Alibaba’s online shopping event, Singles Day, once more broke sales records globally, not just in China. First record to go was the 2015 sales volume of 10 billion yuan within the first 12 minutes.
For 2016, the clicking frenzy resulted in 10 billion yuan sales in the first seven minutes after it officially opened on Friday, Nov. 11, Chinadaily reported. Within the first 60 minutes, sales had increased to 35.3 billion yuan, indicating it has good chances of breaking the 24-hour sales of 91.2 billion yuan established in 2015.
ABC reported that after 15 hours, the 91.2 billion yuan ($13.4 billion) record last year was already broken. In comparison, Cyber Monday sales in the US was a puny $3 billion, based on data from research company comScore, or just one-fourth of Singles Day’s 15-hour sales.
Besides the sheer number of online buyers in China, the deep discounts offered on clothes, smartphones, travel packages and other products from Alibaba’s rivals, JD.com, VIP.com and Suning, helped bring in sales. JD.com. China’s largest online direct retailer, went one step further by not just offering discounts but also drone deliveries from online shoppers in four rural areas. It is apparently the first commercial use of drone deliveries in China.
Although other e-commerce site in China have joined the online shopping frenzy started in 2009 among single Chinese, Alibaba remains the most dominant online shopping site. In early November, Fung Business Intelligence Center, in a report, forecast a 40 percent increase in sales for Alibaba for Singles Day.
Beyond Nov. 11, eMarketer, a company based in London, estimated retail ecommerce sales in China will go up by 35.6 percent in 2016 to $899.09 billion, or over 18 percent of total retail sales. By 2020, ecommerce sales will comprise one-third of all retail sales in the Asian giant.