10 Chinese Brands That Excelled on Tmall During This Year’s 618 Shopping Festival

June 29, 2021June 29, 2021 Kejie Yi

This year’s 618 shopping festival went above and beyond previous years, truly claiming its spot as the second largest shopping holiday in China. In total, the GMV generated from the shopping festival reached 578 billion RMB. In addition to those traditional players such as JD, Tmall and Suning, more platforms joined the game, such as Douyin and Kuaishou. For example, the number of brands that participated in Douyin’s 618 activities was 2.9X higher than last year.

Tmall turns out to be the main battlefield for most brands. This year, it attracted 250k brands to join, which was 2.5 times the scale of 2020. Among them, 8,200 brands participated in the Tmall 618 shopping festival for the first time. A lot of brands used the holiday not only as a chance to boost sales, but also as a chance to test out new products. In fact overall there were 1.4 million newly launched items.

Today’s article stems from a report published by Alibaba’s Alimama marketing platform. The report shares 618 case studies from 100 global and Chinese brands. Here we’d like to highlight 10 of the Chinese brands included in the report and share their results.

For brands that we didn’t mention in our previous articles, we will start close monitoring them. Subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned!

1. Breo (倍轻松) – Massage Devices

Breo is a Shenzhen-based brand founded in 2000. It is well-known for its massage devices which combine traditional Chinese medicine with advanced technology.

Tmall 618 Shopping Festival — Xiao Zhan speaking for Breo. Source: Weibo@breo倍轻松.

What makes the brand known to the public is its ambassador Xiao Zhan (肖战). He has 29 million followers on Weibo. Xiao once had a massive scandal for allowing his followers to start an Internet war with a platform that presented Xiao’s image negatively. He was criticized by news outlet People’s Daily (人民日报), the mouth of Chinese government.

Even though many thought his career must be ruined from the scandal, after laying low for a while, Xiao magically recovered and has begun working with numerous brands. The most buzz-about one is his appointment as ambassador for Li Ning (李宁), a Chinese sports brand that is often compared with Nike. Xiao is definitely a person that is always in the spot-light and Breo has benefitted from it. During 618, the number of new customers grew 150%. Its neck massage device, eye massage device and scalp massage device all ranked TOP1 in their corresponding product category on Tmall.

2. Xiao Mi (小米) – Technology

Xiao Mi is first known for its mobile phones. It successfully expands its business categories into digital home appliances. Like its phones, the prices of its appliances are more affordable compared with other products in the same category.

During the 618 shopping festival, Xiaomi’s sales on Tmall broke 3 billion RMB. On June 1, an hour after the first round of 618 began, its sales were already higher than its sales from the whole first day last year.

3. Xiao Xian Dun (小仙炖) – Supplements

Chinese people have always been very focused on anti-aging, and birds’ nest supplements are seen as one of the most effective supplements.

During the 618 shopping festival, Xiao Xian Dun ranked TOP1 on Tmall in the birds’ nest category. The number of customers that purchased its annual set grew 113% year-over-year. The annual set, which has 336 bottles, cost 27,591 – 84,405 RMB.

You may wonder why there is such a big price disparity for one set. This is because Xiao Xian Dun doesn’t want to scare its customers with extremely high prices. So it has different portions for several sets, such as the 100g x 336 bottles, 70g x 336 bottles or 45g for each bottle.

Live streaming played a huge role in Xiao Xian Dun’s success. In total, its brand-run live streams contributed 21 million RMB in sales during the 618 campaign.

4. Adopt A Cow (认养一头牛) – Food & Beverage

Adopt A Cow is a Chinese diary brand that managed to surpassed two giants, Mengniu Diary (蒙牛) and Yili (伊利), and ranked TOP1 in its category during last year’s Double 11.

24 hours into the presale of this year’s 618 shopping festival, Adopt A Cow achieved over 13 million RMB in sales on Tmall, which was already more than the total sales amount during last year’s presale. It also gained a lot of new followers during this year’s shopping holiday, helping its Tmall store to pass the 10 million followers milestone. In terms of the amount of average per order, it improved 120% compared with the same time last year.

