Double 11 2024 in Review
4 Takeaways
The Double 11 shopping festival (11.11, or Singles' Day) has long been considered Taiwan's most important e-commerce event.
Last year I asked whether the festival had lost its fizz, and I based the discussion on netizens' widespread disappointment online.
One month after this year's event, and now that the revenue figures are in, I took a deep dive into media reports and online feedback to see what has changed, who the winners and losers are, and what trends are emerging.
Below are my top 4 takeaways from Double 11 2024 in Taiwan.
Double 11 Remains Taiwan's Largest Shopping Event, but Shoppers Are More Strategic
Originally, when the Double 11 festival was imported from China, it was seen as more of a one-day shopping frenzy, where consumers scrambled for discounted deals.
Now there are many more events throughout the e-commerce calendar. These include the "618" promotion in mid-year (which coincides with graduation and job-hunting season) and the upcoming Double 12 event. As a result, consumers no longer feel they must wait for Double 11 to find the best deals.
Nevertheless, Double 11 remains Taiwan's biggest date on the shopping calendar and the most crucial period for e-commerce platforms. Rakuten Market, for example, stated that revenues grew 10x compared to regular days during the eleven days of the festival, while PChome reported a nearly 50% increase in site traffic compared to the previous month.
What has changed is shopping behavior. Consumers are strategically saving their major purchases—especially high-ticket items—for Double 11 while taking advantage of deals in the weeks leading up to the festival. This shift is largely due to merchants offering early warm-up promotions. Evidence of this trend appeared when this year's second-highest peak traffic during the Double 11 period occurred on October 31st (a typhoon day), over a week before the event. The actual peak occurred two days before Double 11, as shoppers tried to nab early promotions rather than waiting for the day itself (source: iThome)
momo and Shopee Were Winners, and Things Look Bleak for PChome
Only momo and Shopee reported increased sales compared to last year's festival.
According to Shopee's own announcements, they achieved sales that represented 26X that of an average day in just the first two hours of November 11th. They also reported that they sold over 30 million products within just 11 minutes—1.5X more than the previous year.
momo, as a listed Taiwanese company, just released revenue figures for the festival. They achieved blockbuster results this year, with revenues hitting NT$15.57 billion for the month of November, representing month-on-month growth of 91%, and a 3% increase from 2023. This is also a historical record in terms of monthly performance.
PCHome, on the other hand, looks to be in dire straits. Like momo, they had high expectations for the festival, but their revenues for November were only NT$4.36 billion, representing a drop of 11% from 2023.
Taobao’s Big Bets Seemed to Have Paid Off
By all accounts, it would seem that Taobao's mammoth investments in cross-border e-commerce in Taiwan have gifted them with some very impressive results.
In 2024, the Chinese e-commerce giant invested over NT$2 billion in free shipping subsidies for Taiwanese consumers with orders exceeding RMB ¥99. For the Double 11 festival, they sweetened the deal by offering NT$270 in shopping credit for new registrations, along with three free services: zero tax fees and free local returns. They also partnered with 7-11 and Hsinchu Logistics so that items could be delivered to 7,000+ 7-11 stores across Taiwan.
According to their announced figures, this has led to spectacular growth. They claim that the total number of orders during the promotion period saw a four-digit (1000%+) rise from 2023, and they also experienced a 300% increase in first-time orders from new consumers.
The company attributes some of its success to an early-start strategy. They launched their promotion officially at 8 PM on October 21st as a way to build early momentum for the year-end retail season and generate the first wave of shopper excitement before their competitors.
OMG for OMO: Offline Wins Online
The other big trend was that while marketplaces are slowing down, digital retail occurring on brand’s own channels is gaining speed. Online-merge-offline (OMO) merchants achieved historically high double-11 performance records, representing a change in both consumer behavior and e-commerce industry trends.
Cyberbiz, an e-commerce solution for merchants (think Asian Shopify), announced that its on-day revenue for OMO merchants during 11.11 grew 42% over the previous year, and online traffic increased by 23%. Moreover, over 90% of sales came from existing brand customers, highlighting strong customer retention.
Competitor platform Shopline also saw similar results. They reported that merchants with OMO channels outperformed online-only sellers by more than 10x.
There is quite a lot to unpack here.
First, consumers are clearly more willing to spend online when they already have a strong relationship with a merchant's offline presence. The buyer journey is more complex than before and covers a growing range of physical and digital touchpoints. While the final purchase may happen during the festival period due to waiting strategically for discounts, the research phase and purchase momentum often build through interactions at physical stores.
The power balance is swinging back to the brands and retailers who can circumvent marketplaces. There has been a greater and greater squeeze on brands to offer promotional discounts for a growing number of e-commerce events and to offer aggressive pricing in exchange for traffic on the marketplaces, which has made it harder for them actually to make money.
Now these brands have become digitally savvy and can offer better pricing and service through their own channels and also own the customer relationship.
In a year where, apart from momo and Shopee, the domestically based marketplaces underperformed, it looks like brands will concentrate more on their own channels in the coming years.