Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) today kicked off its 2019 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, taking the annual celebration into its second decade with a focus on “new consumption,” “new business” and actively contributing to a greener society.

“Our goal is to stimulate consumption demand and support lifestyle upgrade in China through new brands and products. We will enable merchants in China and around the world to grow their businesses through data-driven product innovation and consumer insights, as well as leverage our recommendation technology and content-driven user engagement to delight consumers in urban coastal cities and less-developed areas of China,” said Fan Jiang, president of Taobao and Tmall. “Given its scale, minimizing environmental impact is essential and our technology will ensure it is a green 11.11 Global Shopping Festival.”

A star-studded gala in Shanghai will count down to the world’s busiest 24 hours of shopping on the evening of November 10^th.

New Consumption

The 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which culminates on November 11, taps a global supply chain to meet the growing demand of Chinese consumers for new brands and new products. Over 200,000 brands are participating, one million new products are on offer and more than 500 million users are expected to participate in this year’s festival – about 100 million more than last year. Estimated consumer savings from brand and platform promotions and coupons are around RMB 50 billion.

Tmall Collection will celebrate the start of 11.11 Global Shopping Festival with a two-hour show tonight, which will be livestreamed across 17 online media channels. It will be powered by “See Now, Buy Now” technology, and new products will be immediately available to order in presale for the first time. Expanding on previous years, featured categories in the show will include fast-moving consumer goods and electronics, as well as fashion apparel and accessories.

New Business

Thousands of merchants have upgraded to Tmall Flagship Store 2.0 in preparation for the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. Version 2.0 offers new features and tools that enable brands to further engage with their customers through rich, interactive content and an omnichannel experience.

The upgrade, rolled out several months ago, offers brands the ability to customize their flagship store to offer an immersive experience to consumers. It personalizes content and product promotions for different types of customers based on their profiles. Over the next year, Tmall expects several thousand brands to upgrade their storefronts to 2.0.

Less-Developed Markets

For the first time, Alibaba held a concurrent kickoff event in the northeastern city of Harbin, underscoring its focus on serving consumers and small businesses in China’s less-developed markets. In the last quarter, over 70% of Alibaba’s new annual active consumers came from lower-tier cities.

“The success of our focus on less-developed markets in China is reflected in our new customer acquisition growth,” said Alibaba Group CMO Chris Tung. “We are equally driven to help local enterprises and factories digitize, which improve their operational efficiency and ability to engage with customers across the country.”

Alibaba has already helped over 1,000 factories digitize their operations, giving them access to analytics and Internet of Things technology for the first time. The goal is to eventually foster 100,000 brands, create one million jobs and nurture 10,000 digital factories. Through the Alibaba Business Operating System, their operations will become more efficient while product innovation and development will be accelerated.

Truly Global Event

More than 22,000 international brands from 78 countries and regions will participate in this year’s 11.11 on Tmall Global, Alibaba’s cross-border online marketplace, providing an expansive international product selection for consumers.

For the second year, Lazada will take part and expects its “shoppertainment” – an innovative blend of shopping and entertainment – to attract a record number of participating merchants and consumers in its six markets.

While continuing to serve over 200 countries and regions, AliExpress will enable local merchants from Russia, Spain, Italy and Turkey to participate in 11.11 for the first time.

Daraz disrupted South Asia’s retail market with 11.11 last year and is gearing up again with celebrations in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal. India will celebrate with the UC Shopping Fest, in association with Paytm, VMate and 9Apps.

Fliggy will offer 30,000 different vacation packages to over 200 destinations to feed the wanderlust of Chinese tourists. Thousands of travel experts will offer tips and suggestions via livestreams during 11.11.

Greener than Ever

Cainiao and its partners will make November 20^th a day focused on the recycling of cardboard packaging. They will work to convert 75,000 locations into permanent recycling stations, and express courier companies to pick up used cardboard boxes and wrapping.

Consumers will be incentivized to recycle through rewards of “green energy” points on Ant Forest.

Alibaba Cloud expects to save 200,000 kilowatt hours of energy on November 11^th at its data centers, which will be powered by renewable energy and energy-conserving technology such as liquid-cooled servers.

About the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival

The 11.11 shopping festival began in 2009 with participation from just 27 merchants as an event for merchants and consumers to raise awareness about the value of online shopping. Last year, more than 180,000 brands and merchants participated in the event, with consumers spending RMB213.5 billion during the 24-hour period. For additional history and facts from last year’s festival, as well as the latest news and updates on the 2019 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, please visit Alizila: http://www.alizila.com

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce.