What’s this “520 day” that intrigues many in China? The term 520, an abbreviation for May 20, denotes an unofficial Valentine’s Day in China. The number “520” phonetically resembles “Wo Ai Ni” or “I Love You” in Chinese.

While February 14 remains the globally recognized Valentine’s Day, the Chinese honor their affection on several other occasions as well, including May 20 (520 Day) and the Qixi Festival. These days are regarded as Chinese versions of Valentine’s Day, with the 520-day holding special significance as it symbolizes “I Love You.”

Despite not being an official holiday, 520 Day has garnered popularity among couples and singles as an opportunity to express romantic love.

Due to the ongoing pandemic in 2020, the “520 Day” celebration witnessed changes with fewer public gatherings. Nonetheless, businesses capitalized on the festival by initiating online engagement campaigns.

For instance, luxury brand Prada, created a campaign using the hashtag #prada520# on Weibo, one of China’s top social platforms. The campaign featured brand spokesperson Cai Xukun and garnered 180 million views as of May 5.

The “520 Day” traces its roots to Taiwanese singer Fan Xiaolan’s song “Digital Love,” where “520” symbolized “I love you.” Over time, “521” was also interpreted as “I am willing,” and “I love you” in China, earning various epithets like “Marriage Day,” “Love Expression Day,” and “Love Festival.”

These two dates, May 20 & 21, serve as annual internet Valentine’s Days in China, echoing the phrases “I (5) love (2) you (0/1)” in Chinese. While they lack historical roots, they are products of commercial promotions in the 21st century.

Despite not being official holidays, the evenings of these days see restaurants and cinemas bustling and prices surging due to Valentine’s Day celebrations.

May 20 is particularly crucial as men utilize this opportunity to express their romantic love for women, often presenting gifts or ‘hongbao.’ Some couples even choose this date for their wedding ceremony.

The difference between 520 and 521 is that the former is largely a day for women, while the latter caters to men. On May 20, men express “520” (I love you) to their significant other. The subsequent day, women reply with “521” to indicate their reciprocation of love.

For marketers in China, these days present lucrative opportunities for promotions. The rising orders of roses, surging sales of chocolates, and full-house hotels underscore the business potential of the “520-day festival.”

A few notable examples of this trend include the most retweeted photo on Sina Weibo on May 20, 2014, and a post by The Economist in 2017 asking “how do economists say ‘I love you’?” The topic #Sweet 520# witnessed almost 4 million discussions and over 1 billion views as of noon on May 20, 2017.

The characteristics of 520 Valentine’s Day include:

1. Fashionable: “520” resonates with the younger generation who find creative ways to celebrate the day, even choosing this date for their wedding. It’s also a popular topic on WeChat Moments and QQ group chats.
2. Younger: Those under 30 years old, who are quick to embrace new trends and spend much of their free time on the internet, are the primary followers of 520 day.
3. Spiritual: Gifts exchanged on May 20 and 21 lean more towards the “spiritual.” It could be a coded message of love sent over the internet or mobile phone.
4. Implicit: Unlike the globally recognized Valentine’s Day, which is for established couples, the 520 Internet Valentine’s Day is preferred by men and women to subtly express their love using digital codes.

5 key trends shaping the Chinese economy, accelerated by COVID-19

In rural areas, the seriously unbalanced gender ratio makes it more difficult for men to find a partner. Some people are reluctant to introduce a partner because the success rate is too low.

Since the 1980s, there has been a high proportion of boys in children born every year in China. As they gradually enter marriage and childbearing age, there has indeed been a phenomenon that men encounter fierce competition in the marriage market and even can’t find a spouse.

However, the distribution of this phenomenon is uneven. This phenomenon is not obvious in large cities due to the supplementary effect of the incoming population, but it will be more prominent in some rural areas, remote areas, and areas with a low level of economic development.

There are differences in the gender ratio of the marriageable population between urban and rural areas.

The gender ratio of the marriageable population in big cities tends to be feminine, resulting in the phenomenon of “older leftover women”; the gender ratio of the marriageable population in the vast rural areas, especially in remote areas, tends to be masculine, resulting in the problem of “grass-roots singles”.

