Alibaba raked in $12 billion in two hours during the shopping holiday it helped create (BABA)

pulse

November 10, 2017 9:26 PM

Singles' Day is a holiday meant people to treat themselves with gifts in China. Alibaba has turned it into a massive e-commerce event.

Singles' Day is a day in China where people often treat themselves with gifts
.
It's a response to Valentine's day and is on 11/1 — the ones all symbolize single people.
Alibaba has championed the shopping holiday and, this year, pulled in $12 billion in just the first two hours.

In the first two hours of Singles' Day this year, Alibaba pulled in a massive $12 billion in sales, according to the company.

Singles' Day is a holiday created to serve as an alternative to Valentines Day in China. People often celebrate their independence by buying themselves gifts, and Alibaba has turned the holiday into a blowout extravaganza.

It took Alibaba's customers just 2 minutes and 1 second to buy $1 billion worth of stuff during the holiday, which starts at the midnight before November, 11 (11/11.) In the first hour, Alibaba processed 325,000 orders per second and more than 60 brands recorded sales of more than $15 million, the company said in an emailed statement.

That's absolutely massive and puts US shopping holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday to shame. Amazon's own made up "Prime Day" celebration boasted $1 billion in sales for the first time this year, a feat that took the company 30 hours of sales to achieve.

Combining the most recent Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales gives you only 43% of Alibaba's total sales during last year's Singles' Day. Last year, Alibaba shipped more than 1 billion packages and is on track to well outpace that this year.

pulse