After the first hour of its annual Singles’ Day shopping event on Monday, Alibaba had 184 million orders to ferry to shoppers. By the end of the day it had 1.292bn, nearly one for every person in China.
The November 11 extravaganza, which began as a way for single Chinese to console themselves through shopping, is now the world’s largest splurge, with deals that keep coming well into the night.
Afterwards, Chinese shoppers, like their counterparts in the west, want their purchases to arrive fast. Alibaba has said that within the next three years, it will have spent more than Rmb100bn ($15.7bn) to be able to deliver to anywhere in China within 24 hours. It hopes to be able to reach anywhere in the world in three days.