China shopping festival smashes record with $25 billion haul
Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, said on Saturday its Singles' Day sales extravaganza hit $25.4 billion, smashing its own record from last year and cementing it as the world's biggest shopping event. Once a celebration for China's lonely hearts, Singles' Day has become an annual 24-hour buying frenzy that exceeds the combined sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States, and acts as a barometer for China's consumers.
As tills shut midnight on Saturday, Alibaba's live sales ticker registered 168.3 billion yuan, up 39 percent from 120.7 billion yuan last year. The dollar figure was up more steeply due to the strength of the yuan against the greenback this year.
The event began soon after a star-studded event in Shanghai late on Friday. As midnight hit, a deluge of pre-orders helped drive a billion dollars of sales on Alibaba's platforms in the first two minutes and $10 billion in just over an hour. "In terms of scale it just dwarfs any other event out there," said Ben Cavender, Shanghai-based principal at China Market Research Group.
But what is Singles' Day?
Chinese Singles' Day or Guanggun Jie (Chinese: 光棍节; pinyin: Guānggùn Jié; Wade–Giles: Kuang-kun chieh; literally: "Single Sticks' Holiday") is an entertaining festival widespread among young Mainland Chinese people, to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single. The date, November 11th (11/11), is chosen because the number "1" resembles an individual that is alone. This festival has become the largest offline and online shopping day in the world,[2] with sales in Alibaba's sites Tmall and Taobao at US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, US$14.3 billion in 2015 and over US$17.8 billion in 2016.
Related: Alibaba Revenues Surge 61% On Online Shopping
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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has beaten market expectations with a huge jump in quarterly revenues fuelled by online shopping.
Revenues for the three months to September rose 61% on the same period a year earlier, to 55.1bn yuan ($8.3bn; £6.4bn). It also raised its revenue predictions for the full-year forecast.
Alibaba is expanding from its core online businesses to investments in supermarkets and stores. "We had an outstanding quarter," Alibaba chief executive Daniel Zhang said in a statement. "We are seeing the early results from our efforts to integrate online and offline with our new retail strategy".
For the July to September quarter, income from operations surged 83% from a year earlier, to 16.58bn yuan.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Uncle_Al on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:51PM (2 children)
For spinning in his grave.
(Score: 5, Funny) by RamiK on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:21PM
Alibaba has been reported to have undug Mao's tomb and rigged his remains to an electric generator. Bids for the 永興发电电动发电机 Mark 1 will begin at 150 million dollars. All verified bidders will be given 5000 AliExpress points with each bid. At least 50% of the revenues will be invested back into the project to afford the deployment of the seismographs array surrounding the Party's catacombs to further the development of new, improved generators. Free Aliexpress coupons up, and including, to the value of 500$ will be given to all party members' relatives in recognition of their contribution to the betterment of a better, smarter China.
compiling...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by realDonaldTrump on Monday November 13 2017, @12:31PM
I think Mao, if he could see it, would be amazed at the many great things happening to China, economically and otherwise. Mao was a terrific builder. I think he would be very pleased to see his amazing buildings in use. The Forbidden City, the Grand Canal, the Three Gorges Dam. I know one thing about Mao: he made things happen. If he worked on it hard, it always, always happened. There's no doubt about it. And the Great Wall, he didn't build that one, it's served China very well. They were having big problems with Mongolians coming in by CHAIN MIGRATION. They built a great, great wall, they got control over their borders. I think Mao, if he could see it, would be amazed that the President of the United States of America visited his fine country. I'm the only guy who could have done that.
And the great Chinese people loved me. They came out in droves, like you've never seen in your life. Like this world has never seen. Believe me, I left a lot of broken hearts in China. In China, they call me Chuang Pu, 床铺. Sounds like "swamp," it isn't "swamp." It means "bed." My Chinese name is very sexy. I'm very busy right now, if I wasn't so busy I would have dated some of the sexy women in China. And Jack Ma who runs Alibaba, I would have visited with him again. A great, great entrepreneur, one of the best in the world. Jack is bringing ONE MILLION JOBS to the #USA. Amazing! He promised that to me. He's doing great things with Alibaba. For himself, for China and for America. He loves America and he loves China. #MAGA 🇺🇸🇨🇳
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @08:49PM (3 children)
Such a shame to see so many people supporting it
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2017, @08:55PM (2 children)
I bet you don't even have an Amazonk or Baba account!
Get with the program and worship disposable consumer junk!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:22PM (1 child)
you jest but I boycott amazon since the one click buy patent. My reasoning is that anybody who patents that AND uses the patent non-defensively cannot be a good person.
I got stuff through amazon for friends, no prob, and I paid 1 eur less for an item by bypassing amazon and going to the vendor's online shop.
I should boycott firefox and google and paypal too, though.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday November 13 2017, @11:23AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:21PM (6 children)
"buy shit, to show how fulfilled a life is, being single"
Riiiight.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @02:46AM (1 child)
The point is you *can* just buy random shit if you're single.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday November 13 2017, @03:01AM
...instead of just getting it for Christmas (bonus: wrapping paper!)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 13 2017, @03:58AM (3 children)
The US has our DINKs, with the one-child policy generation (and the higher number of men than women), I'd bet China is going to have a lot of people choosing to stay single or at least have no children, and just go for the US' 1970s brass ring: "He who dies with the most toys, wins."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 13 2017, @08:42PM (2 children)
"He who dies with the most toys, is still dead. he who has the most criers at his funeral actually wins.
That said, my new pyramid has finally surpassed Grandpa's, and will accommodate a bigger funeral procession"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 13 2017, @09:12PM
While I have spent the last 20 years attempting to downsize my toy collection, I must argue: that which one enjoys for one's self in life is far more important to one's self than whatever might follow one's death.
That said, I do think that what we are doing to the planet - including sticking our heads in the mud and refusing to make a serious effort to get off of it permanently, is immoral and incredibly selfish, and that we should all be taken to task for our reprehensible lack of concern for future generations.
That said, if I get a chance to pilot a carrier-launched F18, go supersonic, do some aerobatics, and maybe blow some stuff up on a test firing range, damn straight, I'm there, waste of resources be damned.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday November 15 2017, @04:31PM
It's amazing how many criers a large enough debt you leave behind can generate :D
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:33PM (3 children)
Most young Chinese have no sibling, with male-female imbalance.
You think American consumerism is extreme, you ain't seen nothing yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @09:45PM
Extreme onahole-to-food budget ratio
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @02:00AM (1 child)
The M/F imbalance also allows the 40% female population to be very selective, leaving a lot of males to be 光棍子, or terminal branches on the family tree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:24PM
Yes they can be very selective, OR they can get kidnapped and forced to marry someone against their will. SUCH CHOICE!