China’s shopping frenzy breaks records

Singles Day one-day sales top $24B

Online shoppers in China shattered last year’s record of $24 billion in sales on the country’s annual buying frenzy day yesterday, as the tradition marked its 10th year.

The spending binge has for years eclipsed Cyber Monday in the U.S. for online purchases made on a single day. This year’s tally breaks from gloomy forecasts about the world’s second-largest economy, which is struggling with a tariff war with the U.S., a stock market slump and slowing overall growth.

Known as Singles Day, the clamor for deals and discounts was heralded with characteristic fanfare by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has turned an unofficial holiday for people without romantic partners into a yearly windfall for digital retailers.

A massive screen at Alibaba’s gala in Shanghai showed the surging sales numbers in real time: At 2 minutes and 5 seconds after midnight Saturday, $1.43 billion in purchases had already been made on Alibaba’s platforms. By the 1 hour and 47 minute mark, that number had increased tenfold.

Just before 4 p.m. Sunday, the sales reached $24.2 billion — surpassing the total purchases from last year’s Singles Day, according to figures posted online by Alibaba Group.

Singles Day began as a spoof event celebrated by unattached Chinese university students in the 1990s. In Chinese, it’s called “Double 11,” after the numbers in the month and date.

The improvised holiday was co-opted by e-retailers in 2009 and transformed into China’s version of Cyber Monday, as the Monday after Thanksgiving is known.

Nearly $6.6 billion in sales were made on Cyber Monday in 2017, up about 17 percent from the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics.