Recently, People’s Daily has published a series of articles praising Tmall consecutively. Titled "Confidence Index Continues to Rise, Achieving a Relatively High Growth Rate in the First Ten Months – New Consumption Drives China’s Economy" and "Sailing Toward a Powerful Cyber Nation", the articles point out that China’s total retail sales of consumer goods have been rising steadily and Chinese consumers’ confidence index has continued to grow. Tmall’s driving role is inseparable from this trend, as new retail and new consumption are successfully boosting not only China’s economy but also the global economy.
"Have you bought too many things and don’t want to carry them home? Now, with Tmall’s new retail, shopping malls can deliver your purchases to your door."
Yesterday, People’s Daily once again ran a story titled "U.S. Agricultural Products Rush to Board China’s E-Commerce ‘High-Speed Train’", reporting that U.S. agricultural products such as Red Delicious apples are sold to China through Tmall. This not only promotes the upgrading of China’s consumption but also brings new opportunities for the revival of small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises in the United States.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to October this year, China’s total retail sales of consumer goods reached 29.7 trillion yuan, maintaining a relatively high double-digit year-on-year growth rate. Meanwhile, the latest report released by Nielsen, a world-renowned performance management company, shows that China’s Consumer Confidence Index has grown for four consecutive quarters, hitting a new high since the end of 2013; the willingness to consume has reached the highest level since 2014.
Similarly, the sales of specialty stores and department stores under the key monitoring of the Ministry of Commerce increased by 6% and 1.6% year-on-year respectively, with growth rates accelerating by 3.5 and 0.6 percentage points compared with the same period last year. Even rural consumers, who previously faced inconvenience in shopping, can now easily "shop globally" by taking advantage of the e-commerce boom.
In People’s Daily’s view, this result stems from Tmall’s new retail model, which has helped transform traditional commerce through digitalization, revived physical stores, and driven an all-round upgrade of China’s consumption quality.
Previously, Tmall launched a series of innovations, including in-store pickup, in-store delivery, and online-offline integration, bringing new business opportunities to traditional brands. During this year’s Double 11, the scale of new retail expanded further: 300 apparel brands with 50,000 stores connected their online and offline operations with Tmall, the number of in-store services increased by 235%, and the transaction volume and order quantity through omni-channel sales were twice that of last year.
Bestseller Group’s transaction volume exceeded 100 million yuan within one minute of the start of Tmall Double 11, and its single-day sales surpassed 1 billion yuan. The outstanding transaction performance also brought a large number of orders and customer foot traffic to Bestseller’s offline stores. It is reported that Bestseller’s omni-channel transaction volume (including in-store pickup and in-store delivery) reached 173% of the full-day volume of last year. This year, more than 500 Uniqlo stores across China supported Tmall orders with in-store pickup. By 5 p.m. on Double 11, Uniqlo’s transaction volume had reached 4.5 times the full-day omni-channel transaction volume of last year.
Tmall has also facilitated the entry of a series of high-quality international products into China. In recent years, Washington apples, Seattle cherries, and Alaskan king crabs have crossed the ocean and become popular on Chinese consumers’ dining tables. A large number of high-quality U.S. agricultural products have entered China by "boarding" China’s e-commerce "high-speed train" – this not only meets the needs of China’s consumption upgrading but also increases employment and tax revenue in the United States, while helping U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises share the dividends of globalization.
In this regard, People’s Daily did not hesitate to praise in its commentary: "As China’s supply-side structural reform advances in depth, the consumer market is undergoing a qualitative change: in the circulation link, online and offline development is integrated; in the production link, the quality of goods and services is upgraded simultaneously. These new supplies stimulate purchasing desire and make people more willing to open their wallets." "The Internet has not only spawned new formats and new models but also revitalized many traditional industries. All sectors are leveraging information technology to improve total factor productivity and promote in-depth integration of the Internet and the real economy. Today, many production workshops have become veritable big data factories, where order receiving, production scheduling, and logistics delivery are all processed through information technology; machines replace manual labor, achieving precision and efficiency."
"New retail will reshape many industries and even change our daily habits," Hong Kong media outlet jinsight described in its report. Through big data and artificial intelligence, Tmall has been able to predict consumer needs with increasing accuracy, foster trending product categories, and drive the global economy.
Today, the number of participants and the scale of this "commercial Olympics" have even exceeded the expectations of institutions such as Wall Street and Citibank. As the renowned British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) summarized: "China is no longer a follower but a leader in global e-commerce and user experience. When the midnight bell rings, the world should see how far China has moved forward."