Gender composition should be divided into age groups. From the main marriage and childbearing age group of 20 to 40, there are more than 17 million men than women, not more than 30 million, according to NBS.

Guangdong is the province with the highest proportion of men, accounting for 53.07% of the male population and 46.93% of the female population, with a gender ratio of 113.08. Followed by Hainan, the proportion of the male population is 53.02%, the female population is 46.98%, and the gender ratio is 112.86.

The three northeastern provinces are the most balanced. Among them, Jilin and Liaoning are the only provinces in China where the female population exceeds the male population.

7 Major Consumer Segments Shaping Chinese Market Landscape

According to the China National Tourism Administration, during the Chinese New Year holiday, a total of 386 million tourists traveled domestically, an increase of 12.1% over the same period of last year. Domestic tourism revenue reached 47.5 billion yuan, an increase of 12.6% over last year’s holiday.

The top 10 domestic travel destinations are Guangdong, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Guangxi, Hubei, Zhejiang.

During the holiday season, traditional scenic spots remain popular. New tourism products like Minsu, leisure districts, and characteristic town were highly favored by tourists. Self-driving tour, rural tour, urban tour and ice-snow travel saw rapid growth. The proportion of self-driving tour is close to 50%, becoming the main way for family travel.

For long-distance travel, as the temperature difference between the north and the south is obvious this year, many tourists bring their families to the north to enjoy the snow, to the south to escape the cold, pursuing a more distinctive experience of spending the New Year’s Day holiday.

The number of tourists visited ski park in the Northeast and North region increased by more than 10% over the same period of last year. As China tourists’ demand for high-quality tourism products, holiday tours has replaced sightseeing tours and become popular with tourists.

From short-distance to long-distance travel, from sightseeing to holiday tours, from busy shopping to enjoy the scenery, quality of outbound tourism is highly enhanced.

During the New Year’s Day holiday, China tourists have visited nearly 200 main domestic cities, 68 countries and regions in the world and 730 domestic and foreign cities.

Southeast Asia received the most Chinese tourists during this year’s New Year’s Day holiday. Remote destinations like Argentina and Mexico are also very favored by tourists. Family travel, bespoke holiday and group travel have boomed. Tourists put more emphasis on leisure holiday and deeper experiences. According to Ctrip.com’s booking data, group travel and free tour respectively account for 52% and 48% of the industry.

Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese people. It marks the beginning of a new Lunar New Year. Before the new Year of Dog begins on February 16, Lightspeed Research launched an online survey in China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan to ask panelists about their plan, attitude and behavior during this unique festival period. Read more…

Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese people. It marks the beginning of a new Lunar New Year. Before the new Year of Dog begins on February 16, Lightspeed Research launched an online survey in China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan to ask panelists about their plan, attitude and behavior during this unique festival period.

Let’s begin with the most exciting element of the Chinese New Year – red packets!

1. To give or not to give?

People might not expect this to be a question, but it indeed is. The three markets have very different traditions as to who should give red packets to whom. On the mainland, as soon as you get a job and begin to earn a salary, you stop to be eligible to receive cash red packets, and instead, you need to give out to younger generations.

Also, with the WeChat red packet gets increasingly popular, the action of giving/receiving red packets is no longer limited to the one-on-one face-to-face scenario. WeChat users can give red packets to friends individually thousands of miles away, or send one red packet to be shared by other friends in one WeChat group.

In Hong Kong, as long as you are not married, you don’t give out red packets and you can continue to request them from other relatives and friends.

In Taiwan, giving/receiving red packets is only among close family members. For example, only your parents and their brothers and sisters can give you red packets.

Against these cultural backgrounds, the mainlanders are more likely to give red packets, with 73% said “definitely” and 25% said “maybe”. Only 2% said, “no, I won’t”. In Hong Kong, 30% said they won’t. Taiwan is somewhere in the middle.

