iPrice sees 86% rise in online traffic at midnight for 11.11 Sale

• Increased online traffic indicates lots of interest this year for 11.11 Sale
• Online payment gateways unfortunately buckled as sale kicked off

ONLINE traffic grew exponentially at 12am on Nov 11 by as much as 86% when compared to a similar period in the previous month according to an analysis by iPrice Group. The big growth in online traffic was evident as multiple e-commerce platforms experienced issues with their payment gateways from midnight onwards.

iPrice Group recently presented its analysis on how the  11.11 Sale has influenced consumer behaviour and shared its insights on how businesses can better prepare themselves for future sales events in the future.

No doubt, the online shopping festival has gained much attention in Malaysia this year as various e-commerce players actively promoted the sale with activities and extravagant promotions.

Another interesting observation this year was that consumers began searching for deals as early as 9pm on Nov 10. This proved to be significant as just a year ago, consumers only began searching for 11.11 Sale deals after 11pm.

iPrice said this indicated an increased interest in the sale as it was influenced by extravagent campaigns. One such example was by Lazada, who organised their first live event to launch its sales campaign. This was similar to other e-commerce players such as Shopee, 11street and FashionValet.

In addition, various e-commerce platforms had been encouraging their customers to save their preferred products and deals in their online shopping cart prior to Nov 11. This has influenced consumers to shop onine much earlier to secure their orders.

According to the whitepaper, the State of E-commerce, online traffic during the weekends is usually lower  compared to weekdays. This was not the case for Singles’ Day when online traffic grew exponentially on Sunday, Nov 11.

In the morning of the sale day, consumers began searching for deals as early as 8am. Online traffic was significantly higher throughout the day and reached its peak at 8pm. This is a unique trend in 2018 because online traffic in the previous year was more stable at 8pm.

This trend was probably influenced by the increased number of promotions which were offered at specific timings. For example, merchants such as Lelong and 11street organised live shows or flash deals at  certain times of the day to promote a specific product, category, or brand.

One similar trend continued from the previous year was that consumers are avid last-minute shoppers. This was evident as there was a rapid rise in online traffic between 8pm and 12am, indicating that consumers were shopping for last-minute 11.11 Sale deals.

Popular keywords searched on Google prior to and during the 11.11 Sale were airline, supermarket, food and beverage promotions. Forty-six percent of the most popular keywords were airline related promotions. The most searched airline keywords during the Singles’ Day period were brand names like ‘airasia’, ‘malindo air’, and ‘malaysia airlines’.

Keywords related to supermarket deals were popular as well such as ‘aeon big’, ‘tesco’, ‘giant’, and ‘econsave’. As for food and beverage deals, consumers were searching for ‘secret recipe’, ‘starbucks’ and ‘sukiya’ and ‘kfc’.

You can find more details in the attached images and document or in their insights section: https://iprice.my/trends/insights/post-singles-day-analysis-2018/