Double 11 Is Over at 120.7 Billion Yuan — Still the Only Number Anyone in the Room Cared About

We're reporting from the Double 11 venue. Alibaba has said again and again this year that it doesn't care about total sales — so what was it talking about at this year's Double 11?

At 11:40 pm on November 10, Jack Ma appeared at the Double 11 gala and, with hosts Hua Shao and Huang Zijiao, ran a card trick that "conjured" Scarlett Johansson onto the stage. As she walked out, the hosts made sure to remind the audience that she was the face of Huawei's new phone.

Celebrities plus product placement: that was the theme of the evening.

Not far from the main stage, the mood in the media center was tightening. Reporters raised phones and cameras to shoot Ma on the screen.

The gala — which looked like a Zhejiang TV year-end special stuffed with several times the usual load of advertising — had been running on the media center's big screen for 220 minutes.

Gathering hundreds of news outlets in one room to watch the sales figure climb on a giant screen, witnessing one record after another, has become an annual Alibaba tradition.

From midnight, the big screen shows the running transaction total. Reporters on site are fed a steady stream of numbers tied to time and volume: how many minutes and seconds it took to pass 100 million yuan, then 500 million, 1 billion, even 10 billion; at 1 am, the top 10 brands by single-store sales.

Ma said as far back as Double 11 2013 that "the numbers don't matter that much," but in its eight years Double 11 has always been a marketing event that runs on numbers.

At the first Double 11 after Alibaba's 2014 listing, the total already reached 57.112 billion yuan. When Daniel Zhang gave interviews to overseas media, the backdrop behind him was a curve of Double 11's growth over the years.

The capital markets, excited by the 2014 figures, grew less convinced by transaction volume starting in 2015 and paid more attention to Alibaba's actual revenue and profit — one reason the stock slid last year.

This year, Alibaba's attitude toward the numbers shifted more visibly. Ma announced at a mid-year investor meeting that the company would stop disclosing quarterly gross merchandise volume (GMV). Last week's third-quarter earnings report had already dropped the figure. In it, Alibaba said it "has always known that total sales is not the only core metric."

Alibaba's marketing this year also shifted from plain promotions to "content": in written features and in livestreams alike, product listings on Taobao and Tmall now hook into trending topics and are actually readable.

Double 11 carries the job of driving consumption and lifting the stock price. To speak more directly to investors in the US, where the company is listed, Alibaba has since 2014 invited overseas media in large numbers to watch it.

"The first time, it was in Hangzhou," said Angela Doland, Asia editor at the marketing trade publication Advertising Age. She has covered the last three Double 11s and thinks the arrangements for the most recent two have become far more professional.

Open AdAge's website now and scroll down three screens and you can find her story on Double 11 marketing.

Alibaba's international PR team told QDaily that more than 100 overseas outlets were on site, including CNN, NBC, CNBC and Bloomberg, most of them correspondents based in Hong Kong.

But mainstream English-language media were, for now, still buried in the US election. Alibaba's name did turn up on Bloomberg's website — in a story about how Katy Perry, Alibaba's "global ambassador," had pulled out of the Double 11 appearance because of Donald Trump's win.

The Four-Hour Double 11 Gala Is Still a TV Shopping Show, but Far More Fun Than Last Year's

Just as Tmall once sponsored the variety show Go Fighting!, brands from the Tmall platform were everywhere in this year's gala — except this time Tmall itself was the thing being placed.

Compared with last year's gala, made by a team from Hunan TV, the 2016 edition that just ended had a longer run-up and felt more like a real televised show.

Alibaba brought in Super Bowl producer David Hill as chief director. The project was announced back in July, and Shanghai Jahwa paid 80 million yuan for exclusive naming rights.

Yesterday the celebrities attended a rehearsal cocktail party. Victoria Beckham posted several photos with Ma on Instagram, and another shot of Ma with David Beckham and Kobe Bryant spread widely on social media.

"Turning it into entertainment" was one of the themes Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang pushed at the Double 11 kickoff meeting two weeks earlier.

The gala aired at the same time on video sites, livestreaming platforms and Zhejiang TV. To keep viewers in front of the screen, the Beckhams, Kobe Bryant and OneRepublic all came on soon after the opening; the second half brought Victoria's Secret models plus Eason Chan and Tony Leung, who used the slot to plug their new film See You Tomorrow.

Alibaba had booked nearly every star who had been hot over the past year. TFBoys sang three songs live. Joker Xue and Da Zhangwei, singers who had found new fame through variety shows, rewrote their lyrics for Double 11. Before every ad break, the Rainbow Chamber Singers sang transition numbers that folded in a preview of the next segment. And Yue Yunpeng worked every brand — plus Alibaba's own products — into the punchlines of his crosstalk routine.

