In preparation for this year's biggest online shopping festival, e-commerce company Alibaba Holdings Group said Monday that it doubled the processing of its online payment tool Alipay for easier purchase of products.
According to a report by the Global Times, Alipay is expected to carry out over 30,000 transactions for the "Double 11" or "Singles' Day" this year. In 2013, it had a record of 15,000 transactions per second.
Singles' Day, which initially started as an annual event for single people, was developed by Alibaba into a big day for shopping for the past years.
The company received 35 billion yuan ($5.72 billion) in sales last year, mostly coming from its owned platforms tmall.com and taobao.com.
The sped-up process capability of Alipay was led by direct talks between Alibaba and bank headquarters, especially the four state-owned banks.
Unlike before when Alipay has to connect with the banks' branches for payments, the payment system will directly link to the banks' headquarters.
It was the first time consumers from different parts of the globe can participate on Singles' Day, an Alibaba staff said on Monday.
According to data released by Alibaba, tmall.com's international platform is now selling over 5,400 brands coming from 25 different countries and regions. With the well-prepared event, Singles' Day is sought to get a higher record for 2014.
Business solutions vice president Tian Zheng of Analysys International said that the shopping festival will no doubt achieve increase in sales.
The said "Black Friday" version of China began in 2009 and has continued to grow in revenues every year. From the 52 million yuan sales revenue in 2009, Alibaba gained 100 times of the figure in 2012.
Aiming for competition, online shopping websites like dangdang.com, jd.com and amazon.com also gave big discounts on Tuesday on their platforms.