Yesterday, the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival came to a close in silence.
On November 24th, Taobao, the largest e-commerce platform in China under Alibaba, announced that they will no longer hold the Taobao “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” on December 12th this year.
Instead, the platform launched an event called the Taobao Year-End Good Price Festival, which started at 8:00 p.m. on December 9th.
The Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival has always been an extension of the Chinese Double 11 Shopping Festival. It has been a battleground for major brands on Tmall to clear their inventory. The Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival was originally a holiday reserved for small and medium-sized businesses on Taobao.
“It’s been too quiet this year during the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” is a common sentiment among people. The announcement by Taobao to launch the Good Price Festival during the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival and no longer emphasize it indicates that the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival is becoming a thing of the past.
From the data, beauty sales on various platforms have shown mixed results, and with the overall economic downturn, beauty practitioners feel that the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival is more about the form than its actual value.
Beauty GMV Decreases by Over 20%
In 2012, Taobao introduced the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” for the first time, which was highly regarded and became a significant promotional event throughout the year. However, in the subsequent development, with the overwhelming presence of Chinese Double 11 Shopping Festival before it and various online and offline promotional activities afterward, the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” gradually became less remarkable and received less attention.
As a result, this year’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” underwent a brand-new transformation. The most notable change is that although it is still called the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival, Taobao launched the Year-End Good Price Festival, aiming to bring explosive growth for small and medium-sized businesses.
From the actual situation, the level of participation from brands and consumers is not high. CHAILEEDO has observed on some social platforms that some users did not feel a strong sense of promotion during this year’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival”. One netizen commented on Weibo, “I didn’t realize that the ‘Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival’ had already started, and it ended without buying anything.” Another consumer expressed, “It feels like a regular small promotion, didn’t make any purchases. It has been years since I felt the excitement of the initial Singles’ Day or Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival.”
Users’ sentiments are also reflected in the sales figures. According to CHAILEEDO data, the GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) for cosmetics/perfumes/beauty tools during the Taobao Year-End Good Price Festival reached 546 million yuan, a decrease of 22% compared to the previous year. The GMV for skincare/body care/essential oils reached 1.416 billion yuan, a decrease of 27% compared to the previous year.
Furthermore, according to the brand rankings, in the Taobao Year-End Good Price Festival cosmetics and perfumes brand ranking, the top three brands are Kans, Caitang, and 3CE. Looking at the top 20 rankings, domestic and international brands share the spotlight, with each occupying 10 positions.
In the Taobao Year-End Good Price Festival skincare brand ranking, the top three brands are Pechoin, L’Oreal, and OLAY. Looking at the top 20 rankings, domestic brands also occupy 10 positions.
Among them, Li Jiaqi’s live-streaming sessions, an essential part of Taobao’s live-streaming sales, have contributed significantly to the sales during major promotions. CHAILEEDO noticed that from December 9th to December 12th, Li Jiaqi held a total of four live-streaming sessions, maintaining an average of one session per day, with 57, 64, 59, and 42 beauty and personal care products being promoted, respectively.
For example, on December 9th (the first day of the Taobao Year-End Good Price Festival), Li Jiaqi’s live-streaming session featured a “Good Price for All Categories,” according to CHAILEEDO data. A total of 155 products were showcased during the session, with beauty and personal care products accounting for 36.8% of them, and the total GMV reached 82.744 million yuan.
Emerging e-commerce platforms are still in the peak promotional period
CHAILEEDO noticed that this year’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” had significantly lower overall engagement compared to Singles’ Day. Compared to previous years, the event had a shorter duration and weaker discounts. Additionally, there was a lack of promotional posters and shopping guides on major social platforms.
According to previous conventions, the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” usually runs from December 1st to December 12th. However, this year, several e-commerce platforms shortened the duration of the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival.” For example, the Taobao Year-End Good Price Festival and JD.com’s event now run from December 9th, 20:00, to December 12th.
In contrast to traditional e-commerce platforms, emerging e-commerce platforms have relatively longer event durations. The Douyin Shopping Mall’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” started on December 1st and ends on December 12th, lasting for 12 days. The Kuaishou Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival runs from December 7th to December 12th.
