Eighteen And A Half Hours Into Alibaba's Double 11... Reflections

Where does Double 11 (Singles' Day, 11.11 or 双11) come from? You can check it all here as I won't write too much about it and its origins. Instead, I'll share with you some of my takeaways from participating in my second Double 11.

But First, Some Facts and Figures...

At 1:09:49PM today, we exceeded last year's 11.11's total growth merchandise value (GMV). It is now 6:26PM and the GMV has reached $21 billion (see live GMV updates here). I predict that we'll reach $24 billion at 11:59:59PM. Let's see if I'm right and feel free to share your predictions in the comments below.

At about 1AM today, my colleague Yassine at AntFinancial announced that Alipay managed to process over 250,000 transactions PER SECOND when Visa can process up to 65,000 transaction messages (as of 2016).

And despite the insane amount of orders placed within the first few seconds following the start of 11.11, Cainiao managed to deliver the first package 33 minutes and 15 seconds after a customer paid! A PR stunt you might say but this is still perfectly in line with my experience of buying stuff online in China. I've order products on Taobao in the morning and they ended up arriving in the afternoon.

So... What Is Making This All Possible?

Team Spirit: 3 months ago started the preparations for 11.11 and the pressure started rising in October as the warehouses were getting filled up with goods. But all of this wouldn't be possible without the amazing efforts of each and every Alibaba Group employee. That spirit was even displayed last night a few hours before the launch... Check this out (a few top execs in the picture):

The God of Wealth (I was "hired" for the day):

And a robust core

Alibaba Group will keep on leveraging its ecosystem including its core foundations (cloud computing, digital services, logistics network and payment) to help merchants do business anywhere while following its 3 core strategies: big data and cloud computing, rural development and globalization.

Last but not least, I predict that the future 11.11 will keep growing as the power of technology exponentially accelerates (see Ray Kurzweil's TED speech to get a grasp of what's coming).

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I've got so much more to share but will keep it straight to the point. Feel free to email me and I'll try to answer you as quickly as possible.

Dean