-   Records resilient performance and significant economic impacts

Daraz concluded an impactful 11.11 sale last Thursday, delivering massive sales upliftment’s to its sellers and brand partners, despite economic headwinds and supply chain logjams.

The shopping festival brought more than 5Mn users to the Daraz platform, and more than 1 Mn users visited the platform on the first day of the sale. This outcome signals the growing popularity for eCommerce across the country. It is interesting to note that almost 50% of the traffic to the app was generated from outside the Western Province, which indicates that the adoption of eCommerce is growing even in provinces further away from the Western Province. E-commerce is bridging urban-rural divides and linking informal and smaller vendors to large consumer markets across the island, while enhancing accessibility to a wider variety of goods and services.

Sri Lanka’s largest online marketplace launched great discounts and giveaways boosted by influencers, and hosted more than 80,000 sellers and 6 million products. The sale was pivotal for brands, both large and small, and more than 60% of Daraz’s active sellers on the platform benefited from the sale, including more than 7000 small and medium businesses.

Commenting on the sale outcomes, the Managing Director of Daraz Sri Lanka, Rakhil Fernando said, “Planning our 11.11 mega sale is never easy, and this year it was even more difficult, given the current economic conditions. But I am thrilled to say that the 11.11 mega sale was a great success. It definitely boosted both consumer and business confidence and delivered an exciting retail experience to consumers. This year, we invested a lot into educating and engaging more sellers, especially fashion sellers, and also focused on enhancing the shopping experience for consumers in new and exciting ways. Delivering this kind of enhanced seller and customer experience is important because it will set the pace of growth in 2023. We are grateful to our sellers, buyers, payment and brand partners for their contribution to the success of 11.11, and look forward to growing this industry further in Sri Lanka.”

While perennially popular segments such as Consumer Electronics saw year-on-year GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) growth, categories such as Fashion, Health and Beauty, Mother and Baby, and FMCG stood out and achieved high   sales numbers during this 11.11mega campaign.

In addition to Daraz’s attractive discounts, giveaways and rewards, sellers and brand partners also contributed amazing deals that were pivotal to delivering the biggest retail shopping experience in Sri Lanka. Popular consumer brands including Signature, DSI, Huawei, Brown & Company, Unilever, Hemas, Swisstek, Celcius and Baseus participated as Diamond partners in this year’s sale and reported record GMV growth and upliftments. Reckitt Benkiser, Teleseen, Ugreen, Metropolitan Technologies, Mobil, Laveena Sarees, Canon (Photohub)  , ProMate, Spring & Summer, Phoenix, LouisWill and Janet were Gold partners in this year’s 11.11 sale, and also achieved exciting levels of growth and new customers.

Commenting on the impact of the campaign, Chief Operating Officer of Daraz, Darshika Attanayake opined, “The 11.11 campaign took place against a backdrop of macroeconomic volatility and supply chain disruption. Daraz responded to these challenges well ahead of the sale, by streamlining its operations, bolstering its delivery fleet and switching to more sustainable delivery modes such as bicycles. As the largest eCommerce operator in the country, we achieved great delivery efficiencies during the sale, where more than 600,000 items were delivered to various locations across Sri Lanka, and we delivered an average of 20 packages per litre of fuel. More importantly, around 30-35% of the deliveries were completed on bicycles, and Daraz created 400 new job opportunities during the 11.11 sale this year.”

Daraz hosted a music festival with popular artists to launch the 11.11 mega sale at the stroke of midnight on 11 November, and the festivities continued throughout the campaign period. From 11 November to 17 November, the Daraz Live feature on the app streamed live shows by sellers and games and entertainment shows that kept both sellers and buyers engaged throughout. The sale boosted the adoption and use of digital payments, as digital payment users grew by 10X and Daraz saw a 70% increase in digital payments during the mega sale.

The biggest sale of the year contributed to the growing popularity of not just the Daraz brand but so many other brands across Sri Lanka. It revitalised business and consumer confidence and also enabled so many sellers to better understand buyer sentiments and plan strategically for the upcoming shopping season and 2023.