How November 11 becomes a shopping festival in China?

11.11 Shopping Festival

November 11, known as Singles' Day (Guanggun Jie，光棍节) in China, is originally celebrated in a self-mockery way by Chinese netizens who are single but still try to proudly live a wonderful life by organising parties, meeting new friends, or buying stuff for themselves. The date is chosen for the resemblance between singles and the number "1". As more people join in the celebration of this "holiday", it has become a great opportunity for companies targeting younger consumers, including restaurants, Karaoke, and online shopping malls. Now it has become the largest online shopping day in the world, with sales in Alibaba's famous sites Tmall and Taobao at AU$8.3 billion in 2013 and AU$13.2 billion in 2014.

In 2009, Alibaba pioneered the "double 11" shopping event. In the past seven years with the vigorous development of China's e-commerce and the increasing Chinese Internet population, "double 11" has evolved far beyond an online shopping event, and become a celebration of the business community as a whole. "Double 11" is both a feast for the consumers, products, brands and business models, which projects a modern way of Chinese life as well as a unique cultural phenomenon.

It is noteworthy that the term "double 11"（"双十一"）was even trademarked by Alibaba Group on 28 December, 2012. Alibaba even threatens legal action against media outlets that accept advertising from competitors that use this term, such as Jing Dong (JD.com), Su Ning (suning.com) and Gome (gome.com.cn).

"Chop-hand Party"

China's e-commerce sector continues to grow and transform retail markets and social trends. In 2014 the total sales value of China's e-commerce sector was worth more than half a trillion Australia dollars. Around 90 percent of online shopping in China is transacted through e-commerce marketplaces, such as Taobao, Tmall, JD, SuNing, Gome, and Dangdang etc.

The booming e-commerce has spawned a new social group which is literally translated to "Chop-hand Party" (duoshou dang, 剁手党). It specifies a group of people addicted to online-shopping, most of them being female. These people browse various shopping websites everyday, searching products, comparing prices, rushing for flash sales, and placing orders. Most of the time they buy a lot of things they don't actually need and eventally end up wasting both the time and money. The "chop-hand party" people are usually clearly aware of this problem and swear to chop their own hands in case they buy again. However, when the shopping addiction relapses, they just forget their swear words utterly.

“Double 11” night gala

This year the "double 11" shopping festival has been taken to a next level- a night gala directed by Feng Xiaogang (a renowned Chinese film director) and featured with a bunch of super stars, was launched by Alibaba's media partner-China Hunan TV on 10 November, to pre-heat the next day's shopping spree.

This carnivalesque program is compared to the most signicant Chinese New Year's Gala on China's national television station (CCTV) except that it is particularly created for a spending-money event. This is unprecendented in Chinese history in a sense that China's robust e-commerce not only spawns new business model but also produces a shopping culture that reflects the integrations of business and entertainment, and the cooperation between commercial capital and media capital.

In a word, this is a "multi-win" day. Somebody sells, someboday celebrates, and somebody buys. Everybody is happy. 皆大欢喜。

Updates:

On 11 November, the gross sale the mainstream e-commerce suppliers is estimated at 150 billion yuan (about A$ 33 billion). For example,

Tmall.com: within the first 12 hours, the sale reached 57.6 billion yuan (A$ 12.7 billion), surpassing the total sale (57.1 billion yuan) on the same day of last year. 71.53% of the transactions was completed via mobile phone.

JD.com: within the first 10 hours, over 100 million orders were purchased, an increase of 180% over last year. 70% of the transactions was completed via mobile phone.

Suning.com: within the first 8 hours, the number of orders increased by 372% over last year. 64% of the transactions was completed via mobile phone.

Gome.com: within the first 30 seconds, the sale reached 100 million yuan (A$ 22 million). The sale in the first hour increased by 425% over last year. 69% of the transactions were completed via mobile phone.

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