The past Single’s Day (11/11/2016), the world’s biggest online shopping day of the year, has just finished with Chinese shoppers spending $17.8bn in 24 hours. That’s a bit short of the $20 billion some analysts had expected sales to reach but easily surpasses the previous record, last year’s $14.3 billion. But still, a lot.

Let’s look at another number. Shanghai Daily reports that the sales total blew past $1.5 billion, an 8% of the total volume in the first seven minutes of the event.

Singles Day laughs in the face of Black Friday. Last year on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, according to Adobe, American shoppers spent about $4.45 billion online (and $12 billion at brick and mortar shops). And that’s over the span of two days and counting all retailers, not just one site. Cyber Monday online sales, meanwhile, were just over $3 billion, according to CNBS.

(Source: Forbes)

Singles Day started as “anti-Valentine’s” celebration for single people in China back in the 1990s. Alibaba, the online retail giant, spotted the commercial opportunity in Singles Day back in 2009 and has encouraged single people to celebrate and buy presents for themselves since then. It takes place in China on November 11 every year.

 

This resulted in 467 million parcels being delivered after 710 million payments were made, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua.

（Source: Routers）

Ma Yun, the CEO of Alibaba is even more ambitious to promote Singles’ Day globally. Huge international companies are offering big discounts: Apple is offering certain models of its Beats earphone at 50% off, while Nike promotes 60% off on a wide range of shoes and clothes. Even Costco, the local brand of the States is joining this year.

In addition to steep discounts on the site, Alibaba has made an early start to promote the event to build the anticipation for the big day, already generating plenty of buzz from its celebrity line-up at the countdown gala in Shenzhen and an eight-hour fashion show in Shanghai which shoppers can pre-order items and pay later. To push for more sales, the Alibaba has introduced a virtual reality shopping experience and a stream of web broadcasts.

This year, the countdown gala featured appearances from retired NBA star Kobe Bryant, footballer David Beckham and his fashion designer wife Victoria, and U.S. pop band OneRepublic. Jack Ma, the founder of the Alibaba Group, showed up to perform a magic trick, and the new Alibaba Pictures’ film production was also promoted during the gala.

(Source: NPR)

“It’s not thinking about ourselves as an ordinary company. It’s about thinking of ourselves as an economy,” said Ma Yun. “You can use your device, your mobile phone, to connect to this economy to do global business.”

Undoubtedly, Singles’ Day is China’s largest shopping and advertising event, which is a barometer of China’s strong consumer sector. Singles Day reflects the changing shopping habits of China’s consumers. The mobile market is playing a major role. Mobile purchases accounted for 72% of purchases in 2015, up from 43% in 2014, according to the Atlantic.