The Singles' Day event has grown to encompass much of China's retail sector.
Every year on November 11, Chinese people celebrate Singles' Day, which is also the period of the world's largest online shopping festival, according to the Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper South China Morning Post.
Here are five points about China's largest online shopping festival:
- It was originally called "Bachelors' Day" and is an unofficial Chinese holiday and shopping season that celebrates people who are not in relationships, according to South China Morning Post.
- The Singles' Day shopping spree is one of the largest online shopping festivals in the world and is considered an important barometer of China's economic health. The combined gross value of products sold by Alibaba and JD.com this year "may surpass a trillion yuan," Xiaofeng Wang, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, was quoted as saying in a note by news agency AFP. The expected value is much higher than the total of 965 billion yuan raked in at last year's event.
- According to Time, students at Nanjing University started Singles' Day in 1993 as a way to celebrate being single, largely by buying themselves presents.
- November 11th, written as 11/11, resembles "bare branches," a Chinese expression for the single and unattached, reported South China Morning Post.
- Singles' Day is an opportunity for singles to meet and organise parties. The holiday was originally only observed by young men, hence the name "Bachelors' Day." However, it is now widely celebrated by men and women equally.
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