---
title: "Tmall Double 11 Observation: GMV No Longer Matters, Returning to Business Essence Becomes Key"
description: "The 2022 Tmall Double 11 shopping festival, despite challenges from the pandemic and global economic downturn, achieved transaction volumes on par with last year, demonstrating the resilience of the Chinese economy. More importantly, Tmall shifted its focus from GMV to long-term value creation, emphasizing member retention, support for emerging merchants, and enhanced consumer experiences, signaling a return to the essence of business."
author: "路言"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-11-16"
language: "en"
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---

# Tmall Double 11 Observation: GMV No Longer Matters, Returning to Business Essence Becomes Key

> The 2022 Tmall Double 11 shopping festival, despite challenges from the pandemic and global economic downturn, achieved transaction volumes on par with last year, demonstrating the resilience of the Chinese economy. More importantly, Tmall shifted its focus from GMV to long-term value creation, emphasizing member retention, support for emerging merchants, and enhanced consumer experiences, signaling a return to the essence of business.

**01**
Every year, Tmall's Double 11 has, to some extent, become a barometer of the Chinese economy, and the 2022 Double 11 is no exception. The complex situation has brought varying degrees of challenges to all walks of life in the Chinese business community. At such a juncture, Double 11 has become exceptionally important. After all, Double 11 not only reflects the overall purchasing power of consumers in society but also has a significant impact on the business performance of a large number of brands and merchants on the Tmall platform.
If brands and merchants perform well in sales, it will drive the rebound of upstream supply chain enterprises, which in turn will create more employment. The recovery of employment will then drive the recovery of overall social consumption power, forming a positive cycle. It is for these reasons that "Lishi Business Review" has paid special attention to this year's Tmall Double 11.
With the conclusion of the 2022 Double 11, Tmall did not announce specific GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) this year but stated that the transaction scale of this year's Tmall Double 11 was flat compared to last year. According to last year's public information, the total transaction volume of Tmall Double 11 in 2021 was 540.3 billion yuan. This also means that this year's Tmall Double 11 transaction scale is still in the range of 540 billion yuan.
Under the dual impact of the worsening COVID-19 pandemic and the global macroeconomic recession, it is quite commendable that Tmall Double 11 achieved such results in 2022.

