Alibaba Group has confirmed that its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival this year generated AUD$103.2 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in just 11 days – an increase of 26% compared to the previous corresponding period. 

At its peak, there were 583,000 orders per second handled by Alibaba and more than 2.32 billion total delivery orders over the 11-day period processed by logistics company, Cainiao Network.

Australia was ranked fourth in the top 10 countries and regions selling to China by GMV, trailing Japan, the US and Korea, but ahead of Germany, the UK, New Zealand, France, Italy, and Canada. Several Australian brands were ranked in the top 10 brands selling globally via cross-border e-commerce including Swisse and BioIsland.

The top 10 categories (by GMV) among Chinese consumers cross-border from Australia were food supplements, infant and toddler nutrition, adult milk powder, maternal nutrition, wine, infant and toddler milk powder, health food, hair treatments, skincare sets and emulsion.

“One of the biggest opportunities for Australian and New Zealand businesses to reach the Chinese market is the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. Especially during these challenging times, we wanted to continue to provide our merchants with new innovations, valuable customer insights and trusted technology as we have done over the last 12 years,” Alibaba Group managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Maggie Zhou said.

This year’s Festival featured 14 million products from more than 250,000 brands available on Tmall, with more than 2,600 new overseas brands, including Australia and New Zealand, brought to Chinese consumers for the first time.

“It is important to give international brands as much exposure to Chinese consumers as possible which is why this year Alibaba also decided to expand the concept from ‘single’ to ‘double’. Merchants from Australia and New Zealand, especially new and small businesses, were delighted to have an additional opportunity to reach this market ahead of the main Festival,” Zhou added.