Retail in Asia

In Trends

Ready, set, shop! Alibaba gears up for Singles’ Day

Singles’ Day – so named because the date Nov. 11 has four singles (11/11) – was started as an in-joke between university students, but has morphed into China’s equivalent of Cyber Monday. Spurred by Alibaba and its network of online retailers, the day has grown from USD7 million in sales in 2009 to over USD5.7 billion last year for Jack Ma’s company.

In fact, Alibaba recorded its first USD1 billion in sales this Singles’ Day in only 17 minutes – it took about an hour last year. After about the same amount of time this year, Alibaba touched USD2 billion in gross merchandise volume. This year, Alibaba’s sales are expected to be about CNY50 billion (USD8.17 billion), a 40 percent increase from last year, according to Ben Cavender, principal at China Market Research Group.

Alibaba is pressing hard to completely own the holiday, analysts said. This year’s Singles’ Day has seen the company push a "globalization" theme that enables shoppers throughout the world to participate through the English-language AliExpress platform, according to Vanessa Zeng, a Beijing-based Forrester senior analyst for China’s e-commerce sector.
 

(Source: CNBC)