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HomeNewsBusinessStartupWhat is Singles' Day? The Chinese holiday-festival where products worth $30.8bn were sold in 24 hours

What is Singles' Day? The Chinese holiday-festival where products worth $30.8bn were sold in 24 hours

The numbers were 27% higher as compared to the sales last year when it had reported $24 billion of gross merchandise value.

November 12, 2018 / 13:52 IST

At the stroke of midnight, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba continued to make history with $30.8 billion worth of products sold in just 24 hours of sale on Singles' Day, one of its biggest shopping festivals.

The numbers were 27% higher as compared to the sales last year when it had reported $24 billion of gross merchandise value (GMV).

Interestingly, India which also had one of its biggest online shopping festivals last month reported a fraction of this number at $2.3 billion during a five-day period, reflecting the sheer difference between the two economies.

However, while the world is still to absorb the massive growth potential of the e-commerce platform, here's a brief note on how the Chinese giant started off with its Singles' Day event.

According to Investopedia, even though Singles' Day is not recognised as a public holiday in China but it has become the largest online shopping day in the world.

It kicked off in the year 2009 after Alibaba offered huge discounts on merchandise on its platform for 24 hours.

Traditionally, Singles' Day is a popular Chinese holiday where people who do not have a life partner come together to party and celebrate. It is also seen as an anti-valentine's day celebration.

This year in China, this sale was mostly driven by the rising middle-class population that aspires to upgrade its lifestyle.

Singles' Day is also a much more homogeneous event which is celebrated country-wide unlike a Diwali sale festival in India which is a big business opportunity for the northern and central part of the country and not so much in the southern states.

The event, which is also known as the Bare Sticks holiday, is celebrated on November 11 or 11.11 which connotes bare sticks given how it appears numerically.

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Moneycontrol News
first published: Nov 12, 2018 01:52 pm

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