Why has the brand been so successful? To compete with Mengniu and Yili, Adopt A Cow introduced a new way to approach its customers. It is also building relationship with customers through customer feedback groups, livestream and farm visits and allowing customers to actually adopt a cow.

5. Genki Forest (元气森林) – Food & Beverage

Not long ago, we just wrote about Genki Forest’s scandal. Genki Forest is a soda water brand known for its super healthy ingredients with zero sugar and low fat. But it turns out the brand was misguiding its customers to think it’s zero sugar which in fact, it contains sugar.

However, it seems that consumers quickly forgot the scandal, or maybe they have chosen to ignore it because they love the brand’s drinks too much. During 168, Genki Forest managed to obtain 20 million new customers. It ranked in the TOP 10 in the beverage industry during presale period. Its 618 advertisements also helped the brand increase traffic to its Tmall store by 30%.

6. Toffee (奶糖派) – Underwear

We’ve talked a lot about Ubras, which is a young and fast-growing domestic underwear brand. It’s best known for its one-size-fits-all bras. Well, Toffee is the opposite. Instead of targeting the masses with a one-size-fits-all product, Toffee specifically targets large-chested women.

The brand distinguishes itself with its thoughtful designs and the close relationship with its end users. During the 618 shopping festival, it managed to grow its number of Gen Z customers by 645%. Only 40 minutes after the sale began, the sales amount already surpassed what it achieved in a whole day last year.

Toffee also successfully gets itself enter the TOP 10 in the underwear category on Tmall and it is the TOP 1 in the large chested bras category.

7. Urban Revivo – Apparel

While many international fast fashion brands’ results in China are declining, Chinese brand Urban Revivo is thriving. And it’s not only succeeding in China, but also doing well abroad in many international markets.

During 618, just 11 hours after the shopping festival began, its sales amount already surpassed the sales that it took 3 days to achieve last year. Statistics also show that, the number of customers between the ages of 18-24 grew 8% this year.

8. Warm Studio or Guliang Jiji (古良吉吉) – Bags

Warm Studio or Guliang Jiji was founded in 2012 in Hangzhou, China. The brand’s Chinese name comes from the names of the creators of the brand who also happen to be a couple. Jiji, she is the designer of the brand, and Guliang, who oversees the business side of things, aka, everything else except design.

The price of Warm Studio’s bags are on the pricier side for a Chinese bag brand, almost that the entry lux level. They are sold between 500-2700 RMB. Those bags are very recognizable either in terms of their materials, texture or their designs. I bought a very tiny one which can only store airpods inside, and I was very surprised by how the bag looks and feels. It surpassed my expectations. This is my favorite Chinese bag at the moment!

During the 618 shopping festival, the number of its Gen Z customers on Tmall grew 670%, and its active customers grew 145%. In terms of ROI, it improved 90%.

9. Boohee (薄荷健康) – Food & Beverage

Boohee first started as a platform that provide healthy consultations but now it has expanded into products, specifically, meal plans. Its Tmall flagship store sells low fat, low sugar food, such as chicken breast, pre-made meals, etc.

Just an hour after the 618 shopping festival began, the brand’s sales already surpassed what it did last year for a whole day. It has also successfully lowered the cost to attract new customers to the store, and its ROI improved 15% this year.

10. KEEP – Fitness

KEEP is first known as a fitness app. It was founded in 2015. I use it a lot as it has many tutorials for different levels and different body parts that you want to target. To enrich its monetization methods, KEEP sell peripheral products on its Tmall store, including clothes and fitness equipment.

An hour after 618 began, it managed to sell more than what it did last year in a day. By 23:59 on June 1, the GMV of KEEP grew 104% compared with the same time last year. Its JD Tmall store’s GMV achieved great progress, with 323%. Not only domestically, the brand’s sales grew over 50% when it comes to international orders.