'Singles Day' sends shoppers on spending spree
By Katherine Wei , The China Post
November 12, 2013, 12:10 am TWN
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Shoppers in Taiwan and China sprang into action over the weekend, sending the sales of online shopping sites rocketing as the annual Singles Day (光棍節) rolled around.
The unofficial holiday is celebrated on Nov. 11, the four “ones” in month and day representing the relationship status of the singletons. This year's Singles Day falls on Monday, but online shopping sites began their campaign to boost sales last Friday, hoping to bag a portion of the estimated commercial opportunities worth 30 billion renminbi (RMB) in China.
Chinese electronic commerce firms were reported to have engaged the assistance of over one million express delivery workers, 100 cargo aircraft and 20,000 Internet cloud servers in order to better cope with the parade of shoppers.
Companies in China established a new set of rules to satisfy their shopping-hungry employees, including advancing the company payday and allowing the employees a half-day off on Monday.
According to Chinese media reports, over 28 million people joined the online shopping scene. Reports also estimated that the holiday will bring in sales of over 30 billion yuan, a 60-percent growth from last year.
Last year's Singles Day sales raked in over 19 billion yuan for Taobao and Tmall (天貓) in the sites' collaborated sales campaign, topping online shopping sales records in China.
Taiwan Joins the Shopping Fest
Taiwanese e-tailers were granted an opportunity to join the scramble for discounts as Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (阿里巴巴) and other shopping sites set up an order-and-delivery system for Taiwanese shoppers. The companies provided discounts, credit card reward points and delivery to convenience stores in Taiwan.
Nearly 2,900 Family Mart stores in Taiwan provided pick-up services and free coffee for customers that shopped on the Chinese site Taobao (淘寶) during the Singles Day sale; local banks including Yushan (玉山銀行) and Taishin (台新銀行) also attempted to boost their profits by releasing an 11-percent discount for shoppers using their credit cards.
Holiday Stems from Nanjing University
Singles Day is a trendy holiday for young Chinese to celebrate their bachelor lives, and had become an opportunity to boost sales for the e-commerce industry in 2009. Also called Bachelors' Day, the holiday was initially celebrated at various universities in the mainland Chinese city of Nanjing during the 1990s, and allegedly originated at Nanjing University in 1993. The first celebration of Singles Day was attributed to four male students studying in Nanjing University, who cooked up the holiday as the topic of ending their bachelor days was brought up each night in their dormitory.
Singles' Day has been largely popularized in the Internet era and is now a special day for all fashionable youths, and serves as an occasion for single people to party with single friends.
