Nov. 11 is a festival for Chinese singles and has been commercialized  into a  festival for online shopping five years ago. The carnival of sales on Single Day was first launched by Alibaba, the biggest e-commerce corporation in China. Tmall is a  platform that Alibaba provides for independent sellers and independent buyers to trade,  a cross of Amazon and eBay. This year, the sales topped $5.75 billion and more than one third of adult population in China visited the site during the festival. A fever of online shopping rapidly spread across China. 

On one side, the stunning record of sales demonstrates the great potential of e-commerce market. Besides the huge population, another main reason is the strategy of e-commerce companies.Unlike Amazon, Tmall itself does not sell products. It collects many brands from all categories of products including both famous brands and independent, small brands. The revenue mainly comes from commissions and advertisements. The variety of products and the intense competition between sellers  offer buyers plenty of choices and drive prices down. On the other side,  phenomenons of fraud reveals the lack of regulation in the large, complex market. The overload of shipment causes long waiting time and  delivery mistakes, which troubles customers a lot.

References:

News, Bloomberg. “Alibaba Breaks Sales Record Amid China Singles-Day Rebate.”Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-11/alibaba-breaks-sales-record-on-china-singles-day-amid-discounts.html>.

Wang, Shanshan, and Eric Pfanner. “China’s One-Day Shopping Spree Sets Record in Online Sales.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/business/international/online-shopping-marathon-zooms-off-the-blocks-in-china.html>.

Staff, China Blog. “Singles’ Day – China’s Anti-Valentine’s Celebration.” BBC News. BBC, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-24896066>.