How Alibaba Turned November 11 Into the World's Biggest Online Shopping Day

hackingbear writes Bummed that you're home alone on date night, or stuck in your mom's basement, yet again? Don't worry. A new gadget or some scuba gear could help. Observed on November 11 — or "11.11," for the date with the most 1s — Singles Day, which started out as a joke among a group of male college students attending Nanjing University in the 1990s, has become the world's biggest online shopping day, thanks to the e-commerce prowess of China's Alibaba Group. On this day last year, they sold twice what all US companies sold on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. This year, Alibaba has decided to take its 11.11 promotions worldwide, highlighting global brands including online jewelry store Blue Nile, clothing brand Juicy Couture, and even Costco. Amazon has tried to get a piece of the action. The Seattle-based company launched promotions for the holiday last year on its Chinese site, and it's done so again this year.

Comments

Good luck in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously just about any date you can pick is probably going to have some importance _somewhere_ in the world. This time it just happens to be Canada.

November 11'th is Remembrance Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day) here in Canada, and unlike many of our holidays, this is actually one that most Canadians do take seriously.

Re:Good luck in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

First, November 11th is significant in more than just Canada. All Commonwealth Nations mark Remembrance Day on November 11th. It's also known as Veteran's Day in the US. Several European countries also observe a day of remembrance on November 11th.

None of which has anything to do with preventing people for shopping, especially online. Just like many people go shopping on Sundays. Maybe you don't remember it, but I certainly do, there was a time when no stores were open on Sundays. Go ask your parents.

It is a lot more than just Canada

[Roger W Moore]

While the 11th Novemeber is remembrance day here in Canada you might want to remember that since it is to commemorate the end of the First World War it is also an important date for the entire Commonwealth and even the US has Veteran's Day. So, as days go, for a large number of countries this is actually a really bad one to select to celebrate rampant consumerism.

Re:It is a lot more than just Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure. And Christmas is the birth of that one dude that flipped tables and stuff over people selling things.

Consumerism trumps all.

Re:It is a lot more than just Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

St.Nicolas is indeed a religious character but he replaces Wodan/Odin from the pagan Holliday. Santa Clause has very similar attributes as well.

Wodan/Odin:
- Wise old man
- Has two ravens who spy on people and whisper in his ear
- He keeps a naughty and nice list
- has a flying horse with 8 legs
- Gives runes (letters) to the people as gift on his birthday
- Shows a likeness to women of their next lover.

St. Nicolas/Sinterklaas (how it is celebrated in the Netherlands)
- Wise old man
- Has two black helpers (After the WW2 the number of helpers increased for a larger celebration), they still have feathers in their cap.
- He keeps a naughty and nice list.
- He has a white horse with 4 legs that can walk on roofs.
- Given chocolate letters, and some hard candy with letters on them
- There are also cookies with the likeness of a man on it.

Santa Clause
- Wise old man
- Has helpers in the form of elves.
- He keeps a naughty and nice list.
- He has a sleight which is pulled by flying raindeer.

Re:November 11th? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alibaba is a Chinese group. China is not a part of the Commonwealth.

In China, 11/11 is Singles' Day, not Remembrance Day.

Re:Am I the only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Alibaba is like eBay. If the seller doesn't ship what they were supposed to you can block the transfer and the seller won't see a dime. Buy from reputable sellers and you should be fine. Just keep in mind brand items selling for a tenth of what they usually do aren't exactly genuine.

I don't buy online since the postal service (or duties, not sure which) here started stealing everything I order other than books, but before then the only problem I had was buying a too cheap to be real microSD card and receiving what I paid for instead of what it was advertised as (8GB slow as fuck instead of 64GB, and of course it is modified to display 64GB).

Re:Am I the only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Alibaba is no more sketchy than ebay. They are just a front for sellers, and if you have any problem you can block payment.

Point is, Ali is HUGE. Bigger than Amazon and Ebay combined. They are the 500 pound gorilla of online retail. They have the size and the direct-to-producer network to steamroll Amazon. Ebay doesn't have a chance either: half the ebay stores are just import fronts for producers that you can buy directly from on Ali.

AliBaba's online outlet is called AliExpress.

[jdagius]

http://www.aliexpress.com/cate...

I've found it to be very friendly, with free shipping to the States on almost every purchase. Downside is that the free shipping goes through Singapore Post and takes a month or two to arrive here.

But the prices are really cheap, and customer support surprisingly good. Amazon had better watch out!

Re:Am I the only one

[intermelt]

No one is referring to alibaba.com when they speak of Alibaba. They are referring to the Alibaba Group which includes aliexpress.com and at least 5 other websites which are consumer based (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group#Companies_and_affiliated_entities). They are even the PayPal or maybe Authorize.net of China with AliPay.

so... alibaba.com - not consumer based
AliExpress.com - Consumer based, like Amazon or eBay
Taobao - Consumer bases, like Amazon or eBay
Tmall.com - Consumer based, Amazon like
Juhuasuan - Consumer based - like any daily deal site, think dx.com
eTao - consumer based comparison shopping, think Google shopping
Alipay - consumer/retailer based, AKA PayPal
Alibaba Cloud Computing - smells like Amazon
China Yahoo! - ya, they pretty much own Yahoo, and again consumer based
Aliwang - messaging app? consumer based.
ChinaVision Media Group - TV? consumer based
Youku Tudou - seems to be a Netflix, consumer based
11 Main - online mall, consumer based
Alibaba Group R&D institute - smells like Google, end user, consumer.

Seems pretty consumer based to me.

Re:November 11th? Really?

[_merlin]

I dunno, David Jones has scheduled the launch of their Christmas sales for 11/11 this year. Go to any of their bigger stores tomorrow after 5PM for free champagne and snacks while you celebrate consumerism. No-one's protesting.