YANGON—The local unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group sold over $90,000 worth of goods in the first hour of its first-ever online sale aimed at Myanmar shoppers on Sunday.
The local version of Alibaba’s global “11.11” online sale was conducted by Myanmar’s biggest online shopping platform, SHOP.com.mm. SHOP said in a statement that over 1,500 orders were placed in the first hour, most of them via mobile phones. The company offered discounts on 50,000 items, and over 150,000 users accessed its shopping app.
Major brands such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Honor, Ponds, Vaseline, ERKE, Adidas, Nike, Maybelline were discounted by up to 90 percent. The company also offered additional discounts of up to 22 percent for holders of VISA, CB VISA and AGD VISA cards. The site also offered a 0-percent commission to sellers.
Alibaba group expects online shopping in Myanmar to grow rapidly, driven by accelerating expansion of Internet penetration and mobile use in the country.
SHOP.com is owned by Daraz Group, which was obtained by Alibaba in May. Daraz, a leading South Asian e-commerce company, also has operations in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The SHOP.com website and its apps have been upgraded to include personalization features and data privacy protection. The 11.11 online sale was SHOP.com’s first such project since its acquisition by Alibaba.
Alibaba has announced that it aims to become the most trusted online shopping platform for both buyers and sellers through the use of the latest world-class technologies. It said it would make an effort to raise awareness about e-commerce among Myanmar citizens.
According to Telenor’s “Digital Myanmar 2018” report, the country has a mobile density (or penetration) rate of 105 per cent, while 80 percent of people access the Internet via smartphones. But the majority of the population is still not familiar with online shopping via card payment systems.
The widely used Myanmar Payment Union is not yet e-commerce enabled, but SHOP said it was looking for other payment options in Myanmar.
Regarding Sunday’s sale, SHOP co-managing director Frans Maas said, “11.11 is yet another historic mark in the development of the e-commerce industry in Myanmar.”
He added: “Never have so many people been buying and selling online in one day, and the response of both our sellers and customers has been very enthusiastic.”
Designated by the company as the “World’s Biggest Sale Day,” 11.11 is Alibaba’s major promotional activity. Last year the company posted sales of $25.4 billion on that day worldwide. The figure was up from $5.8 billion in 2013, $9.3 billion in 2014 and $14.3 billion in 2015.
