159.8 billion yuan (23.0 billion U.S. dollars) for its Double 11 shopping event, which run from November 1 through 11.

According to a report released by JD Big Data Research Institute on November 8, JD.com saw GMV during the shopping festival rise sharply by over 1,000 times from 2008 to 2017.

The explosive growth of both Tmall and JD.com indicated the leap of Chinese economy and the huge commercial potential of the Chinese market.

JD Big Data's report also highlighted changes in the consumption trends and consumer structure as well as the performance of cities and provinces in the past decade.

JD.com's consumers valued practical products in 2008 while in 2017 they focused more on the quality of life. Now, the pursuit of high quality, enjoyment and joy substituted price cuts to be the driving force of consumption.

In 2008, most of the online shoppers participating in JD.com's shopping festival were male city dwellers with high academic degrees while in 2017 female consumers showed strong purchasing power. 

The report revealed in 2017, the number of female consumers who joined JD.com's Double 11 shopping event increased by 3,500 times compared with that of 2008; the number of female consumers under the age of 25 rose by 41,000 times; at the same time, the number of consumers over the age of 56 was also on the rise.

According to the report, people in Guangdong Province, Beijing, Jiangsu Province, Shanghai, and Zhejiang Province showed the strongest spending power on JD.com in the past 10 years.

It is noticeable that JD.com saw the highest GMV growth rate for the Double 11 shopping extravaganza in Sichuan Province from 2008 to 2017. After Sichuan came Chongqing, Henan Province, Shaanxi Province, and Hubei Province.

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn