Singles day or the double 11, originally named Bachelors Day, is a non-official holiday in China, come to symbolize a collective group of single people, male and female to celebrate and serving as an occasion for parties.
The date 11.11 was chosen for symbolic nature of the number "1" and the combination of the four "ones" together. Singles’ Day started in 1993 at Nanjing University among 4 bachelor-students to celebrate their singledom as a sort of anti-Valentine's Day. These activities spread through the university and eventually to other universities, appealing to both men and women. