Chinese Retails Await Single Best Shopping Day

Get ready, set, shop! Chinese consumers are gearing up for the country’s biggest online shopping bonanza of the year.

The holiday — set for Tuesday — is called “Singles Day,” and started as a way to celebrate single people. It’s now morphed into a multi-billion dollar e-shopping frenzy that attracts buyers both single and paired.

Last year, total online sales in China hit $8 billion on Singles Day, more than double the combined $3 billion sold in the U.S. for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to the Boston Consulting Group.
The stage is set for another sales record this year.
The idea of “Singles Day” began as a cheeky antidote to Valentine’s Day, and falls on Nov. 11, or 11/11, which represents four single people. On the day, it’s common to exchange gifts and eat fried dough strips — kind of like a churro — because they look like the number “1.”
Related: The ultimate guide to shopping on Thanksgiving

Chinese tech giant Alibaba moved to capitalize on the shopping fervor starting in 2009, when it began offering special discounts to lure in more customers.
Since then, the company has brought in staggering sales every year, clocking in at $5.7 billion in 2013.

Alibaba offers deals on everything — food, apparel, electronics, home appliances, cosmetics and more. Last year, a 13-carat diamond was sold for nearly $4 million.

via CNN

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza