Alibaba Group chief executive Daniel Zhang at the annual 11.11 countdown gala. Photo / Supplied
Alibaba Group chief executive Daniel Zhang at the annual 11.11 countdown gala. Photo / Supplied
China's biggest shopping day of the year proved a huge success for the many Kiwi brands that participated, some made millions in the day-long event.
Around 700 New Zealand brands were part of Singles' Day, or 11.11 as it's commonly known in China, selling through their websites, JD.com and e-commercegiant Alibaba's network of shopping platforms.
Environmentally-friendly cleaning products company Ecostore sold $2.36 million worth of product on Sunday, a 106 per cent increase on the $1m in sales it made last year on Singles' Day.
Ecostore exceeded sales from last year just 10 minutes into the event. It sold 310,000 units of product within 24 hours, with its body wash and laundry powder designed for baby clothes the most popular products.
Total sales of laundry and dish liquid during the event stacked up to be the equivalent to the height of 158 Sky Towers or the length of 350 football fields.
Ecostore managing director Pablo Kraus said the brand's business in China was strong.
"These are very encouraging figures for us and we are really happy with the results," Kraus said. "Four years ago, we had no business in China and now this represents about 12 per cent of our business. This market has significant room for growth and we have big goals ahead."
New Zealand's largest company Fonterra made $28 million on Singles' Day through sales of its dairy brands Anchor, Anmum and Anlene, an increase of 31 per cent from the $21.75m it made last year.
Anchor was a crowd favourite during the event. Anmum sales increased 40 per cent and sales of Anchor cream, cheese and butter doubled to more than $1m.
It sold 12 tonnes of Anchor unsalted butter - 22 times the amount sold last year.
Christina Zhu, president of Fonterra China, said Anchor's popularity among Chinese consumers was exciting to watch.
"Our focus during this event is to deliver value at scale – getting the best return by reaching as many consumers as we could while keeping Anchor's premium up," Zhu said. "While Kiwis have known Anchor for generations, Anchor was only launched in China five years ago. Now it's one of the top brands in its category."
Andrew Cardy (left) and Jason Hawthorn, co-founders of e-commerce retailer MYM. Photo / Supplied
Skincare brand Fernz had twice as many orders of their promotional offer on Singles' Day compared to a typical two-week-long promotional period.
A spokeswoman for the brand said it would double the promotional packs on offer for next year's Singles' Day event given the popularity.
Singles' Day was also huge for Auckland-based e-commerce retailer MYM. It made sales "significantly" above last year and 30 per cent above its dream target, co-founder Andrew Cardy said.
"Our sales items made up over 80 per cent of our sales on the day and we even sold plenty of big brand items that were not on sale."
Cardy said Singles' Day sales combined with upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday meant the online retailer was likely to crack its $1 million sales target in a single month.
Cult favourite with Chinese consumers, Antipodes, experienced a slight decrease in sales volumes in this year's event but it still hit its sales target.
Shoppers spent US$30.8 billion on Sunday during China's annual shopping festival. Photo / Getty
Its kiwifruit seed eye cream was the most sold product during Singles' Day.
Online shoppers in China spent $45.7 billion (US$30.8b) on Sunday during the annual shopping festival, setting a new sales record.
Gross merchandise value, a figure that shows sales across Chinese e-commerce behemoth's Alibaba's various shopping platforms, exceeded the US$25.3b record set on Singles' Day last year - up around 27 per cent.
New Zealand was the ninth-best performing country for sales on Singles' Day, up from 14th place in 2017, ranked out of 230 countries and regions.
A2 Milk was the sixth-best performing retail brand across Alibaba's shopping channels and in the first hour of the event sales of New Zealand lamb increased by more than 900 per cent from last year.
Singles' Day got off to a strong start with sales hitting $1 billion in one minute and 25 seconds. Just over an hour in, and overall sales exceeded $10 billion, around five minutes faster than last year. The number of delivery orders surpassed a billion.
Singles' Day started as a spoof anti-Valentine's Day event celebrated by single Chinese university students in the 1990s. It is now considered the biggest shopping day of the year, exceeding sales of US shopping days Black Friday and Cyber Monday, combined.
