Black Friday to become one of the biggest cross-border shopping festival in China

Date:2016-11-28 by Azoya

The Black Friday is no doubt the big thing for the past week as retailers and brands all over the world are busy selling products through online and offline channels during this world famous sales event. It was estimated by Adobe that online sales figure for US mainstream e-commerce stores this year on Black Friday totalled at 3 billion USD, which is a historical high.

Azoya has interviewed 97 Chinese online shoppers recently regarding their thinking about overseas online shopping holidays and found out that 61.8% of the interviewees have opted Black Friday as their favourite. They believe that they can get the best deal on that day. However, compared to shoppers overseas, Chinese online shoppers are more interested in categories such as beauty and personal care, mom and baby products, apparel and shoes, rather than spending more money on technologies. This could contribute to the proportion of Chinese female shoppers among all overseas online shoppers, which is more than 70%.

The findings also translated into the sales figure of Azoya’s partners. It was recorded that sales of online cosmetics and personal care brands during Black Friday were 10 times of daily average, while online pharmacies generally saw 4 to 9 times sales increase. Sales of apparel and shoes online are also 470% more than the daily average.

A screenshot of feelunique CN site during Black Friday campaign

This year, in particular, we are seeing a lot of Chinese players in the sales event as well, as China cross-border e-commerce continues to boom. China now has the biggest online shopping market in the world, with Alibaba marketplace stroke $17.8 billion sales this year during the one-day sales event, the Single’s Day. The Chinese online shoppers no doubt have their shopping calendar packed with orchestrated shopping holidays, but Black Friday is by far the most well-known opportunity to purchase high-quality and affordable goods from overseas retailers.

The Black Friday is not an online shopping holiday as most people perceived, but with the advances of e-commerce, online shopping gradually becomes a popular option for those that are unable to visit bricks and mortars stores in person. The Chinese consumers as well are also facing the same obstacle, and various e-commerce solutions are available to fill in the gap. They can now place orders on e-commerce stores and wait for their special parcels to be shipped across the seas either via drop shipping models or bonded model.

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