2. How many red packets will you give?

Different cultural traditions also decide different numbers of red packets people plan to give in the three markets. On the Chinese mainland, the threshold for being a “giver” is relatively low, but the value for the red packets couldn’t be too small otherwise the receiver will feel insulted (except for casual WeChat red packets). So the number of planned red packets is neither too many nor too few: among those who said they will “definitely” or “maybe” give red packets, 33% said they will give 10 or fewer red packets, another 34% will give between 11 and 20, another 19% will give 21 to 30. Only 4% will give more than 50.

The criteria for being a “red packet giver” is rather high in Taiwan – you need to be someone’s parent or immediate uncle/aunt – so 83% of those answered “definitely” or “maybe” plan to give 10 or fewer red packets. Another 14% will give 11 – 20. Only 2% will give more than that.

In Hong Kong, in the Chinese New Year period, you are expected to hand out red packets to any acquittance who say “Happy New Year” or “Kung Hei Fat Choy” (wish you make good money) to you. Business owners also need to give all employees red packets on the first working day of the Chinese New Year. So 48% of those answered “definitely” or “maybe” plan to hand out more than 40 red packets.

3. How much in the red packets?

To standardize the value of red packets across the three markets, we categorize all red packet size into seven brackets (no up limit for the seventh bracket). The same level of the bracket has similar money value across the three markets.

For example, the seven brackets for China’s mainland is

1) 10 yuan or below;

2) 11 – 50 yuan;

3) 51 – 100 yuan;

4) 101 – 300 yuan;

5) 301 – 600 yuan;

6) 601 – 1200 yuan;

7) 1201 yuan and above.

The majority of mainland red packets givers say their budgets fall in the middle: 84% of them range from second to the fifth bracket. Only 11% said average value for each red packet is 10 yuan or lower. On the other end of the spectrum, only 5% have a per red packet budget of 601 – 1200. No one is in the seventh bracket.

Hong Kong people, who are the most active givers, have much lower per red packet budget. Nearly 80% are in the second bracket (HK$16 – 80), 12% in the third bracket (HK$81 – 150). No one in the seventh bracket either.

Taiwanese give out the “most generous” red packets. One-third of them plan red packet budget in the fourth bracket (NT$601 – 1,500), another one third in the fifth bracket (NT$1,501 – 3,000). Even 8% are in the highest seventh bracket (NT$6,001 and above).

4. Red packet channels

When we asked our panelists through which channel they will give red packets, we can clearly see the overwhelming dominance of WeChat on the mainland. Face-to-face cash red packets are almost the only channel in Hong Kong (98%) and Taiwan (99%). On the mainland, 80% said they will use WeChat red packets, higher than 69% of face-to-face cash. Alipay accounted for 31%. On average, each mainland panelist will use 1.84 channels to give red packets.

5. How to buy Nian Huo?

Nian Huo means goods people usually buy for consumption or as gifts for relatives and friends during the Chinese New Year. Most common categories are food, beverage, snacks, confectionaries, etc.

Mainland panelists are not only more “digitalized” in their red packet channels, but also rely more on e-commerce when buying “Nian Huo”: 85% panelists mentioned online or e-commerce apps, only a little lower than “hypermarkets/supermarkets” (89%). In Hong Kong (88%, 22%) and Taiwan (80%, 26%), people still rely on traditional offline channels.

6. How to communicate during Chinese New Year?

Although mainland consumers are very digitalized, they are also keen to meet relatives and friends face to face. The most mentioned Chinese New Year communications method is still “face to face” (79%), followed by “calling mobile phone” (72%), “social media” ranked only third (63%). On average, each panelist mentioned 3.27 types of communications methods.

“Face to face” (81%) is also the most popular method among Hong Kong people during the New Year. “Calling mobile phone” and “social media” tied at 42%.

Taiwanese are the same as mainlanders, the preference is “face to face” (78%), “calling mobile phone” (59%) and “social media” (53%).

Both Hong Kong people and Taiwanese mentioned fewer than 3 types of communications methods.

7. Year of the Dog Wishes

New Year festival is the season of new year resolutions or wishes. Mainlanders are most likely to have new year wishes (77%), followed by Taiwan (74%) and Taiwan (66%).

We listed health, relationship, work, financial, educational, social and general, as well as others (open question) for people to pick up to three.

