3 NOVEMBER 2016 • 11:24AM Forget tiny little Black Friday. Here's how one retail giant has turned China's bachelor crisis into the world's biggest online shopping day of the year What is Singles Day?
Singles Day started as an obscure "anti-Valentine's" celebration for single people in China back in the 1990s, but it has spawned into the world's biggest online shopping day. It takes place in China on November 11 every year.
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Are you single like Bridget? Maybe it's time to buy yourself a present.= What does that have to do with single people?
Astute readers will have noticed that the November 11 is written 11.11, or one-one-one-one.
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Known in China as "bare sticks holiday" because of how it looks numerically, Singles Day began as an anti-Valentine's Day in the 1990s when students at Nanjing University started celebrating their singledom.
It was then adopted by e-commerce giant Alibaba (China's Amazon equivalent) in 2009 and it has now become a day when everyone, regardless of their single status buys themselves gifts.
It's also known as Bachelors' Day because of China's gender imbalance. The country's one-child policy, which it recently said it will bring to an end, along with the cultural and economic pressures for that child to be a son, has led to a male surplus.
In 2011, official Chinese data showed that there were 20m more men than women under the age of 30. By 2020, sociologists expect that discrepancy to have widened to 35m. By 2030, it is estimated that one-in-four Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married.
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Alibaba chiefs spotted the commercial opportunity in Singles Day back in 2009 and began launching “Double 11” deals just as online shopping was starting to explode. It was also seen as a chance to boost sales in the lull between China’s Golden Week national holiday in October and the Christmas season.
In that first year consumers spent 50m yuan (around £5m) and 27 merchants offered discounts. By 2011 – which was dubbed the Singles Day of the Century because it was 11.11.11 – more than £500m was spent across Alibaba's platform during the day.
When sales almost quadrupled the following year, Alibaba trademarked Singles Day. Some of the featured sales centre around singledom, such as boyfriend pillows and single travel tickets, but the day has now widened to an all-inclusive shopping holiday.
The Hangzhou-based firm, founded by eccentric businessman and China's second richest man Jack Ma, now refers to Singles Day as the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. So Singles Day is bigger than Black Friday?
Singles Day laughs in the face of Black Friday. Last year, Chinese consumers treated themselves to almost £11.4bn worth of goods from Alibaba in just 24 hours.
This resulted in 467 million parcels being delivered after 710 million payments were made, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua. That was an increase of 60 per cent on 2014, and more than double the total online sales from Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined in the US in 2015, according to a report by Fortune.
The firm expects to surpass this record in 2016.
How Alibaba Turned Singles’ Day into Smashing SuccessPlay!05:22
What will Singles Day look like this year?
Alibaba has started showcasing its promotions earlier this year, starting with a live-streamed, eight-hour fashion show from Shanghai which took place on October 23, as well as a virtual reality shopping experience. It's also hosting a star-studded Super Bowl-type gala in Shenzhen just hours before the sales bonanza starts on November 11, featuring US pop sensation and Alibaba "global ambassador" Katy Perry.
For the first time, the firm is also looking for sales outside of China, launching Singles' Day promotions in Hong Kong and Taiwan via its online marketplace Tmall.
It's not just about Alibaba though. Rival Chinese firm JD.com also gets in on the act, and last year American and European brands like Zara and Macy's offered discounts. How much does each person spend?
Growth of the world's second-largest economy has slowed markedly over the past few years and last summer, China devalued its currency for the first time in two decades which saw billions wiped off its stock market.
Despite that, a 2015 survey of 1,000 Chinese internet users, conducted by Nielsen, found that the average consumer planned to spend 1,761 yuan (£181) during Singles Day - or 22 per cent more than 2014. This year is expected to be no different.
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