After reading Mariska’s blog about Singles’ Day shopping spree, I felt very related. It’s not only that I have lived in China for the past decade, but I personally also participated in this spree. Singles across China used to spend November 11th lamenting their single status, but now it turns out this unofficial holiday has become the largest online shopping event in China. On November 11th, all the shopaholics get excited and ready for the once-a-year grand sale. Most of the products were at least 50 to 80% off whereas in fact, some still in its regular price. During that day, Tmall.com and Taobao.com has together set a new record daily revenue of over 35.19 billion in Chinese currency which equals to approximately $5.75 billion. The record created surpass about 2.5 times the total revenue for American retailers during last Cyber Monday. Global firms also joined the part of the spree Nike, Adidas, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Samsung Electronics conducted Singles’ Day promotions, many of them using Tmall. “Online is giving them a much more effective way of reaching these consumers,” said Bryan Wang, an analyst at Forrester. This shopping spree has reflected that e-commerce is growing rapidly in China, and some of them started to target on the next coming spree, “Double 12”.
