The Singles' Day (Chinese: 光棍节), or Double 11, is a Chinese shopping holiday that originated as an unofficial holiday for bachelors. Singles' Day began as an obscure "anti-Valentine's" celebration for single Chinese in the Nineties when students at Nanjing University started celebrating their singledom in 1993. The date, November 11 (11/11), was chosen because the number "1" resembles an individual who is alone. It was then adopted by e-commerce giant Alibaba (China's equivalent of Amazon) in 2009 and it has now become a day when everyone, regardless of their single status, buys themselves gifts.
The holiday has since become the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event. Alibaba, which has run the country's annual buying frenzy day for the past decade recorded that sales exceeded 168.2 billion yuan (US$25.4 billion) during the 2017 celebration, and exceeded $30bn with a few hours remaining on 2019-11-11, putting the event on track to set a new record. The day has for years eclipsed Cyber Monday in the US for online purchases made on a single day.
As more people join in the celebration of this holiday, many companies have taken the opportunity to target younger consumers including businesses such as restaurants, karaoke parlors, and online shopping malls. For example, the Chinese online shopping mall Taobao sold goods worth 19 billion CNY (about US$3 billion) on November 11, 2012.
In 2017, Black Friday and Cyber Monday set records seeing double-digit sales growth — but combined, they still only made up half of Alibaba's Singles Day online sales.
The holiday has also become a popular date to celebrate relationships, with over 4,000 couples being married in Beijing on this date in 2011, compared to an average of 700 a day. 2011 marked the "Singles Day of the Century" (Chinese pinyin: Shiji Guanggun Jie) as this date had six "ones" rather than four. In 2011, an above-average number of marital celebrations occurred in Hong Kong and Beijing on November 11.
While the holiday may have gone commercial, the celebrations and theme are still in line with its founding – to celebrate who you are, your friends, and your loved ones, regardless of what your relationship status is.