Mainlanders are most keen to have better health: their preference is health (67%), financial (52%) and work (49%). Hong Kong panelists are paying more attention to their economic status: the preference is work (62%), financial (61%) and health (49%). Taiwanese mentioned financial most frequently (72%), followed by work (67%) and health (52%).

According to a report by the Chinese online tourism website (tao.117go.com), as high as 61% of Chinese tourists have ordered air tickets and hotels in advance for over 10 days tour, by combining Mid-autumn Festival and Chinese National Day holiday together.

This year, only three-day working days will remain after Mid-Autumn Festival, followed by Chinese National Day. Many people applied for several days off to enjoy a long holiday. Then, Oversea travel destinations become their top choices.

Among free and easy trip travelers, the top 10 are Tokyo, Taipei, Osaka, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Kenting. It is worth mentioning that Los Angeles is becoming a hot new destination for Chinese tourists going on free and easy trips, and it is the only destination out of the Asia Pacific region. Besides, South Korea has gained a strong recovery and returned to the list.

Free and easy tour travelers are more inclined to focus on leisure and relaxation compared with the traditional travelers traveling in groups. 90% purchase are for entertainment.

And compared with summer holiday, the ratio of office workers traveling during the National Day is increasing that recreational features become more significant. The tickets order of hottest attraction during the summer holiday has decreased from 38% to 28% this October. In the mean time, orders of recreational goods and transportation card tickets account for respectively 5 percentage points and 3 percentage points increase.

Family tourism is a prominent feature of Chinese free tour travelers. More than 74% of orders came from families with three or more members. And it is also timely to promote the development of outbound chartered vehicle business; such orders have increased by more than 100% compared with the same period last year.

Also read: China to invest $278.7 Billion in Tourism in 2025

Estimated by China Tourism Academy, China would accept 3.76 billion person trips in 2014 with total revenue of RMB3.3 trillion (US$0.53 trillion). With the overwhelming development of mobile internet as well as improvement of social media, scenic attraction social media accounts will have more influence. On Weibo, there are already large number of travelers interacting with travel related Weibo accounts.

Among all the travel related accounts on Weibo in 2014, city tourism boards accounted for 46%, which were the major ones on Weibo, followed by scenic attraction accounts and travel organizations in 2014.

From the three charts above, province tourism boards and overseas tourism boards accounts both had activeness, coverage, popularity and impact index higher than the average number in the industry in 2014 which indicated they performed well enough on Weibo.

In terms of impact index from 2011 to 2014, the overall impact index of travel institution accounts increased from 106 to 134. Various travel institutions paid more attention to efforts on Weibo and their fans on Weibo accounts increased continuously in 2014.

During the festivals like Tomb-sweeping Festival, Labour Day and Dragon Boat Festival, there were most daily Weibo posts in 2014. While during Spring Festival, Tomb-sweeping Festival and National Day, there were more daily searches than usual days in 2014.

Top Provinces by Visits During Spring Festival in 2014

Top Provinces by Visits During Labor Day in 2014

Top Provinces by Visits During National Day in 2014

Here were the top scenic attractions in China during major festivals in 2014.

Take the Liuzhou tourism board account on Weibo as an example, since it updated Weibo homepage as well as service on 22 July 2014, its official account on Weibo had increasing fans. In August, Liuzhou tourism board account’s daily fans increased by 88.6% from June 2014. Besides, its impact index got higher than before.

According to Baidu, during the period from July to August in 2014, which was the summer holiday in China, the daily travel search index on mobile device was more than the one on desktop computers. Besides, in July 2014, the index on mobile device had an increase of 50% from the same period of last year.

Also read: Insights of China Video Sharing on Weibo

Total hongbao volume on Chinese New Year eve exceeded one billion on WeChat compared with 240 million on Alipay. The volume during the same period on Weiob was 101 million who started Hongbao campaign on 2 Feb 2015.

Hongbao, or red envelope, is the Chinese people’s traditions and customs. Every Chinese New Year’s (“CNY”) Eve, a junior will be given some money, packed in a red envelope. In ancient times, the money is used to scare a monster. Gradually, envelopes also became the best carrier between relatives and friends for blessings and good luck in special occasions such as wedding, birthdays, and new-born’s 100th day.

