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Why Does the World’s Biggest Shopping Event – Singles Day – Occur on November 11th?
Article

Why Does the World’s Biggest Shopping Event – Singles Day – Occur on November 11th?


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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Background
  • Insider's Take

Recommendation

During a dorm discussion at Nanjing University in 1993, four young single men invented Singles Day as an optimistic way to deal with the monotony and dreariness of a bachelor’s life. To honor single students mingling and celebrating bachelorhood, November 11th seemed like a suitable date. It looks particularly lonesome because the “double 11” numbers resemble four single digits (ones) in a row. In this excerpt from her book Singles Day: The Machinations Behind the World’s Largest Shopping Day, Qin Yan – a former marketing specialist for Alibaba’s e-commerce website Tmall – explains the strategies that Alibaba used to transform a campus social happening into the world’s biggest retail event. getAbstract recommends this article to people interested in how e-commerce companies influence your spending behavior.

Take-Aways

  • Although November isn’t an ideal month for sales promotions, Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong decided to use Singles Day, November 11th, to boost online sales.
  • Alibaba had to identify untapped consumer demands to support its e-commerce website Tmall’s Singles Day sales.
  • Tmall is able to keep prices low on its platform on November 11 by using market competition and by giving online retailers freedom to decide discount policies.

About the Author

Qin Yan is the author of the marketing book Singles Day: The Machinations Behind the World’s Largest Shopping Day. She was involved in the planning of the marketing, logistics and third-party service rules for Alibabas e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall.