Alibaba shattered previous sales records on Single’s Day in China, the largest global online shopping day of the year, reaching $25.3 billion in purchase volume across their Taobao and TMall platforms on November 11, 2017. Alibaba’s sales on this one day exceed the total volume of online sales in the United States from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, underscoring the size and significance of the Chinese eCommerce market.
Single’s Day was started in the early 1990’s as a day to take pride in being single, and aptly falls on November 11th (11/11) each year. Growing into the world’s largest shopping day, Alibaba Group trademarked the characters meaning “Double 11” in 2012. Alibaba’s platforms include the Taobao marketplace and TMall market for established merchants, brands and authorized distributors to reach Chinese eCommerce shoppers. Alibaba measures sales by Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), or the total value of sales across all sellers on their platforms.
Alibaba enjoyed $17.8 billion GMV on Single’s Day in 2016, previously the largest online shopping day of all time. On Single’s Day 2017, sales across Alibaba’s platforms increased by nearly 40 percent to $25.3 billion. Alibaba also reported that 90 percent of the gross merchandise volume came from mobile transactions.
While Alibaba is the largest eCommerce player in China, Single’s Day is a major opportunity for competitors as well. JD.com, the second largest eCommerce company in China, reported over $19 billion in sales over the “Single’s Day Period,” which lasts from November 1st through 12th.
To put Alibaba’s massive sales day in perspective, recent data from Adobe estimates the total U.S. online retail sales volume was $19.6 billion over the five day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, which includes several of the largest online shopping days in the United States.
Alibaba is often compared to Amazon or referred to the Amazon of China, but their sales volume on Single’s Day dwarfs that of Amazon’s Prime Day. Prime Day, although only in its third year, increased from $1.52 billion in sales in 2016 to $2.41 billion in 2017, an increase of nearly 59 percent. Alibaba increased GMV nearly 40 percent from 2016 to $25.3 billion on Single’s Day 2017.
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