In 2014, WeChat hongbao attracted 8 million users from CNY eve and the eighth day giving away 40 million virtual red envelopes. QQ also gave away virtual hongbao roth 3 billion yuan. 154 million users participated in 637 million hongbao competition on CNY eve.

WeChat collaborated with CCTV this year during Chinese New Year 2015 giving away 500 million yuan cash hongbao and 3 billion coupon hongbao. CCTV programs, especially Spring Festival Gala invited viewers to use “Shake” feature on WeChat to get hongbao including cash and coupons.

Also read: 80% Willing to Travel During Chinese New Year Holidays 2015

Following iQIYI announced an exclusive worldwide broadcast in 2015 CCTV Spring Festival Gala for Year of the Goat, Gong Yu, iQIYI founder and CEO, and Wang Gaofei, Weibo CEO, announced deep collaboration on this event on Weibo. Weibo users can comment and win Hongbao while watching Spring Festival Gala.

This year, China internet users can watch the live broadcasting of Spring Festival Gala and comment and interact with other Weibo users without switching the screens. Weibo will also give away 400 red envelopes to active users, each of which contains 4,999 yuan cash.

Their collaboration covers mobile. iQiyi has 500 million active users according to Gong Yu. Its accumulated users on mobile client has reached 860 million, contributing 63% of its total traffic. In contrast, the percentage of users who login Weibo on mobile exceeded 78%.

While during the first 7 months in 2014, iQiyi/PPS remained the leader by total number of reached users on mobile, followed by Youku Tudou, and Tencent video.

Read more: Weibo and Alipay’s Hongbao Campaign Gone Viral

Nearly 80% of the respondent hope to travel during Chinese New Year holiday in 2015 as shown in Ctrip Spring Festival Travel Intention Report, much higher than the previous year.

Due to the over-crowdedness in China, over 50% hope to travel overseas. As for the choice of booking channel, more than 80% prefer to comparatively select travel products on travel websites, and about 40% turn to mobile phone for reservation, which indicates “mobile” manner of online booking on Spring Festival holidays.

Thanks to several major favorable factors, including simplified requirements for outbound tourism, easier availability of domestic high-speed train and self-driving, Internet technology innovation of travel and severe price competition, Chinese willingness to travel is highly likely to further increase in 2015.

Golden Week of 2015 Spring Festival holidays will begin in about two weeks starting on Chinese New Year Eve 18 February 2015. Ctrip survey has also shown that 80% of Internet users would like to travel, among whom 17% have already made travel plans, 65% remain undecided, and 18% plan not to travel on the holiday.

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most significant annual festival for Chinese, and thus nearly 90% of those preferring travel tend to travel together with their family, and only 5% prefer traveling alone.

Since family reunion and friend parties are also indispensable, 36% of those preferring travel tend to begin their travel from the 3rd or 4th day, 23% like to do it before the Spring Festival, 20% would like to do it on the 1st or 2nd day. In terms of the days of travel, most will spend 3-6 days to relax and travel, 25% will spend more than 6 days.

In terms of travel destination, about 40% tend to travel abroad, 37% prefer domestic tourism, and the remaining 23% have not made final decision. More than 50% dislike domestic travel due to the usual crowdedness at scenic spots on holidays. The survey has also displayed that males prefer domestic tourism, while females are more inclined to overseas travel.

As for the domestic destination for Spring Festival holidays, Sanya, Yunnan, Xiamen, Northeast China, Jiuzhaigou, Guilin, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Zhangjiajie and Shanghai are Chinese netizens’ top ten favorites.

As for the overseas destination for Spring Festival holidays, Thailand, Bali Island, Maldives, Europe, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Macao, Singapore, New Zealand and Republic of Korea are the netizens’ top ten favorites.

Of all factors, the respondents still mainly consider price, travel line and service. 71% pay most attention to price, 68% mostly concern travel line and 49% take service quality as priority. In addition, several other factors are also concerned, such as travel safety and weather.

In the aspect of consumption level, the Chinese are richer and richer, and their willingness of consumption on Spring Festival holidays is higher than before. 30% believe that 3001-5000 yuan is reasonable per capita consumption, and 1/3 will spend more than 5000 yuan per person on tourism.

