Alibaba and the magic of Singles’ Day

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A screen shows the value of goods being transacted during Alibaba's Singles' Day global shopping festival at the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, China, 12 November 2019.

A screen shows the value of goods being transacted during Alibaba's Singles' Day global shopping festival at the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, China, 12 November 2019.

China’s most valuable tech company, Alibaba, may have invented Singles’ Day — the world’s largest online shopping event — but in recent years, the event has expanded beyond Alibaba’s platforms and even China’s borders to include JD.com, Pinduoduo, Amazon, and South-east Asian e-commerce platform Lazada. Here’s an inside look at how Alibaba delivered 1 billion parcels in 2.5 days, and its creative strategies to sustain double-digit growth of a shopping event now in its 11th year. For management accountants, a question worth pondering is: How will such swipe, click, and pay mobile-first culture alter expectations on your organisations’ customer experience?

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