Shoppers in China spend billions on Singles Day

(11 Nov 2020) Chinese consumers spent tens of billions on everything from fresh food to luxury goods Wednesday, this year's Singles' Day online shopping festival, as the country recovers from the pandemic.
The shopping festival, which is the world's largest and typically begins in November, is an annual extravaganza where China's e-commerce companies, including Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo, offer big discounts on their platforms.  
By 12:30 a.m. (1630 GMT, 11:30 am EDT) on Wednesday, consumers had already spent 372.3 billion yuan ($56.3 billion) on Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms since the company kicked off the shopping festival on Nov. 1.
Rival JD.com also reported cumulative sales of 200 billion yuan ($30.2 billion) since Nov. 1, nine minutes after the clock struck midnight on Wednesday.
The shopping festival got its name as the main shopping day falls on Nov. 11 every year.
Also known as 11.11 or Double 11, the numbers look like "bare branches", an expression referring to those who are single and unattached in China.
The day thus later became known as Singles' Day.
This year's festival will be closely watched as a barometer of consumption in China, which is just beginning to bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic after months of lockdown earlier in the year.  
Analysts expect Chinese consumers to spend more on imported products and foreign luxury brands, since many Chinese tourists were unable to travel internationally due to the coronavirus pandemic and tightened travel restrictions.
Unlike Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US, Singles' Day in China is not just about deep bargains.
Alibaba pioneered the concept of Singles' Day and holds an annual gala on Nov. 11 with celebrity performances to entertain shoppers.   
E-commerce companies don't break down Singles Day sales volume by brands so it is hard to know what share goes to foreign companies, though some companies might announce their own performances.  
Sales via live streaming and Alibaba's annual gala are part of a "shoppertainment" trend which blends shopping with entertainment in order to become more appealing and engaging to shoppers.
Mini games within online shopping platforms entice shoppers with deeper discounts while encouraging them to spend more time within the app.
But while millions of shoppers spend hours on mini games hoping to snag better bargains, some are irked by the complexities required to win such discounts.
To help merchants cope with the impact from the coronavirus, online platforms have extended the shopping festival period this year in hopes of boosting sales.  
Both Alibaba and JD.com, the country's two biggest e-commerce companies, began offering discounts on Oct. 21, three weeks ahead of Nov. 11.
Some brands and merchants that slashed their prices booked hundreds of millions of yuan (tens of millions of dollars) in sales just hours into the shopping festival. giants

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