Why did we redirect Alibaba traffic to Uniqlo's offline stores on the biggest e-commerce day of the year?

First, while the Alibaba ecosystem drives huge volumes - it's hugely competitive and cluttered, the opposite of the preferred Uniqlo experience.

Second, Single's Day consumers in particular are bargain hunters primarily, delivering thin margins combined with high customer acquisition costs inside Alibaba ecosystem.

Third, owning the direct customer relationship is essential to Uniqlo - and in their offline stores, they are able to deliver a truly value-added customer experience.

By combining both offline and online purchase data, we were able to identify multiple methods to bring Uniqlo's Alibaba shoppers to their offline stores.

First, we looked at past years' Single's Day performances and understood which categories are least likely to be purchased online: high price, low discount items, such as down jackets and vests, were added to carts but dropped off.

We then looked at Uniqlo's sales data, identifying the top selling categories and product lines in-store.

Combing these two sources, we identified the five top product lines to target.

We designed unique creatives featuring different product lines, offering coupons and put "lower in-store prices."

Then, we targeted these messages to all consumers with these 5 product lines in shopping cart this Single's Day, and those who have browsed similar offerings from competitors.

If the consumers were close to Uniqlo stores, the coupon value was even higher to provide a bigger incentive for consumers to visit.

In stores, we provided value-added services such as smart shop assistants, alternate service and speed checkout.

This offline plus online approach helped Uniqlo win the apparel category on Single's Day, delivering a dramatic improvement on previous years.

Not only was foot traffic to Uniqlo's stores 10 times more than last year during Single's Day, critically each offline Single's Day order was 34% higher value compared to online orders.