Although it may be difficult to believe, Black Friday is not the largest “discount celebration” in global eCommerce. That distinction belongs to the 11/11, formerly known as Singles’ Day, now renamed as the Global Shopping Festival. This is its story.
Back in 1993, a group of students at Nanjing University in China decided to select November 11 (11/11) to celebrate their single status (with the notion that the four ones in the date represented individuals without a partner), establishing what amounted to an “anti-Valentine’s Day”.
The celebration gradually began to catch on across China. That represents quite a spread, especially considering that China’s population in 1993 already exceeded 1.2 billion—more than the combined populations of Europe and the United States.
Of course, such a widespread festivity did not go unnoticed by major corporations, and in 2009, Alibaba—the giant among giants in global eCommerce—seized the opportunity to establish a special day of major discounts: 24 hours of offers that soon became the largest shopping event in the world.
It is important to note that this was in 2009, at a time when eCommerce in many Western countries was only beginning to modernize.
Since then, 11/11—rebranded by Alibaba a few years ago as the “Global Shopping Festival”—has grown substantially, extending its duration to two weeks and expanding its reach worldwide, largely thanks to the internationalization of leading Chinese eCommerce companies, with Aliexpress at the forefront.
Such is its influence that names like Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Victoria Beckham, or Pharrell Williams have been among the celebrities selected for the event’s various promotional galas, which accumulate billions in revenue. These galas are broadcast live, have become true audience phenomena, and are used to announce ongoing promotions as well as, of course, the striking revenue figures achieved from the first minute.
In the past decade, the festival has evolved from a focus on massive discounts to become a technological showcase for Alibaba. Thus, this year’s Global Shopping Festival will be the first in which Alibaba deploys generative artificial intelligence technologies at scale throughout its entire ecosystem.
The company anticipates that this implementation will improve both the consumer experience and operational efficiency for merchants, within a context marked by the integration of major language models into the search, recommendation, and advertising systems of Taobao and Tmall, two of its leading marketplaces.
Since October, the AI Business Advisor tool has generated more than five million analytical reports designed to assist merchants in preparing and managing the campaign. According to internal surveys, its use has reduced sellers’ workload by approximately 30% and increased their operational efficiency by as much as 150%.
Simultaneously, the AI-Generated Content (AIGC) suite has enabled the creation of more than 150 million visual assets in recent weeks—an amount Alibaba estimates saves around 40 million RMB per day (approximately €4.8 million) in production costs. Its most recent version also includes video generation features based on images, supporting the creation of promotional materials on a large scale.
On the consumer side, Alibaba explains that the intelligent assistant Dianxiaomi has managed approximately 300 million inquiries during the campaign activation period, beginning in early October, contributing to a year-over-year increase of 30% in conversion rates for merchants utilizing artificial intelligence-assisted tools.
Alibaba has also strengthened its search and recommendation engines by incorporating generative models capable of interpreting conversational queries and offering more contextualized results. According to the company, this change has resulted in a double-digit improvement in both the relevance of search results for complex questions and the number of clicks achieved in certain recommendation scenarios.
The company continues to work to make navigation more intuitive. Among the latest innovations is a shopping assistant integrated into search results, capable of comparing items, recommending relevant options, or building personalized lists of offers.
Additional features that are becoming established include multimodal search, “Snap and Shop,” which allows users to photograph a product to receive recommendations sorted by price and quality, as well as virtual fitting room systems that generate realistic avatars from a single photo so shoppers can visualize clothing more accurately.
This deployment is part of Alibaba’s announced plan to invest 53 billion dollars in artificial intelligence infrastructure through 2029, with the goal of integrating these technologies comprehensively into its core businesses. The company states that its strategy focuses on practical applications that deliver tangible value, reduce operational costs, and enhance product discovery.
In the words of Kaifu Zhang, group vice president: “Our integration of generative artificial intelligence has significantly improved an already mature technological infrastructure. This is the first of many 11/11 celebrations with large-scale artificial intelligence.
Image: Alibaba
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Δ