Sep-Oct 2016 Issue | Business View Oceania

11 What’s in Store for Alibaba on Singles Day? China’s Singles Day shopping fest, also known as Shuangshiyi (or ‘Double Elev- en’, since it takes place on November 11th), is the world’s biggest online shop- ping frenzy, last year achieving unprece- dented success in terms of sales, partic- ipation rate, customer engagement and media influence. Company data put the total gross merchandise volume (GMV) on Alibaba’s shopping platforms at a re- cord-breaking$14.3billion (RMB91.2bil- lion) in 2015, outpacing 2014’s $9.3 bil- lion (RMB 57.1 billion) by a dramatic 60%. This year should be bigger still - but by how much? “I expect lower growth this year, in the range of a 30-50% increase over last year,” says Teng Bingsheng, As- sociate Professor of Strategy at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) in Beijing. “If so,” he adds, “it will still be a great achievement.” “Double Eleven used to last for 24 hours, but this year it will stretch for 24 days,” adds CKGSB Associate Professor of Accounting Zhang Weining. “I think Ali- baba foresaw that the sales growth rate would slow down this year, in part be- cause more and more e-commerce plat- forms are running these campaigns and consumers are increasingly attracted to promotions offered prior to the day itself. This new strategy will also ease the pres- sure on delivery logistics, since sales will be more spread out.” But Zhang adds that e-commerce in China has developed so quickly that Alibaba must now look for other areas for growth. “Its potential now lies in three places,” he says. “Building an integrated overseas shopping market, promoting internationally brands that are only sold on Alibaba’s platforms and ex- ploring the offline market.” About CKGSB Established in Beijing in 2002, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business is Chi- na’s first faculty-governed, independent business school. CKGSB boasts more than 40 full-time professors, who have earned their PhDs or held tenured facul- ty positions at lead- ing schools such as Harvard, Wharton and Stanford. CKGSB also stands apart for its unmatched alumni network. More than half of CKGSB’s 10,000+ alumni are at the CEO or Chairman level and, together, their companies accounted for one sixth of China’s GDP in 2015. CKGSB is located in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, New York, Hong Kong and London. The school offers MBA, Finance MBA, Executive MBA, Business Scholars Program (DBA) and Executive Education programs.