**02**
The huge transaction scale of this Tmall Double 11 well reflects the resilience of the Chinese economy. On the one hand, China has the world's largest consumer population; on the other hand, it has the world's richest supply of goods, which is the most unique confidence of the Chinese economy.
In addition to the resilience of the Chinese economy, Tmall's performance in this Double 11 also had many highlights. Among them, what impressed me most is that **returning to the essence of business has become the common direction explored by platforms and merchants this year.**
Readers familiar with the development history of Alibaba Group and the Tmall platform will know that the Tmall platform was originally born out of the urgent needs of brand owners and consumers at that time.
At that time, China's e-commerce industry was still in a chaotic state. From the perspective of brand owners, they needed a formal e-commerce platform that matched their brand tone; from the perspective of consumers, they needed a trustworthy e-commerce platform where they could buy genuine and authentic products with their eyes closed, to solve the problem of choice difficulty.
However, under the industrial environment at that time, Tmall Mall, as a newly launched e-commerce platform, found it difficult to quickly win public trust. Therefore, Zhang Yong, the current Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group and then the head of Tmall, decided to hold Double 11, bringing Tmall's new model to thousands of households through such fixed-node large-scale promotional activities.
In the early years of Double 11, due to the differentiated value it brought to brand owners and consumers, it received enthusiastic responses from both sides, leading to the vigorous development history of Tmall Double 11 over the next decade or more.
But with the continuous evolution of Double 11, and as other competitors also joined the annual Double 11 activities, the importance of GMV gradually rose.
Even on some platforms, in order to increase sales, the value of brand merchants and consumers was increasingly ignored, deviating from the original intention of Double 11.
As the industry gradually enters a mature stage, such problems must be solved.
As a bilateral platform connecting brand merchants and consumers, creating real value for both is the foundation for its long-term sustainable development.
So this year's Double 11, Tmall, as an industry leader, took the lead in making changes. It began to rethink the essence of creating value for merchants and consumers, and short-term transactions that sacrifice long-term value are meaningless.
Therefore, it decided to bid farewell to the business strategy of GMV-only, which is also an important background for why Tmall did not release specific GMV this year.
Among Tmall's many long-term measures, what impressed me most is that Tmall invested huge resources and energy in **accumulating store members**, a measure that focuses on long-term value rather than short-term transactions.
It is reported that during the Tmall Double 11 pre-sale period, major brands gained over 66 million new members on Tmall.
**Member users ultimately played a ballast role in the transactions of various brand merchants.**
Taking the opening day of November 1 as an example, 82 brands including Nike, P&G, Natural堂, Babycare, Linsy Furniture, L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, Winona, Huawei, Xiaomi, Robam Appliances, Haier, Hisense, Purcotton, Bosideng, Uniqlo, Chow Sang Sang, Li-Ning, Anta, and The North Face saw member transaction amounts exceed 100 million yuan; in addition, for 2,700 well-known brands, more than 50% of their transaction amounts came from member users.
Beyond the transaction value generated in this Double 11, more importantly, these members truly become the core assets of various brand merchants, contributing stable and efficient output over a longer period in the future, which is conducive to enhancing the certainty of business for various brand merchants.
This will also help merchants accumulate assets for long-term sustainable operations on the Tmall platform, thereby continuously building brand mindshare and achieving high-quality growth in the new stage of e-commerce.
**In addition to promoting member transactions, Tmall also focused on strengthening support for emerging merchants. A healthier e-commerce ecosystem must have the continuous addition of new-generation merchants so that the platform can thrive endlessly.**
For example, in terms of young merchants, Tmall and Taobao, by lowering barriers and focusing on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises and young entrepreneurs, drove the emergence of nearly 1 million post-00s merchants and 3 million post-90s merchants on the Tmall and Taobao platforms during this Double 11, providing a foundation for the long-term innovation vitality of Tmall and Taobao.
Data shows that during the first wave of sales on Tmall Double 11, the overall transaction volume of post-00s merchants increased by 23.7% year-on-year. The addition of young merchants also greatly enriched the growth of Tmall and Taobao platforms in some emerging categories from the supply side.
For example, in fields such as sports, outdoor, pets, automobiles, storage and organization, alcohol, motorcycles, DIY, adult products, musical instruments, and books, the transaction volume of post-00s merchants grew particularly significantly year-on-year.
**Building core industrial belts and agricultural belts is also an important strategy for Tmall and Taobao on the supply side.** During this Double 11, the overall transaction volume of multiple industrial belts across the country achieved triple-digit year-on-year growth.
For example, the bedroom furniture industrial belts in Yangjiang, Wuxi, and Fuzhou saw overall transaction growth of over 1000% within 4 hours of sales; the custom furniture industrial belts in Hefei and Weifang grew by nearly 800%; the children's furniture industrial belts in Shandong and Hunan grew by over 500%; the whole-house smart industrial belts in Jinan and Zhuhai grew by over 400%; and the lighting and light source industrial belts in Zhuhai and Huai'an grew by over 300%.
In terms of agricultural belt expansion, during this Tmall Double 11, Alibaba issued the "One More Agricultural Product" initiative, "letting agricultural products move from the back row to the front row during Double 11, be the protagonist for 3 more minutes, and make the villagers' wallets a bit fuller."
After the initiative was issued, top streamers such as Li Jiaqi, Bee's Surprise Club, Lie'er Baby, and Chen Jie Kiki joined in succession. According to statistics, the sales of agricultural products in 160 national key counties for rural revitalization assistance increased by 35% year-on-year, and the sales of more than 46,000 agricultural products increased by over 100% year-on-year.