Furthermore, CHAILEEDO noticed that as of now, e-commerce platforms have not released comprehensive reports on the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival.” Only a few platforms have disclosed partial data. For example, on Douyin’s e-commerce platform, sales of popular winter items such as temperature-controlled kettles, imitation flame heaters, and tea bar machines increased by 257%, 160%, and 116% respectively.
As an emerging platform, Douyin’s e-commerce is still in the channel dividend stage compared to Tmall and JD.com, which have been established for over a decade. For many brands, Douyin’s e-commerce is a significant growth point for beauty and cosmetics sales.
According to CHAILEEDO data, from December 1st to December 12th, the GMV of beauty products on Douyin increased by 45.71% compared to the same period last year. In the skincare category, GMV increased by 39.73%, with the top 20 brands accounting for 25.35% of the category’s GMV. Among them, 65% of the brands were domestic, accounting for 73.21% of the total GMV.
In the color cosmetics and perfume category on Douyin, GMV increased by 67.73%. Among the top 20 brands, 95% were domestic, accounting for 93.27% of the total GMV. The beauty device category on Douyin saw a 22.11% YoY growth, with the top 20 brands accounting for 82.52% of the category’s GMV, of which 55% were domestic brands.
Mandy, the brand marketing director of SuHua, stated that Douyin Shop live streaming and founder IP live streaming are the key operational focuses for SuHua on Douyin. In her opinion, Douyin platform differs from Tmall as it emphasizes daily fine-tuned operations and aims for stable growth rather than focusing solely on major promotional events.
The head of a Guangzhou-based emerging brand mentioned that they did not participate in Tmall’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” this year but only took part in Douyin Shopping Mall’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” event.
Xianji’s founder, Luo Yun, stated that this year they primarily participated in the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” on Tmall and Douyin. Tmall changed its “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” to a Good Price Festival, while Douyin, on the contrary, emphasized the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” event. Overall, the buzz and sales of the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” were much lower compared to Singles’ Day.
Despite the growth of emerging platforms like Douyin, many industry professionals believe that this year’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” was particularly lackluster, and the event’s fervor has been cooling down year after year.
“No More” Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival
Overall, whether from the perspective of data, consumer response, platform reaction, or market feedback, this year’s “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” can be described as quiet.
Even at the upstream factory end, the order situation is not ideal. Xu Li, the founder of Suzhou Yumeijian Technology Co., Ltd., mentioned that there are very few brands specifically preparing inventory for the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival.” Most of them are selling off the remaining stock from the Singles’ Day event.
Lin Lijun, the director of cosmetics research and development at Guangdong Shangpinhui Cosmetics Co., Ltd., expressed that due to the economic downturn and weak consumer demand, the order situation for small and medium-sized factories during the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” is not optimistic. “Singles’ Day was already lackluster, and even fewer people are mentioning Double 12.”
As the largest e-commerce shopping festival before New Year’s Day, the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” is an opportunity for brands to boost their year-end sales. Generally, in order to stimulate sales growth and achieve annual targets, brands would increase their discounts and make efforts to attract customers.
The founder of a cutting-edge brand in Shanghai told CHAILEEDO, “After entering the live-streaming e-commerce industry, brands have already made big promotions through influencer live-streaming and brand store broadcasts, making major promotions a daily occurrence. Therefore, when brands reach big promotional events like Singles’ Day or the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival, the explosive sales power is not as strong as before.”
Mandy mentioned that this year, SuHua mainly participated in Tmall’s Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival. In previous years, the overall performance of Tmall’s Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival would be about one-third of the Singles’ Day performance. However, this year, SuHua’s overall GMV for the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival experienced a certain decline.
Luo Yun told CHAILEEDO, “Xianji as a brand is still in the early stages, so there hasn’t been a significant increase. It is operating steadily.”
He also mentioned that currently, the traffic on various e-commerce platforms has reached a mature stage, and brand owners are paying more attention to consumer segmentation and user categorization, focusing on refined operations for existing customers. Xianji’s overall strategy is to focus on single-product operations, so during Singles’ Day and the Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival, they promote star products with high market recognition, such as the Mingxing Single Powder VC Essence.
Overall, the presence of the “Chinese Double 12 Shopping Festival” is gradually weakening. Platforms need to move away from “creating festivals” and return to meeting consumers’ actual needs. Brands, on the other hand, need to focus on daily operations and build product strength and brand reputation.
