China's e-commerce giant Alibaba amassed sales nearing $7 billion from its annual Singles' Day shopping craze-the World's biggest online shopping day of the year.
Not yet a day in (exactly 17 hours), Alibaba already earned $6.96 billion with industry analysts expecting the firm to shoot past $8 billion this year.
Singles' Day, or Anti-Valentine's Day started in China two decades ago as a time for bachelors and bachelorettes to celebrate the single life.
Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company, used this an opportunity to boost sales by giving out deep discounts on everything from cars to clothes.
Last year, Alibaba amassed $5.8 billion in sales from Singles' Day, up from $3.1 billion in 2012.-even bigger than the United States' Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined.
Alibaba is confident that it would break sales record during the event.
"I bet the number [of goods bought] is going to be scary," said Alibaba's executive chairman Jack Ma last week.
Ma estimated that 200 million packages would be shipped from orders made during the day.
Alibaba reported it sold $2 billion products during the first hour of the annual event.
Alibaba's two e-commerce sites, Taobao Marketplace and Tmall, both experienced exponential growth in sales since 2009, and has then changed what then was called "Double 11" (the date 11/11 is a loosely defined holiday celebrated by young single Chinese for its four "1's," the number representing their single status) into the biggest 24-hour shopping event in the world, Business Insider reports.
Meanwhile, netizens joked on how such an obscure holiday transformed into a massive online shopping bonanza
"November 11 used to be 'Singles' Day'. Then it became the Shopping Day, and now it's Couples' Shopping Day," complains one user on Weibo, China's version of Twitter. "Looking across the globe and over the years, there's never really been a day dedicated to single people."
While others seemed to be tempted by the attractive discounts offered by Alibaba-"too attractive," to say the least.
"Please Singles' Day, can you pass by quickly?," reads a typical comment. "I didn't think I needed anything until today when I feel like I need everything I see. I'm so helpless!"
