Alibaba said orders on its e-commerce platforms during the Singles’ Day shopping extravaganza in CHina had exceeded $70 billion by Wednesday evening, as COVID-19 lockdown-weary consumers flocked to buy as many as 16 million units of discounted goods.
The world’s biggest sales event – eclipsing Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States – spans four main days this year, and so far has brought sellers 20 times as many orders by value than Amazon.com Inc’s two-day global Prime Day last month.
The firm began sales early this year to give lesser-known brands more exposure. It set primary discount days for Nov. 1 through Nov. 3 as well as the usual Nov. 11, and is calculating gross merchandise volume (GMV) over all 11 days.
The event, launched in 2009, is usually a splashy, single-day affair with live performances and which last year clocked record GMV of $38.4 billion. This year, Katy Perry appeared at Alibaba’s gala, albeit via livestream.
Over 340 firms, including Apple Inc, L’Oreal SA and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd., have exceeded 100 million yuan in sales, with 13 brands recording GMV above 1 billion yuan, Alibaba said.
MacDailyNews Take: Singles’ Day looks like it’s been very successful for many companies. (Note: 100 million yuan is US$15.8 million.)