## **In addition, due to the unique value of Tmall and Taobao in the e-commerce field, this Double 11 also welcomed many new brand merchants and top streamers.**
##  For example, there are luxury brands such as Brunello Cucinelli, Moncler, and Ferrari; offline internet-famous brands such as % Arabica coffee and Bao Master; the first e-commerce flagship store in China of chip giant NVIDIA; and domestic emerging electric vehicle brands such as XPeng, Zeekr, Polestar, and Avatr.
**What is most surprising is that a large number of top streamers who rose on other live-streaming platforms collectively flocked to Taobao.**
For example, there is Liu Siyao Nice, a top influencer under Wuyou Media with 33 million fans across the internet; Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental, who led the company's transformation into live-streaming e-commerce; Luo Yonghao, the traffic leader of the "Friends" live-streaming room; and Wang Wanfei Vivi, wife of Liu Genghong, who became popular recently...
**In addition to committing to enhancing the value of brand merchants, the consumer value on the other end of the bilateral platform cannot be ignored. Regarding consumer value, Tmall also made many new measures this year.**
For example, Tmall upgraded the user shopping cart, increasing the maximum number of items that can be added from 120 to 300;
Launched 3D shopping, fully opening a new immersive shopping experience;
Upgraded the price protection service rules, extending the price protection period from 15 days after payment to 27 days;
Launched logistics exception order custody service, actively identifying and intervening in consumers' problematic logistics orders, with dedicated customer service for 88VIP users;
Upgraded the senior version of Taobao, adding features for buying groceries and medicine for elderly users, providing free pharmacist consultations for medicine buyers, and equipping them with dedicated human customer service;
During the Double 11 pre-sale and instant sale periods, eligible Tmall merchants can enjoy a 20% discount on "return shipping insurance" premiums;
In the next 3 years, consumers purchasing large appliances and home furnishing items such as wardrobes, beds, and washing machines on Tmall will achieve 100% "one-time door-to-door delivery and free installation"...
**The above measures are not short-term measures that directly stimulate transactions, but are truly helpful to merchants in terms of business and improve consumer experience.**

**03**
Mr. Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic in Japan, who is known as the "Saint of Management," was once asked at a public event, "What is management?" At that time, Matsushita replied, "Management is like carrying an umbrella when it rains."
"Carrying an umbrella when it rains" - this answer confused many people at the scene at the time, but it greatly shocked a young man present. This young man was Kazuo Inamori, the founder of Kyocera Group, who would later have a significant impact on Japanese business history.
Inamori believed that Matsushita's "carrying an umbrella when it rains" precisely revealed the core essence of management. There is nothing mysterious about it; it is like doing the right things, just as you carry an umbrella when it rains.
China's e-commerce industry has developed for many years, and during this process, various competitors have risen and fallen, but ultimately it has also verified this viewpoint.
What ultimately remains are those enterprises that grasp the essence of e-commerce, that is, creating sustainable value for merchants and consumers. As the leader, Tmall and Taobao have undoubtedly created the greatest value.
Among them, from the consumer side, Tmall and Taobao are the e-commerce platforms in China that can provide the richest categories and the best combined experience of price and quality.
From the brand and merchant side, Alibaba Group's unique mission of "making it easy to do business anywhere" makes Tmall and Taobao the most friendly e-commerce platforms for B-end brand merchants, which also makes them the best battlefield for brand merchants to conduct long-term business.
This is also an important reason why Double 11 has expanded from only 27 participating merchants in the first session to 290,000 brands and over a million small and medium-sized merchants participating in Tmall Double 11 this year.
**The value of merchants and consumers ultimately determines the value of the platform.**
Therefore, for Tmall and Taobao, behind no longer focusing on GMV is the platform's hope to advocate the entire industry to return to the business essence of "value creation."
Only by continuously doing the right things can they create unique value in China's e-commerce industry, and their moat can be continuously consolidated.


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