On November 11 of 2024, around ***** million people shopped on Alibaba’s C2C e-commerce platform Taobao. The social e-commerce platform Pinduoduo received approximately ***** million active shoppers that day. Is China’s Singles’ Day comparable to Black Friday? While U.S. shoppers battle through crowds of equally eager bargain hunters on days like Black Friday, many Chinese consumers are content to complete their annual shopping sprees online, having their orders delivered at doors instead. Compared to Black Friday, the Singles' Day sales in China might be less physical, but undoubtedly, they are similarly intense. In 2021, the e-commerce giant Alibaba recorded a GMV of **** billion U.S. dollars during the Singles' Day sales in China, nearly seven times more compared to the global sales value of Amazon's Prime Day. A day not only for singles Singles' Day was an unofficial holiday celebrated by singles in China. The holiday lands on November 11 every year, as 1 represents single. Since Alibaba started its first online shopping festival in 2009, Singles’ Day has become the most-known online shopping festival among Chinese consumers. Since 2020, the Singles' Day sales have morphed into a three-week-long sales event, starting from the end of October.

Competition in ecommerce is increasingly becoming a straight fight between the US and China, with a handful of tech behemoths dominating the market and amassing huge troves of user data. As markets in Western countries become saturated, the ecommerce giants will be rushing to grab market share in the emerging digital economies, with India and Africa as the primary battlegrounds. In 2020 the internet super-monopolies’ plans for expansion might be thwarted by regulatory headwinds in the form of increased scrutiny of their antitrust and data privacy practices. All eyes will be on the European Union’s investigation of Amazon, which could set an important precedent in regulating ecommerce platforms’ dual role as both marketplace and retailer. Read More