The tourists’ price sensitiveness declines with the rise of age, mainly because those above 40 years old enjoy stronger consumption capacity and pay more attention to the value of Spring Festival travel, and thus they are willing to invest more into travel.

During the Chinese New Year, the websites where people spent the longest time are search engine, directories, e-commerce and others according to Nielsen.

Read more: Weibo and Alipay’s Hongbao Campaign Gone Viral

During 2014 Spring Festival,over 100 million payments were made via mobile Alipay, accounted for 52% of overall payments by Alipay in this period, according to the data from Alipay Wallet (the mobile client of Alipay).

It was also revealed that the real-name user of Alipay approached 300 million by the end of 2013. These users made 12.5 billion payments in the past year. More than 100 million of the users turned to mobile for most of payments, and finished over 2.78 billion payments totaling over 900 billion yuan (USD 147.5 billion).

Alipay Wallet data showed during the 7-day holiday of Spring Festival that:

• More than 11.34 million people paid cellphone bill through Alipay Wallet, six times of the number last year.
• 2.20 million users repaid 7.1 billion yuan (USD 1.16 billion) for their credit card bills, about tenfold of which in 2013.
• More than 1.5 million people paid the cab fare via Alipay; the number was over 300,000 in the 7th day, reaching the climax.
• Millions of users handed out red envelopes via Alipay Wallet, up to 200 million yuan (USD 32.77 million); the amount exceeded 55 million yuan (USD 9 million) just in one day-the New Year’s Eve.

Furthermore, the user scale of Yu’E Bao(a fund management product released by Alibaba in June, 2013) hit 61 million by Feb 6 in 2014, driven by the granting of year-end bonus. The number increased by 12 million from Jan 15 in 2014, among whom over 60% made first money transfer by mobile.

The number of purchasing train tickets via Alipay was over 30 million person-time, while 10 million paid by mobile Alipay during the Spring Festival period in 2014.

31st January, 2014 is the first day of Chinese Spring Festival and this year is year of the horse. The Horse is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.

According to the data published by Sina Weibo, the peak record was broken in the first minute of year of the horse. 863,408 posts were published, 55,110 more than that of 2014 New Year’s Day.

More than 34.47 million Weibo users interacted during The Spring Festival Gala; posts referred to The Spring Festival Gala reached 45.41 million in more than 4 hours, increasing 139% compared to last year. From Chinese New Year’s Eve to the 4th day of the lunar year, there were 166 million posts discussing about The Spring Festival Gala on Sina Weibo, with more than 10 million discussion every single day. The maximum number of related posts published in one single day was the first day of year of the horse. The discussion posted in the Chinese New Year’s Eve and Lunar New Year’s Day together was about to reach 100 million.

Source: Sina Weibo

Double 11 , the Bachelor’s Day in China, has become a shopping carnival year by year, millions of people are purchasing at the same time. You really don’t have time to choose and pick, or your favorite products would be sold out in a few seconds.

Consumers have learned to add favorites in shopping cart in advance, then when the time comes, all they need is to hit purchase button and pay for it. By November 5, 2013, more than 80 million people had added their favorite products in shopping cart, and over 15 million gained “red-envelops” (cash coupons) through Tmall, mobile Taobao and Laiwang (a wechat like social network app launched by Alibaba).

In comparison with last year, 2013 Double 11 becomes even more popular, over 20,000 enterprises joined the big sale with more brands and products categories. Except for the big discount, many stores have different attractive for consumers, such as diamond gifts, inviting pop singer to be customer service and so on.

Consumers obviously couldn’t wait for that day, many consumers have paid front money for products. By November 4, 2013, about a million customers paid front money in Tmall, and the final payment would reach 1 billion yuan (USD 163 million).

According to Kantar WorldPanel Consumer Price Index, gift market grew 27% in 2012 compared to 2011 during mid autumn festival and National Day. Expensive gift became the trend. Gifts with more than 150 yuan (USD 24.4) surpassed 30% during the holidays in 2012.

