In Mai’s blog, she talks about the secret of Walmart’s success is E-commerce. Due to the changes in consumer behaviour, it also changes the business strategy for Walmart. It is undeniable that online market is playing an important role in people’s lives. Most people prefer to go shopping online rather than to go shopping outside since online market provides consumers with the following benefits: time saving, money saving and free shipping. Mai’s blog reminds me of China’s Alibaba which has set up an online shopping festival on November 11 since 2009.

Starting from a humble beginning in 2009, Alibaba managed to grow its sales on 11.11 by publicizing this new concept and using celebrity sponsorships. This strategy was a huge success. Consequently, the Singles Day holiday has become a massive part of the Chinese e-commerce market.

 China’s Single’s Day is approaching. Recently, friends around me begin to talk about their shopping plans on Taobao, which is one of the biggest e-commerce markets in China. The company raked in $5 billion during the first 90 minutes of the sale, totaling $14.3 billion in just 24 hours largely through its online shopping platforms, Taobao.com and Tmall.com. Alibaba’s Single’s Day sale is operating a “win-win-win” mode. It not only benefits buyers and sellers, but also brings tremendous benefits to itself. On November 11, sellers make a big sale and buyers get a great discount. However, the biggest winner must belong to Alibaba itself. It is able to gather a large amount of capital on that day. When money paid by the consumers goes into the payment system, these amount of money will not be directly distributed to sellers at once, they will be kept by Alibaba. As we know, more days the money is kept by Alibaba, the more profit the company will make.

With the development of network, China’s e-commerce has developed dramatically during the recent years. People can buy goods online at any time. I still remember my first time to go shopping online. What I required to do was adding the products I wanted into my shopping charts, afterwards making a payment by entering password of my card. It allows me to complete shopping in a few seconds. Although few years ago, the deals were not so many, the payment system was still straightforward and easy to use. What’s more, it took only few days, the delivery guy just showed up in front of my house’s door.

Today, China’s economy is expanding dramatically and online market has become an indispensable part.

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Sources:

Morishima, Mai. “The Secret of Walmart’s Success: Accelerating E-commerce | Mai Morishima’s Blog.” Mai Morishimas Blog. N.P., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

N.P. “China’s Alibaba Records ‘singles Day’ Sales of $8bn in 10 Hours.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 11 Nov. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.Berke, Jeremy.

“How Alibaba Turned an Obscure, Made-up Chinese Holiday into a $14.3 Billion Shopping Extravaganza That’s Bigger than Black Friday.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.