If not for the hosts breaking in every few minutes to tell you to open the Tmall app and grab red envelopes, this could have passed for an episode of The Voice of China or a Zhejiang TV year-end gala.

But every one of these stars was there to make you buy, buy, buy. The Beckhams were selling their own products; Victoria's Secret had opened a Tmall flagship store the week before; and Tony Leung and Eason Chan were in the middle of promoting See You Tomorrow, the first film Alibaba Pictures led as investor and producer.

The product placement running through the show didn't grate much. Ever since U Can U Bibi, more and more variety shows have learned to write hard sells into the dialogue, and audiences are used to digging the show out of the advertising.

Midway through, there were two segments in which stars peeled off a layer as a treat for viewers — Liu Haoran and Lin Chi-ling each took off a coat — and nearly everyone in the venue had their eyes on their phones, including the reporters in the media center watching the feed and waiting for midnight.

After midnight on the 11th, the host in the media center announced that the gala had set a ratings record — again without giving a ratings number.

Now That Transaction Volume Isn't the Only Metric, What Numbers Did the Event Offer?

At 11:56 pm the gala ended and the big screen in the media center cut to Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, where Daniel Zhang and his team gave their customary on-camera rundown of Double 11 preparations.

Four minutes later the screen switched to the sales figure, a number climbing against a cat-shaped backdrop. The host shouted: "700 million, 800 million, 900 million... 1 billion! It only took 52 seconds! Last year it was 1 minute 20 seconds!"

As last year, the number was broken up with a period every three digits, so 1 billion read 1.000.000.000. This punchy display was clearly designed for English-speaking audiences — the format Wall Street is used to.

After that, Alibaba cycled through other ways of showing its data: lipstick sales during downturns, for instance, or lighting up the regions of China and of the world where transactions were happening.

The fancy displays didn't last. Just past the six-minute mark, the screen cut back to the big number. "10 billion! 6 minutes 58 seconds!"

That was more than five minutes faster than a year earlier. Everyone in the room stood up, phones and cameras clicking.

After that second milestone, executives started appearing. Ying Hong, who ran the gala project team, came before the media alongside director David Hill.

Hill had directed several Super Bowls, the Oscars and American Idol, taking over from Feng Xiaogang, who ran last year's show. Their pitch was "Silicon Valley plus Hollywood": a Hollywood-grade gala to show off Alibaba's Silicon Valley-grade technology.

But every question from the reporters was about this year's sales target.

"Double 11 is a happy holiday. Like the shopping festival itself, the numbers are a natural result," Ying Hong said when asked what the gala's sales target was, repeating Ma's line that Double 11 is entertainment. The one figure he gave: 6.8 billion interactions.

Alibaba had done plenty of groundwork to drive that interaction. Weibo, Didi and livestreaming platforms all added Double 11 content.

"35.3 billion yuan in the first hour means a lot — our whole day in 2013 was 35 billion." An hour into November 11, Daniel Zhang, in a Tmall-red T-shirt, appeared on camera again and reached for the 2013 comparison. A year earlier it had taken 1 hour 14 minutes to pass 30 billion yuan.

Over the next ten-odd minutes, Zhang talked about overseas markets, international brands and payment peaks. The same categories as always, just bigger this year: 195 countries and regions taking part, 13,000 international brands, Victoria's Secret sending models outside its own venue for the first time.

The new direction this year was the "thousand stores, ten thousand villages" program. Zhang said Alibaba hoped Rural Taobao could properly serve the rural market, which accounts for half the consuming population. This time he gave no number.

That was everything Alibaba wanted to say to the outside world on the eve of Double 11. Presales began on October 15, so at midnight the first thing shoppers did was pay their balances. As last year, the total exploded in the first few minutes and then slowed. Zero to 10 billion yuan took under 7 minutes; 10 billion to 35.3 billion took just over 53.

So far Alibaba had not moved American investors, who have largely lost interest in the transaction figure. The New York Stock Exchange opened at 11 am Beijing time. Alibaba's stock fell steadily after the open, wobbled, and was still down 2.48% at 1:25 pm. [Update, 8 am on the 11th: at the close, Alibaba's stock was down 2.41%, wiping out $10.1 billion in market value, while the Dow rose 1.17% over the same stretch.]

At 1:25 pm, reporters began filing out. The numbers on the big screen kept scrolling. The most prominent was still the yuan total, with the dollar figure below it.

