China’s Jingdong ends 11/11 shopping spree, sees customers spending $1.6 billion

Alibaba’s Tmall wasn’t the only hotspot for deals during yesterday’s 11/11 online shopfest in China. Jingdong (also known as JD) showed a 200 percent increase from last year’s November 11 sales, with a total of 6.8 million orders placed. Total revenue during the shopping event (which Jingdong decided to stretch out so it started on November 1) topped $1.6 billion.

It’s a strong figure from China’s second largest online shopping mall, but the number is still dwarfed by the $5.7 billion spent on Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao in the course of yesterday’s ‘Cyber Monday’ sales.

Mobile phones were the hottest items on Jingdong during the annual online sales, with 400,000 phones snapped up. 50,000 ZTE Nubia smartphones were sold in 10 minutes, a Jingdong representative revealed. The e-store also sold a computer every second of November 11.

Competing on speed

Jingdong’s own warehouse-to-doorstep delivery service flew into action despite the huge spike in sales. Orders placed before 11 a.m. got same-day delivery, while orders placed before 11 p.m. arrived before 3 p.m. next day in many cities. Jingdong says 96 percent of its orders were delivered either same-day or next-day. Since Jingdong stocks its own items and delivers them – in contrast to Tmall’s many merchants who rely on third-party mailing companies – the company put the emphasis on speed and a guarantee of authenticity for shoppers, explains Gloria Li, the company’s senior VP for public relations.

Now that China’s three biggest online shopping sites have revealed their 11/11 shopapolooza figures, we can see they collectively saw $7.3 billion spent by Chinese consumers. That totally obliterates the $1.46 billion that America e-shoppers spent during last year’s Cyber Monday sales.

(With additional reporting by Paul Bischoff)

(Editing by Willis Wee)