Chinese consumers bought more stuff than ever online during Singles day. Halfway through China's most important shopping day, 9.3 billion euros had already crossed the digital counter, immediately breaking last year's sales total. Overall, the number of orders is said to have increased by about 130 per cent.
Singles' Day, called Guanggun Jie in Chinese, is an event where, mainly Chinese singles organise parties and sing karaoke. Since e-commerce giant Alibaba bombed it as an event where consumers can hunt for the best bargains online, sales have been shooting through the roof. The online giant turned $3.9 billion in sales in an hour this year.
The US has a similar phenomenon around Thanksgiving: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, the table below shows that these two sales days don't measure up to Singles Day.
Logistics challenge
The many purchases also create logistical headaches, because all these parcels obviously need to be delivered properly and quickly. To deliver all the parcels requires 1.7 million parcel deliverers, 40 thousand carriages, five thousand department stores and 200 planes.
Editorial LogistiekProfs
