China's Singles Day has smashed records yet again.
The total value of orders reported by e-commerce giant Alibaba during this year's online shopping bonanza hit $17.8 billion, easily topping the previous record of $14.3 billion set in 2015. That's more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
Singles Day is an entertaining festival widespread among young Chinese people, to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single. The date, November 11th (11/11), is chosen because the number "1" resembles an individual that is alone. This festival has gradually become one of the largest online shopping days in the world, with sales in Alibaba's sites Tmall and Taobao at US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, and over US$14.3 billion in 2015.
This is a very large increase from 2015. In 2015, the rise was mainly due to the sales boost from overseas products and the adoption of an omni-channel strategy. I would be interested to see what caused such a significant rise this year. It was projected that Alibaba's use of entertainment is what would cause this rise, but I'm wondering if there were other aspects to that as well.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that this has grown as much as it has since 2009. The article says it started at 27 merchants and now there are more than 16,000 participants which could have also been a factor that caused such a large increase from 2015. Also the convenience of technology and delivery may be a factor to consider as well.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see an analysis comparison between Alibaba vs Amazon. Both are corporate giants who excel at their craft.
ReplyDeleteI would be intrigued to see those numbers as well. Alibaba most definitely excels at reaching the Chinese market where Amazon has not reigned in some of the same success.
DeleteI'm surprised that I have never heard of this day before. It is crazy to think that the sales from this day are more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. I do think that celebrating being single is a clever idea to make money; just by looking at the internet it is a very popular topic.
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