Alibaba
turned over more than $20b (yes, that is 20 billion dollars) in their 2016
Singles Day sales event held annually on 11th November.
Singles
Day started as a marketing exercise to offer young singles an excuse to spend
on themselves - a sort of a anti-Valentines Day movement. It involves a large
dose of razzmatazz including celebrity endorsement and TV coverage. Essentially
Singles Day is a discount shopping day like the US's biggest online day, Cyber
Monday, which incidentally reached only $3.97b last year.
There
are many staggering statistics surrounding this Asian event, but probably the
most interesting is that 82% of purchases are made on mobile phones.
Australian
retailers have been among the winners, with Chemist Warehouse leading the way
after selling almost $2 million worth of stock in the first 13 minutes of the
24-hour sale.
