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

Posted by samzenpus on from the buy-something dept.

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.

4 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck in Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. It is a lot more than just Canada by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. AliBaba's online outlet is called AliExpress. by jdagius · · Score: 5, Informative

    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!

  4. Re:Am I the only one by intermelt · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.