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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.
Not if you have kids... time loses meaning, each day mostly an olympic dash to microobjectives and periodic unconsciousness. Some people choose to fight the inevitable, by estbalishing a date night, sort of like a repository tag, to put a stake in the in shifting sea of time. On this date, the children are given to a baby sitter of dubious repute (sometimes chosen intentionally so) and the adults are set loose on the world.
On this night there is a date. There is no date on the quicksand of parenthood, but this is a date.