China’s Single’s Day or Double Day shopping frenzy is coming soon.
Are your debit and credit cards ready? Perhaps, one of your New Year’s resolution this year was to save money. But who can resist the most anticipated day in China, which is like the western equivalent of Black Friday sale or Cyber Monday? Customers go ‘loco with all the shopping deals and sales.
The Single’s Day or also dubbed as Double 11 has been breaking its records on the amount spent in billions of dollars. After the November 11th shopping craze, you’re going to be shocked to see local couriers and delivery men load piles and piles of boxes and items being shipped across Mainland. The records from the previous year have surpassed Cyber Monday and Black Friday sales in the US.
Trivia: Did you know if you order on that day, you’ll probably receive your items within 1-2 weeks.
5 Interesting facts about China Singles Day shopping holidaycraze
It originated in Nanjing University and four students initiated it
The Single’s Day celebration highlights the shopping spree and Alibaba’s billion-dollar sales. But this event started in Nanjing University in 1993. It was just an idea and then it spread like wildfire across the universities. So, these four bachelors in the Mingcaowuzhu dormitory discussed how to find a girlfriend before sleeping for a long time. During their talks, they thought of organizing an event on the upcoming November 11 for singles – going out for parties, buying gifts for friends – and the rest was history.
Its name was derived from the date itself with Alibaba’s trademark
Numbers have significance in the Chinese culture. For example, the number 8 means wealth orfortune. However, in my research, I found some vague explanation about Double 11’s name. They named it as it is because it’s happening on the 11th day of the 11th month and the day consists of four 1s. Some had other meanings that the four ones mean, “only as one” or “only one for me.” It was in October 2012 when the e-commerce giant Alibaba trademarked the name of the holiday as “Double11” to capitalize on the holiday.
Alibaba started to capitalize on this holiday in 2009
Known for two decades of the celebration, the e-commerce tycoon Jack Ma invented the world’s largest shopping holiday and commercialized the Single’s Day to generate more sales for its Tmall platform that is similar to Amazon. In 2009, the total sale was $8.2 million USD. Since then, the sales grew year after year, making Jack Ma wealthier. As of 2015, the sales exploded to $14.3 billion USD,
Reuters reported.
2015: Crazy record of $1.57 billion USD in approximately 12 minutes passed midnight
In 2015, the Double Day shopping frenzy went crazy; $1.57 billion USD in sales was recorded on Tmall for only 12 minutes and 28 seconds past midnight. According to China Internet Watch, “China online shoppers are often “well prepared” before November 11, having grabbed a coupon, red envelopes and added favorite products to shopping carts.” Did you know Alibaba processed 85,900 transactions per second? Talked about high speed, turbocharged servers for these websites, eh?
This year’s Double Day is more than just a shopping spree and Alibaba on crunching numbers
We expect that this year’s records will smash the previous year. But what’s interesting about Double Day is that Alibaba is that the company is adding new activities, integrating emerging technologies such as virtual fashion shows and augmented games to entice shoppers. According to Bloomberg, “Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, takes that concept a step further, with a SuperBowl-like celebration that starts in the final hours of Nov. 10 and counts down to midnight. This year, celebrities will be taking the stage, including Katy Perry who serves as Alibaba’s “global ambassador.”
What do you think of Double Day? Are you running an e-commerce site? Would you like to take advantage of this event that’ll be happening in a few weeks from now? Check out our localization page and translation services and we’ll help you further.
Join the world’s biggest online shopping craze. Mark your calendar on November 11.
