China's Singles Day has evolved into what is probably the world's biggest online shopping event。
The 50,000-plus merchants on Alibaba's consumer-oriented Tmall.com took in 13.2 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion)， the company said, after discounts of at least 50 percent were promised on a massive range of goods。
Sales on Alibaba's Taobao marketplace took the 24-hour total to 19.1 billion yuan。
The Tmall total was more than three times the amount raised on the same day last year and more than double the amount Shanghai retailers took during last month's week-long National Day holiday。
It also surpassed the US$1.26 billion online retailers in the US earned on last year's Cyber Monday, a marketing term dreamed up in 2005 to encourage online shopping for Christmas。
Singles Day was started by college students in the 1990s as an alternative to Valentine's Day for people without partners, and the timing was based on the date November 11, or "11.11," representing four singles。
Unattached young Chinese would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to woo that special someone and end their single status。
This year was the third year of a Singles Day "shopping festival" initiated by Tmall and followed by other online retailers, including 360buy.com and Amazon。
"This is very, very big for us," Steve Wang, vice president of Tmall.com and head of website operations, told the Associated Press. The company said on its website that yesterday might be the "biggest e-shopping orgy ever."
However, many people failed to secure a bargain yesterday because of technical glitches and exaggerated price cuts。
"I waited for the moment to come but what I found were nothing but constant error alerts," said Cathy Lu, a Shanghai office worker who had been carefully putting a dozen or so items on her wish list over the past a few days. "I was either stuck in the shopping cart or the payment page. I gave up and went to bed with huge disappointment."
Others said there were few genuine discounts as retailers had merely raised price tags so they could boast of huge price cuts。
"Some goods can be sold out in a few minutes, before you get to the payment page," said another online shopper in Shanghai. "But really things are not much cheaper if you get them. They are just making the ads look good."
Shanghai designer Lei Shujie had put off buying clothes, a pillow, and a cabinet to give a friend when she heard of discounts of up to 70 percent。
But she wound up buying just the pillow for 118 yuan because other discounts weren't as big as she hoped, AP said。
Tmall yesterday apologized for the "inconvenience" the technical glitches caused。
"The website did lag during the peak, but things improved," said Danial Zhang, Tmall's president。
Sellers of everything from jewelry to TVs to cars saw a marketing opportunity and launched Singles Day sales。
At its headquarters in the eastern Hangzhou City, Alibaba set up 200 lounge chairs for its 800-strong staff to rest during the day. The company rented 180 rooms at nearby hotels for longer breaks。
China's delivery companies had 800,000 employees working yesterday, including 65,000 temporary workers hired for the singles' holiday。
YTO Express Co Ltd in Shanghai, planned to have 30,000 vehicles on the road yesterday, and had expanded its daily handling capacity by 50 percent to 6 million packages for the day。
相關(guān)內(nèi)容
11日零時(shí)起，天貓購物狂歡節(jié)的數(shù)據(jù)不斷“跳高”，10分鐘交易額突破2.5億元、30分鐘超全香港日平均零售總額、37分鐘交易額突破10億元、8小時(shí)16分支付寶總銷售額達(dá)50億元、13小時(shí)38分支付寶銷售額達(dá)到100億元……
賣完100億元的商品需要多長時(shí)間?天貓“11·11”購物狂歡節(jié)給出的答案是13小時(shí)38分。
11日零時(shí)起，天貓購物狂歡節(jié)的數(shù)據(jù)不斷“跳高”，10分鐘交易額突破2.5億元、30分鐘超全香港日平均零售總額、37分鐘交易額突破10億元、8小時(shí)16分支付寶總銷售額達(dá)50億元、13小時(shí)38分支付寶銷售額達(dá)到100億元……至11日24時(shí)，經(jīng)過一整天的瘋狂銷售，天貓“11·11”購物狂歡節(jié)再度刷新國內(nèi)零售額紀(jì)錄，達(dá)191億元。
據(jù)介紹，“13小時(shí)100億”這個(gè)數(shù)字大幅超越了去年美國電子商務(wù)行業(yè)的紀(jì)錄。數(shù)據(jù)顯示，美國“網(wǎng)絡(luò)星期一”(感恩節(jié)后的第一個(gè)星期一，是美國在線銷售市場中一年里銷售額的一天)去年的交易額是12.5億美元，約合78億人民幣。另外，這一數(shù)據(jù)也遠(yuǎn)超今年中秋國慶黃金周8天內(nèi)上海395家大中型商業(yè)企業(yè)、5000多個(gè)網(wǎng)點(diǎn)的總營業(yè)收入——64.3億元。分析人士認(rèn)為，隨著100億節(jié)點(diǎn)的突破，線上交易形式的影響力在逐漸增強(qiáng)，并開始全面逼傳統(tǒng)零售業(yè)態(tài)升級(jí)。
8小時(shí)超去年當(dāng)天銷售額
從11月1日開始，就有近2000萬消費(fèi)者將自己心儀的商品收藏或添加到購物車，就等著11日刷新支付。根據(jù)天貓方面公布的消息稱，昨天“11·11”購物狂歡節(jié)正式開啟的第一分鐘，就有1000萬人同時(shí)涌入天貓和淘寶。接下來的情況只能用瘋狂來形容，10分鐘后狂歡節(jié)交易額就達(dá)到2.5億元，0時(shí)37分越過10億元，8時(shí)16分突破50億元，僅僅用了8小時(shí)就超越了去年“11·11”天貓和淘寶的支付寶總銷售額。
截至11日12時(shí)，天貓已經(jīng)有兩家店鋪銷售額突破6000萬元，而銷售額在1000萬元以上的店鋪已有109家，超過950家店鋪營業(yè)額過百萬，并且數(shù)據(jù)仍然持續(xù)攀高。與此同時(shí)，12時(shí)前首個(gè)整體銷量破億的品牌也產(chǎn)生，傳統(tǒng)線下品牌“駱駝”攜旗下服飾、戶外幾家旗艦店整體銷量破億元，成為首個(gè)在“11·11”狂歡節(jié)中銷量破億的品牌。