Update, 2:00 pm on November 11

From midnight to now, the Double 11 total has kept climbing.

At 01:00:57, the total hit 36.2 billion yuan, passing the full-day total for Double 11 2013.

At 06:54:52, it broke 57.1 billion yuan, passing the total for Double 11 2014.

On Weibo and on Twitter, Alibaba kept posting the figure at every milestone. It had also built a dedicated official English-language site broadcasting the numbers in real time.

From 1 pm, the media center — at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Center — filled up again.

Every seat reserved for the press had a VR headset on it, with HTC staff still making final adjustments. Next up, Alibaba had a VR payment demo for the Chinese and international press — one of the new technologies this "we don't stress the numbers" Double 11 was pushing hardest.

At 14:07, the big screen switched back to the live total, already at 88 billion yuan and closing in on the full-day figure for Double 11 2015.

Update, 3:00 pm on November 11 | Alibaba really is serious about selling with VR

Guided by the hosts, everyone in the room put on a headset and tried a VR shopping channel called Buy+.

Once the headset was on, shopping scenes appeared: Macy's, an Australian farm. Following the blue dot at the center of your vision, you could open product details, place an order and pay.

You could feel that the space in front of you did give a little of the sense of "browsing." But maybe because of the network in the venue, the wait after you clicked buy was a bit long.

Alibaba is clearly serious about its VR shopping experiment. Zhuang Zhuoran, the senior director in charge of the technology, joined by video link from Hangzhou and showed three ways of getting products into the VR world: phone cameras, 3D scanners, and light-field capture, which can reproduce a product's sheen.

The phone method is already well advanced. Zhuang used a Taobao mascot doll and a model to demonstrate the whole process of shooting a VR product with a phone. It even has a name: the "God of Creation" project.

The last VR demo was a five-minute video about Rural Taobao, and almost nobody watched it through. The clock was closing in on last year's key milestone, 91.2 billion yuan, and no one wanted to miss the moment.

At 15:19:13, Alibaba's total hit 91.2 billion yuan, passing last year's full-day figure.

The number on the screen froze there, with a gaudy special effect.

The number is always what everyone here cares about most.

Update, 4:00 pm on November 11 | Rural Taobao, AliExpress, Cainiao, Alibaba Cloud — Alibaba had a lot it wanted to show off today

Rural e-commerce is something Alibaba and JD.com both talked up a great deal this year, and it made it into Double 11 too.

The event cut to a live link with two Rural Taobao staffers at village service stations in Guizhou and Henan. The stations are village convenience stores, except that a TV on the wall shows the Taobao app and a staffer posted there helps villagers place orders on the spot.

As the hosts asked villagers what they'd bought that day and what they still wanted, the beaming answers — with the occasional "thanks to the government" thrown in — recalled the regional cut-ins on the Spring Festival Gala.

Wu Minzhi, Alibaba Group senior vice president and president of the B2B business group, spent twenty minutes on Rural Taobao, AliExpress and the company's services for small and midsize businesses.

Beyond the countryside, Alibaba wanted to talk about going abroad. It has set up two offline experience stores, in Russia and Spain. The five biggest countries by transaction value were Russia, the United States, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, together accounting for two-thirds of the volume in Alibaba's "sell to the world" push. At 4 pm exactly, AliExpress announced its "Light Up the World" plan on stage.

After every demo and every live link ended, the big screen in front of me switched straight back to the ticking total, and the hosts opened each transition by telling everyone to look at the number.

"You only sit the gaokao once in your life, but Alibaba's engineers sit a big exam every year." Zhang Jianfeng, Alibaba's CTO, was the fourth executive to appear, by video link or in person.

Update, 5:00 pm on November 11 | Offline stores are helping drive Double 11 sales too

After a short break, Zhang Kuo, general manager of Alibaba Group's merchant division, Chen Xiaodong, CEO of Intime Retail Group, and Gong Zhenyu, vice president of Suning Commerce, sat down to discuss how Alibaba had pulled brick-and-mortar stores into this year's shopping marathon.

Weeks before Double 11, Tmall's cat-head logo had already appeared in dozens of Intime malls. And "Catch the Cat," an augmented-reality game in the Taobao app along the lines of Pokémon Go, had been funneling people into physical malls since before Double 11 began.

"It brought a huge amount of foot traffic offline, which for us is commercial traffic. But one group didn't like it — our security guards. Keeping order was genuinely hard; at one point we had to call in the SWAT police," Chen Xiaodong said, vouching for Tmall's pulling power.

Offline stores served as fulfillment nodes: an item ordered online might ship from a nearby shop, in some cases within two hours. They also doubled as repair points for Tmall goods.

