'Capture cities and seize territory' — Phrase of the Week
Fierce battles in China's Double 11 shopping festival
The context
Double 11 (双十一 shuāng shíyī) is China's largest online shopping festival.
Also known as Singles' Day, the two-week shopping showdown concludes on 11 November every year, hence the name "Double 11".
It was started in 2009 by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group as a one-day shopping festival offering large discounts to customers. Alibaba's two main e-commerce platforms, Tmall and Taobao, are the largest players in Double 11, delivering nearly half of all sales transacted.
JD.com, another major e-commerce platform based in Beijing, is the third largest player in terms of sales.
Two relative new-comers have made an impact in recent years: ByteDance-owned Dǒuyīn 抖音, a video streaming platform and China’s version of TikTok, and Pīnduōduō 拼多多, an online retailer which dominates China's second- and third-tier markets.
PDD and Douyin compete heavily on price with Alibaba and JD.com all year-round. They leverage live-stream e-commerce (电商直播 diànshāng zhíbō), through which influencers promote and sell products live to their fans.
Both Alibaba and JD priced aggressively in the run-up to this year's Singles' Day in response to increased competition, with discounts of 40%-50%.
Alibaba put pressure on merchants to price aggressively, saying it would offer 80 million products at their deepest discount of the year; meanwhile JD offered a 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) subsidy campaign which started in March, and a 30-day best-price guarantee on more than 800 million products, promising to compensate customers for the price difference if they found a cheaper product within a month.
Both platforms said they achieved sales growth during this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, with JD achieving "record breaking" sales.
Despite the positive tone, this is the second year in a row Alibaba and JD did not publish exact sales data, which would suggest sales may not be as good as they say.
This could be down to consumer caution in the tepid Covid recovery. But attacks from Douyin and PDD also hit hard.
The full impact not yet clear, one commentator notes:
Behind this year’s Double 11, there are much deeper changes taking place: Before the new paradigm is formed, new-comers will take advantage of the changes to capture cities and seize territory for big gains, while incumbents will look to keep their position of strength, and at the same time launch counterattacks.
今年双十一，背后更深的看点在于“格局谋变”：新格局未定之下，后入局者借变化之际攻城略地，图谋一击制胜；先入者则意欲在守住壁垒的同时，发起反攻。
Jīnnián shuāng shíyī, bèihòu gèngshēn de kàndiǎn zàiyú “géjú móubiàn”: xīngéjú wèidìng zhī xià, hòurùjúzhě jiè biànhuà zhījì gōngchéng lüèdì, túmóu yìjī zhìshèng; xiānrùzhě zé yìyù zài shǒuzhù bìlěi de tóngshí, fāqǐ fǎngōng.
And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week!
What it means
"Capture cities and seize territory" (攻城略地 gōngchéng lüèdì) is a four-character idiom.
Its meaning can be deciphered through an understanding of the four characters: "attack" (攻 gōng), “city” (城 chéng), "invade" (略 lüè), "land" (地 dì).
The idiom has roots deep in China’s history.
"Capture cities and seize territory" was first used in the Huainanzi (淮南子 huáinánzǐ), an ancient text and collection of essays recording scholarly debates held at the court of Liú Ān 刘安, Prince of Huainan, sometime before 139 BC.
The debates sought to define what it took to achieve perfect social and political order. According to the text, such perfection could be achieved under a "perfect" ruler. The essays were written as a handbook for an enlightened and benevolent leader to refer to.
Our phrase is found in the chapter, On Military Strategies (兵略训 bīnglüèxùn):
(The troop) is successful at conquering every city and seizing any land.
攻城略地，莫不降下。
Gōngchéng lüèdì, mòbù xiángxià.
Aggressive tactics and victory at all costs describing scenes on battlefields millenia ago are still very much alive in China's e-commerce sector today.
The bloody war on price, led by Douyin and PDD, has taken considerable territory from their competitors.
Although bruised, Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall still lead the market, for now. These two companies alone held 44% of market share in 2022 (down from 66% in 2019). JD.com has held its ground at around 20% of market share, while Pinduoduo increased from 10% to 18% in the same period.
But how long can it last?
Andrew Methven is the author of RealTime Mandarin, a resource to helping you learn contemporary Chinese in context, maintain and improve your Mandarin skills, and stay on top of the latest language trends in China.