Tmall has promotion activities in all major holidays or festivals in China, such as Teacher’s Day, Mid Autumn Festival, National Day, Double Ninth Festival and Spring Festivals, not to mention some popular western festivals like Christmas and Thanksgiving.

One of the biggest promotion activity is not from the festivals we mentioned above. Tmall created Double 11, which is on Nov 11, nicknamed after Bachelor’s Day by Chinese. Taobao normally can expect sales of over billion yuan on one single day. Last year, the total sales exceed 3 billion yuan (USD 490 million).

Although it seems rather early to talk about Double 11, it’s in November. But Tmall and retailers, logistic companies have already began preparing for the biggest promotion.

On November 11 2012, the Double 11 promotion on Tmall and Taobao attracted 147 million unique visitors and 30 million users to purchase, and the number of transactions hit 100 million.

Just seconds past midnight on November 11, 10 million users were online at the same time. 10 mins later, turnover of transactions paid through Alipay reached 250 million yuan (USD 40.55 million). 37 mins later, turnover hit 1 billion yuan (USD 162.18 million). Last year’s Double 11 promotion realized 19.1 billion yuan (USD 3 billion) Gross Merchandise Volume.

Huge amount of transactions in one day caused much pressure on retailers and logistics. Customer service in reataiers which joined the big promotion had been busy for more than a week. Logistic companies had recruited people and increased transportation twos ago. The big promotion created more than 50 million packages to deliver, lots of logistic companies worked overtime for a month.

Tmall just released this year Double 11 sign up and retailers selecting rules on August 10.  This year’s Double 11 will be bigger than last year, clothing is still the hot products. Clothing turnover on November 11 2012 was 7 billion yuan(USD 113.5 million), 10% of total turnover of clothing in 2012 and 50% of total turnover on November 11 2012. Besides the biggest promotion, Tmall has launched other promotion plan in 2013, like winter new clothing online.

Tmall promotion strategies for Double 11 includes O2O, mobile devices and social network. The highlights of 2013 Double 11 is to lay emphasis on mobile advertising and promotion. Weatao, a mobile app for Taobao and Tmall shopping, is expected to complete advertising for Double 11 by the end of October 2013.

Last Double 11 generated 9 million transactions (including Tmall and other B2C platforms) on mobile devices through Alipay app, turnover reached 1.2 billion yuan (USD 195 million).

We created China online marketing calendar for the last quarter of 2013 including September to help you better plan your online campaigns for Q4, 2013.

Share this Image On Your Site

</p> <p><strong>Please include attribution to ChinaInternetWatch.com with this graphic.</strong></p> <p><a href='https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/3706/marketing-calendar/'><img src='https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/china-online-marketing-calendar-2013q4.png' alt='China Marketing Calendar 2013 Q4' width='600px' border='0' /></a></p> <p>

According to a data released by Nielsen recently, from January 28 to February 24 2013, during the Chinese New Year, the sites where people spent the longest time are search engine, directories, e-commerce and others. E-commerce, other websites and e-mail experienced the most obvious changes during CNY period. The change of the visit time on e-commerce sites from Jan 28 to the Spring Festival reached 46.50%, and after the Chinese New Year it got an sharp increase of 71.03%.

Besides a Chinese painting showing a willow and a poem, you will also see an animation. If you click on the white space, as far as it’s not a link on the SERPs, the animation of a fish jumping out of a pond will appear.

Click the above image to view a large one

November 11 (11-11) is Singles Day in China and year 2011 makes this date more special with six “1”s. And, this date is even a bigger date for China’s online retailers.

Let’s take a look at how crazy China online shoppers can be on Nov 11 2011 on Taobao Mall (all participating merchants offered 50% discount):

• At 00:08 (just eight minutes after the promotion started), total transactions totaled 100 million yuan
• 21 minutes: exceeded 200 million
• 32 minutes: exceeded 300 million
• 1 hour: 439 million
• at 10am (10 hours): 1 billion yuan
• at 4pm: 2 billion yuan with over 10 million orders

Turnover via Alipay totaled 3.36 billion yuan (USD 530 million) on Taobao Mall, and 5.2 billion on Taobao.com and Taobao Mall combined on November 11, 2011.