Chinese consumers spend over $100b in shopping fest

Chinese consumers spent over a hundred billion dollars during this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival. From Nov. 1 to Nov. 11, shoppers spent 75.1 billion dollar on Taobao and Tmall, the e-commerce platforms operated by Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company.

The final sales figure exceeded last year’s 38.4 billion dollar over 24 hours, after Alibaba extended its sales period this year for the first time as it sought to help boost sales for merchants affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Merchants big and small, from small online stores to international brands like Apple, Nike and L’Oreal, participate in the festival by slashing prices on their products.

Alibaba, which pioneered the shopping festival, held its first Singles’ Day sale in 2009. Over the past decade, the shopping bonanza has become the world’s largest, regularly dwarfing Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the U.S.