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Alibaba Posts $1 Billion in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles' Day (bloomberg.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shopathon dept.

Alibaba Group posted $1 billion (6.81 billion yuan) of sales within the first five minutes of its Singles' Day sales, a 24-hour event that may offer clues on the health of the Chinese economy and its largest online retailer. From a report on Bloomberg:Investors are keeping a close eye on the annual Nov. 11 spending blitz that dwarfs Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U.S., to see if Alibaba can reprise the 60 percent leap in transactions to 91.2 billion yuan it managed last year. The e-commerce giant again turned up the star-wattage for 2016, enlisting Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson, sports celebrity David Beckham, basketball legend Kobe Bryant and pop-rock band One Republic to headline a pre-sale gala and drum up international attention. Pioneered by Alibaba in 2009 and since replicated by rivals including JD.com Inc., Singles' Day has become somewhat of a barometer of Chinese consumer sentiment.

41 comments

  1. CHINA ONLY HAS 4 WOMEN LEFT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i must buy them present

  2. In CHINA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are 11 months in a year, each 33 days, and 18 periods in a normal day, and their current year is dog.

  3. How do they avoid extortion? by jandrese · · Score: 1

    One big well advertised week where your systems are already jammed with orders? How in the world do they avoid getting hit by every single DDOS extortion outfit at once?

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
    1. Re:How do they avoid extortion? by mic4521 · · Score: 1

      Same as amazon. Have the redundancy and machine power to cope with it. They might not even be able to tell the difference at peak times.

    2. Re:How do they avoid extortion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pay them off ?

    3. Re:How do they avoid extortion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      china has no problem cutting off border routers to stop outside traffic and a DDOS from within china would be actual suicide.

  4. Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    Does this Amazon like company matter to those in the west? Just want to know. How much of this billion dollars was because of activity from the west?

    How many of people in the west even know about Alibaba?

    1. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I go to Alibaba when I want legos without paying the extortion prices. They have great blocks that are compatible. You do have to wait a month for shipping since they have to clear US customs.

    2. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Does this Amazon like company matter to those in the west? Just want to know. How much of this billion dollars was because of activity from the west?

      How many of people in the west even know about Alibaba?

      Well, very little in the west, but it's quite important as everything is on there. A lot of suppliers are, so if you're needing some random item from China, chances are you can order it online via Alibaba.

      If you need a source of cheap cables, Alibaba would be where you wanted to go to get dozens of oddball cables for $5 shipped.

      If you want to sell to Chinese, you would be wise to open an Alibaba storefront as well.

    3. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do too. Legos are ridiculously priced in the West. You can get Legos on Aliexpress for about 5% of the cost of "real" legos, and since they essentially stole the lego molds they are the same. Same goes for sports jerseys. People say they are "fake" but they are made in the same factory line as the "real" one, but are 10% of the cost.

    4. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      They don't care. The East is bigger than the West.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    5. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, I use Aliexpress/Alibaba all the time. Shipping is free, prices are low. Quality is mixed, but everything is made in China anyway so you might as well take advantage.

    6. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by zdzichu · · Score: 1

      Of course! Majority of ebay/allegro sellers are just middlemen buying stuf from alibaba and reselling locally. More and more people are aware of this scheme and just go to alibaba directly.

      --
      :wq
    7. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Does this Amazon like company matter to those in the west?

      It's the largest retailer in Asia. It's a global economy, if Asia goes into recession, we go into recession.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    8. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Northern European here — lots of people at my uni are ordering electronics from aliexpress.com, which is owned by alibaba company.

    9. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by jittles · · Score: 1

      I go to Alibaba when I want legos

      Do they sell grammar books? Then you could learn about uncountable nouns.

      I do not believe that Lego blocks would be considered as an uncountable noun in this context since you usually buy them in a set with a known quantity. For instance, when you buy a Star Wars X-wing Fighter Lego Set your buying a set with exactly 560 pieces.

    10. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

      AliExpress is pretty decent if you don't mind waiting for your order, sometimes in the vicinity of 20-49 days. Rush shipping to ~1week (via DHL) cost me ~$12 for my Xiaomi phone. Unfortunately their payment processor is Russian and you can't use it in the States -- although I heard rumblings a while back now that PayPal had cut some kind of deal with AliBaba, I haven't seen anything come of it yet.

