Alibaba shadowed Black Friday and Cyber Monday with $9.3 billion in the first 90 minutes

By Money Times

Nov 12, 2015 07:33 PM EST

Many brands are emerging around the globe with prices almost touching the sky. It is a well-known fact that majority of the population goes for sales day to get hold of their favorite products primarily from their favorite brands. The trend of online shopping is immensely popular and if a sale is announced online for 24 hours, with 90% of the prominent brands participating, it will turn the day into a momentous shopping spree gala.

As reported by The Guardians, an army of 1.7 million foot soldiers and 400,000 vehicles are anticipated to emerge at dawn on Wednesday, to deliver the around 760m parcels ordered online during a short span of 24 hours, labeling the day as the world's greatest online shopping fiesta.

11/11 is the day of a year called as 'Singles' Day' or Double Eleven. The grand online shopping day is spent on the reference of 11 November 1993, when bachelors and bachelorettes bought themselves presents out of loneliness, stamping their move as an anti valentine's day, as mentioned by CNNMoney.

Now the day has turned into a commercial phenomenon, creating work for thousands and thousands of postal workers for 24 hours and generating millions for Alibaba.

Zhang said one day was insufficient time for most people to fulfill their bargain-hunting needs. "It's [only] 24 hours. You have to work for eight hours and you have to sleep for six hours. They wanted better [results] this year so they started earlier, will last longer, will have a bigger impact and, of course, will make more transactions happen," she said.

Single's Day started their annual online sale on 2009. That was their first attempt, where only 27 merchants participated and plunged their prices for whole 24 hours, to an affordable rate. Ever since, the popularity and demand of Single's Day has spread its wings and has shadowed similar online fiestas held in America, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

According to Business Insider, last year Alibaba generated around $9.3 billion more than the previous year, which was $5.8 billion. But this year, it generated $5 billion from China's Single's Day sales, during just 90 minutes of its initiation. It was quite astonishing yet overwhelming as that's how much US online holidays, Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined generated last year. But this year, till the end of the Online shopping hysteria, the sales are expected to reach $13.7 billion, breaking the online history globally.

Jack Ma, Alibaba's chairman and founder, said the event was more than "just the largest shopping day in the world". He said, "This festival is a thermometer for the Chinese economy."

Christopher Balding, a professor of finance and economics at Peking University's HSBC Business School, said, "Everybody is looking for something they can hang their hat on that this is what is going on with the Chinese economy. Whether it is awful or whether it is wonderful, I'm personally a little skeptical that this would be a good benchmark for what is going on in the Chinese economy," he added. "If there is negative growth I think that would be a very concerning thing, but even then I wouldn't read too much into it."

On one hand, it was the online shopping hysteria and for other it was just bitterness and bemoan. A man revealed during an interview with the Qingdao Morning Post that his wife has crushed their dream of purchasing a new home by spending 130,000 yuan (£13,500) of their hard-earned saving on Single's Day sale.

© 2024 VCPOST, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics