Singaporean shopaholics looking forward to 11.11 Singles Day frenzy.

Bride-to-be Lynn Yang has been planning for this year’s Singles Day sale for the past five months.

Come tonight, the 26-year-old will be seated in front of her laptop with credit cards ready, so that at the stroke of midnight she can begin her online shopping spree.

The avid shopper and founder of creative agency, Project WXY, is getting married next year and intends to buy items for the big day on Alibaba-owned shopping site, Taobao.

These include invitations, decorations, wedding favours, dresses for her bridesmaids and flower girls and four custom-made gowns for herself.

While this might sound like a lot, buying the items during the sale will mean big savings of at least 50%.

For example, Yang’s four gowns will cost less than S$2,000 (RM6,069) in total and her custom acrylic invites will cost S$1.50 (RM4.55) a piece rather than S$6 (RM18.2).

“It’s definitely the biggest sales day of the year for me. The deals and discounts are usually the best,” said Yang.

Items that she has got from previous Singles Day sales include kitchenware, bedding, accessories and electronics.

Like Yang, many shoppers are looking forward to the Singles Day sale, which has become the largest shopping event in Singapore with prices cut by at least half on many sites.

Conceived by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in the late 2000s, the annual sales day, also called the 11.11 sale, now rakes in billions for participating companies.

Last year, Alibaba logged 168.3 billion yuan (RM99.2bil) in sales in just 16 hours on Singles Day.

A recent report by advertising platform Criteo found that the 11.11 sale is the largest shopping event in Singapore, surpassing events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

E-commerce players, such as cashback platform Shopback, and online retailers Lazada, Shopee and Zalora are also expecting big things from the sale.

Lazada has seen a huge jump in staff numbers – close to 200% more personnel have been added to their warehouses in Singapore – while manpower at the company’s lastmile service has been increased by 50% for Singles Day.

Public relations consultant Ashleigh Ow, 31, said he is looking to buy electronics and shoes during the sale and hopes to get discounts of about 30%.

He already has 18 items saved in his online shopping carts and wish lists. Even though Ow will be participating in a friend’s wedding today, he is confident he will have time to shop.

“Of course I will prioritise my friend’s wedding and help him with whatever I can. But shopping will be easy since I can just buy on my phone.”

The sale, he said, is just too good to miss.

“There is so much hype around it and so many brands have jumped in on it. So the pricing is very competitive and there are discounts for everyone, which is great for consumers like me.”