    11. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      >heard rumblings a while back now that PayPal had cut some kind of deal with AliBaba

      Well, they dropped Baba as a customer and banned every Aliexpress merchant back in 2011 or late 2010.

      Why would Paypal work for a competitor?

    12. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by rijrunner · · Score: 1

      The sale is rolling by timezone. As I type this in, the sale will be starting in about 9 hours 15 minutes from where I live.

      So, that was all China.

      Aliexpress is getting bigger in the US. It is the same factory sources as many US companies, so the build quality is very similar and the prices are often significantly less. They also reflect the chinese tech market and that can be several years ahead of the US domestic sales market.

    13. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "How many of people in the west even know about Alibaba?"

      I buy all my clothes there (Aliexpress) for years, you select 'free shipping' and can also order small stuff f.ex. earrings for 75 cents and they ship them to you for free.

      Sports clothes are unbeatable there.

      After all, since all the clothes are made by Chines children, why not order them directly from the kids, and circumvent all the rest of the chain. :-)

    14. Re: Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by corychristison · · Score: 1

      I buy phone parts (screens, batteries, etc) from AliExpress on a regular basis.

      Many sellers offer an express shipping option to have it here in 4-5 business days. In many cases it's still cheaper to get what I need from AliExpress even with paying extra for express shipping.

      Most recently I bought 2 replacement screen/lcd/digitizer for my phone. Cost $70 with shipping and was here in a week. For the record I have a Motorola X Play (not available in the US).

    15. Re:Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by citizenr · · Score: 1

      Thats the whole point! They are BIGGER than west counterparts and still growing fast.
      Its a pretty big signal for Chinese, they can care less and less about west. Their well being is no longer linked to the amount of crap west imports from Asia.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    16. Re: Does Alibaba matter to those in the west? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Www

  5. Live imitates art by jenningsthecat · · Score: 0

    Scarlett Johansson co-starred in the 2003 Bill Murray movie 'Lost In Translation', about a fading American movie star in Tokyo doing an advertising gig for a liquor company. Now she's in China doing an advertising gig for Alibaba. The last time I checked she was hardly 'fading' though...

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Live imitates art by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      The last time I checked she was hardly 'fading' though...

      So then it's not a case of Life Imitates Art then, is it?

    2. Re:Live imitates art by freeze128 · · Score: 1, Troll

      You *DO* know that Tokyo is in Japan, not China, right?

  6. Re:In other news, Chinese males are desperate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wrong country

  7. Re:In other news, Chinese males are desperate. by sirber · · Score: 1

    wrong country

    wong country?

    --
    Be or ben't
  8. The figures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How much of that was sex dolls of hot Western celebrities, like the great singers Katy Pervy and Just-in Beaver?

    1. Re:The figures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's about as ignorant as asking how much of black friday sales are made up of processed cheese. Since you know, everyone knows Americans love processed cheese.

  9. The locust swarm can't be stopped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's a reason the people of Hong Kong coined that term.

  10. Too much consumerism by genner · · Score: 1

    Have we all forgotten the true spirit of Singles Day?

    1. Re:Too much consumerism by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      Have we all forgotten the true spirit of Singles Day?

      I figured it was to go shopping, in the hope the accumulation of material possessions would ease the loneliness?

    2. Re:Too much consumerism by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Have we all forgotten the true spirit of Singles Day?

      Yeah, what about the Airing of Grievances and the Feats of Strength?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  11. My 5 year old thanks you! by Timmy+D+Programmer · · Score: 1

    That's a pretty massive savings. here come the blocks!

    --


    (If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
  12. Scale doesn't add up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Walmart did around $450 Billion in sales in 2015. Amazon's 2015 revenue was $107 B. There are 1440 minutes in a day, or 288 "5 minutes". If they kept this up for a full 24 hours, that would be somewhere between Amazon & Walmart's entire annual revenue in a day. Alibaba's annual revenue, as far as I can tell is more like $30-40B USD. Either.... these numbers are staggeringly huge, or something doesn't add up.

    1. Re: Scale doesn't add up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alibaba doesn't sell its own things, so those sales don't add up to revenues. Basically they take a cut of every sale they broker.

  13. Singles' Day by TheMadTopher · · Score: 1
    From the article:

    Singles' Day was invented by college students in the 1990s as a counter to Valentine's Day according to the Communist Party-owned People's Daily. Written numerically, Nov. 11 is reminiscent of "bare branches," a local expression for bachelors and spinsters.