Singles Day—celebrated in China on November 11 each year—was dreamed up in the early 1990s by a group of college students
looking to simultaneously commiserate and revel in their single status.
They selected the date, 11/11, for its symbolic meaning—not merely the
loneliness of the number one, but its visual resemblance to “bare
branches,” a Chinese phrase for those who are still unmarried. The day
has evolved over time to become something akin to a “treat yourself”
holiday, when people purchase presents for themselves and go out to
commemorate being single—repurposing the spirit of Valentine’s Day, when
couples buy gifts for one another, for the individual.
Of course, given the consumer-centric
undertones of the holiday, it wasn’t long before retailers began to take
notice, with one in particular launching a massive ad push in 2009.
That year, the e-commerce monolith Alibaba began aggressively marketing
around the day itself, offering specially-timed “Double 11” deals and
bargains via its sites Taobao.com and Tmall.com, much like stores do on
Black Friday in the United States. The debut of these promotions
coincided with the explosive rise of e-commerce in China, leading to 5,740 percent growth in Alibaba’s “Double 11” sales between 2009 and 2013.
The retailer, which now holds a trademark on the phrase “Double 11,”
also continues to own, at least metaphorically, the holiday itself.
This year, within the first eight minutes of opening its proverbial
doors, Alibaba had sold more than $1 billion in merchandise. In total on
Singles Day, the company raked in $14.32 billion, breaking the record it had set in 2014, when it made a measly $9.3 billion.
While many other vendors also offer enticing discounts, Alibaba
continues to sweep online retail purchases, partly because of its
history with the event as well as its existing dominance in Chinese
e-commerce, making up 80 percent of Internet sales there.
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