And of course they helped with Tmall's sales problem. Suning ran scan-to-buy in 500 stores across 100 cities — a shopper who liked a product in person could scan a code, jump to the online store and order, and that sale still counted toward the Double 11 total. Mannings ran a promotion with partner brands too: spend 199 yuan, get 100 off, by scanning through to the brand's Tmall flagship store.

In the reporters' WeChat group, people were already asking when the total would break 100 billion yuan.

Update, 7:00 pm on November 11 | 100 billion yuan finally arrives, and the room breathes out

At 18:55:36, the 100 billion everyone had been waiting for arrived.

Going from 99.85 billion to 100 billion took a little over three minutes. In those three minutes, besides the big screen, the room glowed with dozens of phone screens held up ready to shoot. Then, as the host counted down the last few ten-million increments in an excited voice, the big explosion effect — already used a dozen-odd times that day — went off: 100 billion.

After a small cheer, the hosts started hustling the press onto buses for dinner. In an hour there would be more important material: payments, logistics, and Jack Ma, who still hadn't turned up.

The moment the total crossed 100 billion, Alibaba employees began passing two images around on social media: the photo of the live screen above, and a celebratory "100 billion" poster prepared in advance.

Update, 9:30 pm on November 11 | After 100 billion, growth slowed

A few minutes past 8 pm, with seats not yet full, Ant Group CEO Eric Jing took the stage. Maybe because the press hadn't all come back, the room felt thin. The figure on screen switched from the transaction total to the number of Alipay transactions, and then, when Cainiao Network CEO Tong Wenhong spoke, to the number of Cainiao orders, already past 560 million.

When the main screen did switch back, the growth was clearly slower since 100 billion: 100 billion to 105 billion took nearly 100 minutes.

From what I could see on site, Alibaba really did want to give the press stories other than the transaction total. Since 2 pm the media center had linked live to Rural Taobao, Cainiao Network, delivery couriers, shoppers in Hong Kong, even a merchant in the UK.

The venue had several small booths for technologies Alibaba has invested in, and more VR videos played through the afternoon. But every so often the room got pulled back to that ticking number. What reporters chased staff for was the live total, sales by province, brand sales rankings.

"At a moment like this, we can breathe a little easier too," the host said between roundtables, looking back over a few of the key milestones.

Update, 10:30 pm on November 11 | After 111.1 billion, the executives come out one by one

111.1 billion yuan was another marker. From 10 pm the hosts had the whole room waiting from 111 billion on. The estimate must have been off, because the wait dragged, and the screen switched to sales by province until 10:12 pm.

Once 111.1 billion arrived, a run of Alibaba executives took the stage. CMO Dong Benhong went first, recapping the livestream buildup and the previous night's gala. Daniel Zhang, who had held down headquarters in Hangzhou all day, had reached Shenzhen by now.

In a twenty-minute group interview, Zhang answered fewer than ten questions. One was unavoidable: "Why does the earnings report say you're not talking about GMV, when you've talked about nothing else all day?"

His answer was simple enough: GMV is both important and not important.

Update, midnight on November 11 | What did Jack Ma say?

At 11:09 pm, the screen showing the sales figure cut to Jack Ma walking down the aisle toward the stage in a knot of people, like a boxing champion's ring walk.

Reporters stood, holding up phones to shoot photos and video, with cheers breaking out here and there, just like the crowd in the main hall.

"This is a happy holiday. Happiness has become the number we most want to quantify." Once he had settled on stage, Ma spoke for 15 minutes, the transaction figure ticking behind him the whole time.

As always, Ma saved the most prized spot in his speech for the Chinese economy. Looking back on Double 11, he proposed a new "three horses" pulling China's economy: consumption, services and high technology. Through Double 11, he said, "you can see the domestic demand market of 1.3 billion people being pried open, bit by bit, by high technology and the internet."

Alibaba's founder compared the company to an engine of social innovation and said he was building a virtual economy — one like "the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, the European Union."

Asked about transaction volume (GMV), Ma said: "When we were a child, paying attention to GMV made sense. By now, paying too much attention to GMV actually does us harm."

With that, Ma left, trailed by reporters trying to catch up and photograph and livestream him.

The hosts took the stage back and immediately pulled the conversation to the figure scrolling on screen.

For the last 10 minutes, the whole room waited quietly, watching the numbers tick.

In the final 10 seconds, the hosts called for everyone to stand: "10! 9! 8!..."

At midnight, Double 11 ended. For the next half hour, the big screen stayed frozen on these two numbers:

¥120,748,589,125 $17,787,226,799