Sales worth billions in just a 'Singles Day': Online shopping extravaganza now China's biggest annual commerce spree

Online extravaganza started by Alibaba to coincide with traditional celebration has grown into the country's largest annual shopping spree

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Workers at delivery company Beijing Rufengda Express prepare yesterday for the Singles Day rush. Photo: Simon Song

Published: 5:15am, 11 Nov 2015Updated: 6:20am, 11 Nov 2015

With giant billboards in subways, posters plastered in lifts, advertisements splashed across newspapers and magazines, and commercials being screened repeatedly during primetime TV and radio programmes, it's hard to miss the arrival of the "Singles Day" shopping festival.

The online shopping extravaganza, which takes place on November 11 every year, was started in 2009 by e-commerce giant Alibaba. It has since become Chinese consumers' biggest annual shopping spree.

READ MORE: Singles Day explained

Despite a gloomy economic outlook as growth slows in the retail industry, this year's Singles Day is expected to set yet another record in takings.

Last year, Alibaba registered sales worth a staggering 57.1 billion yuan (HK$69.5 billion) on Tmall and Taobao in the 24-hour period, while another major e-commerce site, JD.com sold nearly 40 million products.

"The Singles Day shopping festival is growing bigger every year. The importance of this date for the local retail sector is rising so quickly that it's diluting the impact of traditional sales windows like the Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival," said Jason Yu, general manager of consumer research unit Kantar Worldpanel China.

"Still, it would be hard for the incremental shopping sales increase brought by the event to offset the declining growth of the entire retail sector."