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ver Story
China's Singles Day
The World’s Biggest
Shopping Event
The world’s biggest shopping The enormously successful Chinese e-commerce
event occurs every year on marketing effort has grown so huge it’s practically an
November 11, and most Americans economic indicator.
are only vaguely aware of it. As the
name suggests, Singles Day was The holiday has transformed into a massive one-
started as an unofficial celebration day shopping event thanks to the clever marketing
of a person’s singledom, an anti- strategies of Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba in
Valentine’s Day, founded in 2009. The company went public on the New York Stock
the 1990s by Chinese university Exchange in 2014. The next year, Singles Day broke a
students. The date selected was Guinness World Record for the highest online sales
11/11 since it is fittingly full of 1’s to revenue generated by a single company in 24 hours at
symbolize solo living. $14 billion.
Over the past decade, the online shopping event has
developed from a domestic online sales promotion
to a global shopping carnival. This year, Chinese
e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com reported more
than $60 billion in sales on the one day alone. More
than 22,000 international brands from 78 countries and
more than half a billion people from several continents
participate in the event.
At its peak this year, 544,000 orders were placed in
one second on TMall, setting a new record for peak
online traffic in the world. The new records reflect
China's rising economic strength. In terms of money
spent, China's one-day jubilee of consumption has
already eclipsed predictions of Thanksgiving, Black
Friday and Cyber Monday — combined. Adobe
Analytics, the retail data tracking service, estimates
that the long US holiday shopping weekend this year
will generate total retail sales of only $29 billion, less
7 AmCham South China
China's Singles Day
The World’s Biggest
Shopping Event
The world’s biggest shopping The enormously successful Chinese e-commerce
event occurs every year on marketing effort has grown so huge it’s practically an
November 11, and most Americans economic indicator.
are only vaguely aware of it. As the
name suggests, Singles Day was The holiday has transformed into a massive one-
started as an unofficial celebration day shopping event thanks to the clever marketing
of a person’s singledom, an anti- strategies of Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba in
Valentine’s Day, founded in 2009. The company went public on the New York Stock
the 1990s by Chinese university Exchange in 2014. The next year, Singles Day broke a
students. The date selected was Guinness World Record for the highest online sales
11/11 since it is fittingly full of 1’s to revenue generated by a single company in 24 hours at
symbolize solo living. $14 billion.
Over the past decade, the online shopping event has
developed from a domestic online sales promotion
to a global shopping carnival. This year, Chinese
e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com reported more
than $60 billion in sales on the one day alone. More
than 22,000 international brands from 78 countries and
more than half a billion people from several continents
participate in the event.
At its peak this year, 544,000 orders were placed in
one second on TMall, setting a new record for peak
online traffic in the world. The new records reflect
China's rising economic strength. In terms of money
spent, China's one-day jubilee of consumption has
already eclipsed predictions of Thanksgiving, Black
Friday and Cyber Monday — combined. Adobe
Analytics, the retail data tracking service, estimates
that the long US holiday shopping weekend this year
will generate total retail sales of only $29 billion, less
7 AmCham South China
