China’s ‘Singles’ Day’ shopping spree smashes record
DW –Online shoppers in China looked set on Sunday to break last year’s record for money spent during the country’s “Singles’ Day,” an annual consumption binge now entering its 10th year.
Consumers seemed undeterred by the challenges besetting the world’s second-largest economy, buying more than $14bn of goods overall in the first two hours, and more than $19bn from the e-commerce giant Alibaba in the first nine hours. The latter figure is $3bn higher than at the same time last year, according to the South China Morning Post, and has put Alibaba on track to pass its sales record of $25.4bn last year, the paper said.
The figures indicate that a tariff war with the US, a stock-market slump and a growth slowdown across the economy have done little to blunt consumer appetite in the country.
Environmental concerns
“Singles’ Day,” which began in the 1990s as a spoof event celebrated by Chinese university students without romantic partners, has been co-opted by e-retailers who offer large discounts on products to bring about an annual profit windfall.The event is also known in Chinese as “Double 11” because of the November 11 date.
In 2015, “Single’s Day” beat the sales made on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, two of the largest shopping days in the US.
The event is of great concern to environmental activists, who criticize the huge amounts of waste produced by the packaging of the products bought.
Pledges by Alibaba and its rival JD.com to use “biodegradable” packaging to reduce waste are seen with scepticism by environmental organization Greenpeace, which says many plastics described in this way will break down only under high temperatures provided at a limited number of special facilities in the country.