What's 618? Why Should You Care?
It's the largest mid-year shopping festival in China after Singles Day. Originally started by JingDong (JD.com), a China eCommerce platform, as a shopping event on June 18th, 2010, other eComm platforms have all hopped onto the bandwagon since then.
How big is 618 going to be this year?
According to Alibaba's Tmall, over 100K brands have signed up for this year's Tmall 618 festival, double the number last year.
10 million products have been discounted and in the first hour of presales, transactions are up 515% compared to last year.
(June 1st) Within the first hour and 29 minutes, sales were at 2 Billion yuan ($280 million USD)
(June 2nd) Taobao Live delivered total sales of 5.1 billion yuan with over 20 brands and merchants exceeding 10 billion yuan in live streaming.
So who should you care? You don't have a business in China.
We are seeing lots of businesses in Canada and beyond jumping in on this mid-year shopping festival.
Why? Well, who wouldn't want an excuse to plan a big blow-out sale to get rid of inventory and to bump up Q2 sales? 618 sounds like the perfect platform to do it.
Kiehls' 618 campaign consists of insane deals like buy 1 get 19
How are other brands doing it?
We handpicked some examples of brands taking part in this year's 618 festival for your reference. Due to the huge setbacks from Covid, international brands that previously didn't participate in this annual eComm shopping festival are going hard with this initiative.
OK, so who are we talking about?
Apple. iPhone 11 Discounted to 4629RMB ($880 CAD). As listed on the Canadian site right now it's starting from $979.
Nike. Just shake your phone while using their WeChat Mini Program and receive limited time offers. Additional items at 50% off.
Kiehls. Buy 1 get 19. You read that right. BUY 1 GET 19(!!!)
Is 618 for you? If you are in fashion, retail or consumer goods we would highly recommend you learn more about this initiative, since more businesses around the world are taking part regardless of where the initiative originated.
Tmall promoting the various Apple phone and tablet offers for Tmall 618
Shake your phone while using Nike's WeChat Mini Program to get limited-time offers. A nice way to surprise and delight!
I've got 2 weeks. I'll never make it!
Says who? Says you. Contact us today for our 618 WeChat campaign package. We'll turn around a campaign for you in 10 days. If you have any questions regarding your company's digital marketing strategy, reach out to us at info@catalystagents.com and our specialists will get back to you within 24 hours.