- How Did This All Begin?
- How Much Was Spent?
- Strange Trends
- Can't Wait Until Next Year
How Did This All Begin?
Online stores have been starting up like a wildfire over the past few years, and one of the pioneers in Asia has been Alibaba.com They had some marketing genius who suggested they take this obscure holiday and use it as a marketing opportunity.
The New York Times reported:
The company, Alibaba, which owns Tmall and other e-commerce sites, first latched onto so-called Singles’ Day, symbolized by the four lonely 1s of 11/11, five years ago. The company realized men could just as easily seek solace by buying electronic devices and other gear on its sites. Soon enough, just about everyone else did, too.
How Much Was Spent?
This is one for the record books. Alibaba processed a cool $5.75 billion on their online payment system. To give you perspective; that is two and a half times more than American retailers did last year during Cyber Monday.
Alibaba reported Monday that is had 402 million unique visitors to its sites (which is more than a third of the adult population in China), and prepared 152 million parcels for shipping.
Tmall, one of Alibaba's shopping sites, said:
Chinese bought 1.6 million bras, which is helpfully noted would reach three times the height of Mount Everest if folded and stacked, and two million pairs of underpants, which if linked together would stretch 1,800 miles, all before the lunch hour.
Strange Trends
At 55tuan.com, a Groupon-style site, men were offered a bride-hunting trip to Vietnam: “Singles, don’t shed tears!” it said. “55tuan.com will send you to Vietnam to find true love!”
Singles Day is no longer just for singles. According to Forrester Research:
China’s one-day shopping craze heralds the frenetic growth of Internet shopping in that country. China is set to overtake the United States this year as the largest online shopping market in the world. Chinese consumers are expected to spend $290 billion at online retail sites this year, compared with $260 billion for their counterparts in the United States.
Can't Wait Until Next Year!
The questions are;
How do I take advantage of this amazing trend?
Should I start my own online store targeting Chinese consumers?
What products do Chinese people like to purchase online?
Well, I do think I will stay away from offering Vietnamese brides. Even though surprisingly that business opportunity has been presented to me before, and can be quite lucrative.
On the other hand maybe I should get into the underwear business. There sure is no shortage of bodies that need to be clothed.
Happy Singles Day to all and to all a good night.
