This blog is based on the external blog named: “This Is What It Looks Like When a Company Sells $9.3 Billion in Merchandise in A Single Day.” by Hayley Peterson.

In Hayley Peterson’s blog, she mentions that Alibaba, the largest e-commerce company, offers a deep discount during the single’s day in China and thus makes a lot of deals. This blog inspires me to discuss how single’s day affect the market and the behavior of customers.

Single’s Day, which originated from Nanjing University in 1993, is a festival that single people celebrate themselves to be single. It holds in every November 11st, and it gradually becomes popular on internet and among young people in China. In that day, single people will have a “single dinner party” or buy gifts to each other.

Many sellers in shopping malls and on TV see that the Single’s Day is a great marketing opportunity for them to increase the number of deals and to make more profit. These sellers start to hold the shopping event which offer big discounts to customers. In recent years, with the development of e-commerce, the Single’s Day gradually becomes the online shopping day in China. Many online merchants begin to give discount to customers. For example, the biggest Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba, gives customers big discount in Single’s Day in every year and receives increasing transaction values from 2009 to 2014. Moreover, the term ‘Double 11’, another way of saying Single’s Day, was trademarked by Alibaba as an advertising slogan to appeal to people.

The consumer behavior also changes as customers can access many products with cheaper price on Internet. Offering discount in Single’s Day attract people to buy products on internet and thus they will be familiar with the online shopping. After several practices, people prefer to buy products on internet for the reason that online shopping is cheaper and more convenient.

References:

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prCN25240914

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/alibaba-group-to-showcase-market-innovation-and-leadership-at-2015-1111-global-shopping-festival-2015-11-05

http://www.ibtimes.com/how-chinas-singles-day-festival-became-worlds-largest-online-shopping-phenomenon-how-2177527

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/11/11/singles-day-chinas-online-shopping-holiday/1697299/

Image sources:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/alibaba-smashes-singles-day-sales-record-1447234536