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

11/11

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully for the Commonwealth-localized pages (UK, CA, AU, NZ) they'll put up a poppy for Remembrance Day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_poppy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

Re:It is a lot more than just Canada

[Austerity Empowers]

this is actually a really bad one to select to celebrate rampant consumerism.

Unlike the yearly observance of the notional birth of the messiah, or the day after a day intended to be used to express gratitude for the sacrifice of the pilgrims, or hte day that bunnies lay chocolate eggs and you actually eat them...

Really I'm not sure I know of a holiday that we haven't turned in to some sort of circus. Even memorial day is mostly about cooking meat on a grill, and the families of the people being honored are still around.

Let's just ignore it because it's China and Alibaba and not look for some excuse.

Re:Am I the only one

[stephanruby]

Alibaba seems extra sketchy. I get that a lot of people will go to great lengths to save a buck, but I'm probably one of the few that prefers dealing with somewhat reputable companies (a few do still exist).

Alibaba is mostly for business to business sourcing. Personally, I don't know any other reputable place where I can source custom electronics equipment from China.

Amazon doesn't do that. Ebay doesn't that. And I guess I could go on a Chinese manufacturer's web site to get something done, but without Alibaba, I have no idea where I could get started and how reliable a supplier is going to be. Alibaba has just grown to be the default place where people go for that kind of thing. It's definitely not for everybody.

Re:It is a lot more than just Canada

[fnj]

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 [wikipedia.org] and even the US has Veteran's Day [wikipedia.org].

November 11 is (WW1) Armistice Day, that's what it is. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. All this crap about changing the name and pretending that it is for honoring the sacrifice of all veterans of all wars is just that, crap. If, that is, you actually care about history.

Not that I don't grasp the point. You can't go marking the end of every war as a holiday. Before you know it, every day would be a holiday. And a lot of them were not won. It would be a painful reminder of all the sacrifices that were in vain.

But those people who make it their business to know history can honor veterans every day instead of pouring it all out on a single symbolic day and quickly getting back to "real life".