Chinese E-Commerce Giant Alibaba Sells $14.3 Billion on Singles Day

However, Laura Qiu, director of client services at The Hoffman Agency in Beijing, said there remain issues for brands on Alibaba’s Singles Day because “it is a game of volume”. The idea behind this anti-valentine event is that if you’re single, you’ll likely have no commitments (in terms of a partner or kids) and therefore should celebrate the single life by, amongst other things, buying stuff you want. For comparison’s sake, leader United States online retailer Amazon did $18 billion in sales in its most recent quarter.

The figures were “very solid evidence for the power of Chinese consumers”, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said, adding that when the company started the event, “we never dreamed that it could be such a huge shopping day”. “Within the next five years, we expect China will become the world’s largest e-commerce market for imported products”, President Michael Evans told reporters on Wednesday. “This year, we expect[ed] to handle 120,000 orders and 60,000 payments at peak per second”.

Singles Day hasn’t always been about e-commerce.

With Singles Day now fully in the rearview mirror, the folks at JD have finally released the company’s final order count, and it’s impressive.

Workers sort parcels for their customers near the JD.com delivery bikes during the “Singles’ Day” online shopping festival, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, November 11, 2015.

Just before this key date, Ever Rich opened its online shop with Tmall Global in China – its first for the market – to take advantage of the web shopping rush. Of the total value of transactions, 68 percent was through orders from mobile devices.

The Dollars 14.3 billion worth of merchandise volume this year smashed through last year’s tally of USD 9.3 billion, according to figures from Alibaba.

Specifically, Ma yesterday made cautionary comments about growth expectations in China and the impact on e-commerce giant Alibaba, according to Victor Anthony, managing director and senior Internet media analyst at Axiom Capital Management, CNBC.com reports. Alibaba has been holding sales since 2009.

The biggest winners of Singles Day may not be Alibaba or China’s economy, but savvy bargain-hunters.