The Friday following Thanksgiving in the US, traditionally the third Friday in November, has globally become the "Black Friday“, a day dedicated to discount purchases which, in the era of the digital revolution, has been extending for some years until the following Cyber Monday. Yes, because purchases of high-tech goods are king, accompanied by a growing use of traditional purchases in stores and via the internet, the latter having multiplied exponentially thanks to the evolution of digital payments.
Thus entertainment events are increasingly organized which, in the strategy of the Chinese online sales giant Alibaba, also become a gigantic music and video container with a global commercial slant, but dedicated to retail sales via the B2C platform.
The dress rehearsal to warn the competitor Amazon about the imminent duel for Black Friday was done on November 11 (11/11) with the so-called "Singles' Day", a shopping day dedicated to singles that generated sales for over 25 billion US dollars, equal to about double the total US sales of the 2016 4-day Black Friday and which recorded a 39% jump in volumes, beating Citigroup analysts' estimates at 30%, dragging the share prices of about eighty famous brands including Nike, Xiami and Uniqlo.
From lobster to the discounted iPhone, the peculiarity of the transactions has been a testing ground on which to reflect. In fact, 225% of transactions from 90 countries were carried out with the Tmall retail platform from smartphones and, in the peak of requests, 256 purchase transactions were processed per second.
The appointment for unrestrained shopping in Chinese sauce, which saw its first edition in 2009 and is strongly desired by the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, also aims to be an antidote to another stereotype entirely made in the USA, that of Saint Valentine. But above all it was a way to test the inclusion of the outlets and other retail stores that have been involved, at least 100 Smart Stores, also as storage and delivery centers and which are connected through an app called Ling Shou Tong (translated “retail connection”).
If the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, with the purchase of Whole Foods Market has implemented the retail chain, Jack Ma responds blow for blow: both committed to creating a new concept of retail connected to the wholesale and parent companies with a new customer service concept, including the in-store assistant robot and downloadable digital shopping lists.
This further development of the business helps Alibaba to be widespread and to multiply the types of services and supplies through supermarket chains such as Hema, Intime, up to the Cainiao Smart Logistics chain, acquired at a fire sale price because it has not been profitable for some time.
A sort of virtuous circuit of this Industry 4.0 era of the big fish, which after having eaten the small fish understands that it must encourage its development and reproduction if it wants to survive… Until the game implodes, pace of the Single Party which, observing the phenomenon does not seem to admit failures in a moment of strong commitment to safety and close monitoring of the country's currency and commercial flows.
