(Yicai Global) Nov. 12 -- Alibaba Group Holding and JD.Com, China’s two largest e-commerce players, set new sales records over the annual Double 11 period, the world’s biggest online shopping festival, despite slower growth in gross merchandise volume.

Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace had a GMV of CNY540.3 billion (USD84.5 billion) from Nov. 1 to 11, up 8.5 percent from a year ago, according to data the Hangzhou-based firm published today. It was the first time in the event’s 12-year history that the gain was less than double-digits.

JD’s GMV rose about 28.6 percent to CNY349.1 billion, the Beijing-based company said, slowing from a 32.8 percent clip a year earlier.

Some vendors did particularly well. On JD’s platform, 31 brands sold over CNY1 billion (USD156.3 million) of goods each, with Apple's exceeding CNY10 billion (USD1.6 billion). Almost 43,300 merchants saw their GMVs more than triple, while a number of new small and mid-sized brands saw them jump more than five-fold.

Other leading online platforms with e-commerce features, including Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou, have not yet released their Double 11 sales figures.

Electronics retailer Suning.Com revealed some data from the first 30 minutes of Double 11. Sales of mid- and high-end home appliances were 43 percent up from a year ago, the Nanjing-based firm said. Trade-in orders of smartphones almost tripled, mostly originating from Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chengdu. Sales of smart home appliances soared 88 percent, it added.

Delivery firms have been busy too. China's postal service and private couriers handled 4.8 billion express delivery items between Nov. 1 and 11, up more than a fifth from a year ago, according to the State Post Bureau. As many as 696 million express items were handled yesterday, shattering the previous record. 

Quick delivery options prompt certain kinds of shopping behavior. Apart from fresh food and daily necessities, Shanghai consumers were most interested in buying digital products such as mobile phones via JD's one-hour delivery service, according to the firm and its on-demand delivery app JD Daojia. Smartphones, tablets, and notebooks were the top three best-selling product categories, it added.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi