The Double 11 Phenomenon in China
Hailiang Chen, Assistant Professor
Department of Information Systems
College of Business, City University of Hong Kong
http://www.cb.cityu.edu.hk/staff/hailchen/
hailchen@cityu.edu.hk
Agenda
•
•
•
•
What is Double 11?
Data
Price/Sales Levels
Long Tail
What is Double 11?
• Origin of 11/11
Double 11 is a web shopping festival created by Taobao, the China’s largest ecommerce platform. The concept of the “Singles Day Shopping Spree” was first
introduced by Taobao in 2010. The leading factor for customers to purchase on this
day is the big discount. On Double 11, as advertised, a large amount of merchants
have discounts, big and small. The most attractive part for customers is Tmall’s allhalf-price event. Therefore, lots of customers wait to purchase on this day.
• Historical sales
2009: (only 27 brands) 50 million Yuan.
2010: (150 brands) 936 million Yuan.
2011: (2000+ brands) 5.3 billion Yuan.
2012: 19.1 billion Yuan.
2013: 35 billion Yuan.
Data
• Data introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
Daily transaction data of Taobao and Tmall
30 days’ transaction from 2011.11.1 to 2011.11.30
Each piece of data is one transaction
Total 12,562,195 pieces of data.
• Data type
1. Product information ( ID, Price, Category)
2. Transaction information ( Quantity, Date)
Price & Sales Levels on 11/11
Compare the sales performance of the products on“Double-11”and normal day
Price Ratio = Average Price on 11-11/ Basic price
Sales Ratio = Total sales on 11-11 / Basic sales
Table1：Brief Summary of Price Ratio and Sales Ratio
Variable
Price
Ratio
Sales
Ratio
Num of
Samples
Avg
Min
256,273
0.980
0.000
200
0.424
256,292
2.356
0.001
1196
7.598
Max
Std
Price Distribution on 11/11
226270
• 9.7% of products are on sales, most of them took 50% and 10%
discount.
• 4.7% of products raised their price, but the increments were small.
• Other 85.6% of products sold on their original price.
Sales Distribution on 11/11
• 61.7% of products sold as many as or less than normal daily sales.
• 34.9% of products’ sales were 1 to 10 times of their normal daily sales.
• 3.4% of products sold more than 10 times of their normal daily sales.
Long Tail and 11/11
Does the long tail phenomenon exist on Tmall and Taobao?
How does the 11/11 phenomenon affect the shape of the tail?
11/11
Tmall
Taobao
Long Tail
8
Long Tail and 11/11
Long Tail
Ecommerce market
Sales
Popular products
Traditional offline market
Positive sales for niche products
in the online market
Popularity
Niche products
9
Long Tail and 11/11
Higher or lower?
Positive sales for niche?
Product
Variety
Concentrated on
popular products?
Sales
Distribution
Hypothesis
Testing
How much does top 20%
popular products
contribute？
10
Long Tail and 11/11
Table: Product Variety
#products sold
Tmall
Taobao
Both
11/30
11/11
November
20,608
88,235
213,715
201,408
265,814
2,577,085
222,016
354,049
2,790,800
• More products sold on 11/11: an increase of 59%
11
Long Tail and 11/11
Table: Product Variety
#products sold
Tmall
Taobao
Both
11/30
11/11
November
20,608
88,235
213,715
201,408
265,814
2,577,085
222,016
354,049
2,790,800
• More products sold on 11/11: an increase of 59%
• More prominent on Tmall: an increase of over 300%
(Taobao: 32%)
12
Long Tail and 11/11
Table: Sales Distribution
Sales by top 20% products
Tmall
Taobao
Both
11/30
11/11
November
71.3%
83.0%
87.4%
57.5%
63.1%
79.3%
59.5%
77.5%
81.2%
11/30:
• Long Tail exists on both Tmall and Taobao
• Longer tails on Taobao: Taobao sellers focus more on
niche products, but Tmall sellers focus more on popular
products
13
Long Tail and 11/11
Table: Sales Distribution
Sales by top 20% products
Tmall
Taobao
Both
11/30
11/11
November
71.3%
83.0%
87.4%
57.5%
63.1%
79.3%
59.5%
77.5%
81.2%
11/11:
• Both Tmall and Taobao focus more on popular products
on this day
• Tmall sellers are almost like traditional offline sellers
• Sales on 11/11 distorts the tail shape for the entire
14
month