Alibaba Set for Record Sales on Singles Day

Alibaba (BABA: NYSE) is getting ready to smash its single day sales record. This is being driven by China’s growing internet population and the ever increasing number of retailers participating.

This will be held on November 11, also known as Single’s day or 11/11. This was a day created by Chinese to celebrate or contemplate being single. It has since grown into the biggest online shopping event in the world and lasts 24 hours.

Last year, Alibaba had $5.8 billion in transactions. This was more than twice what we saw on Cyber Monday, which was at $1.7 billion. Cyber Monday is the largest online day in the United States, which occurs the Monday after the Thanksgiving Holiday.

This year, they are expecting a sales near $8.17 billion or 50 billion yuan. If this happens, it will be a 40 percent jump from last year’s number. Why could this happen? There are more popular items and various food products like baby formula. We are also seeing more home electronics as well as more consumer products.

The enthusiasm for this event is growing as we are seeing many of the e-commerce companies launching marketing campaigns to increase consumer awareness and draw in more buyers. They are hoping to drive more and more traffic to their sites. Alibaba’s pre orders for 11/11 began in mid-October. This is where consumers deposit money upfront to reserve their products. They then pay the balance during the event.

Delivery staff are also getting ready, while it might be a fun day, it’s very hectic and busy for them. Deliveries are unusually high and this means, more seasonal staff could be hired. A plus for the labor market. They are expecting upwards of 500 million packages to be delivered from November 11 to November 16. This would be a fifty percent increase from the previous year.

In order to help make 11/11 a global event Alibaba has invited Aliexpress, Tmall Gobal to get involved to each Chinese outside of mainland China to participate. Select items in Aliexpress will enjoy a 50 percent discount and online buyer in Spain, Brazil, Russia and other markets will get free shipping and select items purchased. This means consumers from more than 220 countries will be able to make purchases of promotional products on Aliexpress via Tmall Global.

China’s massive online shopping day, 11/11, is now going global.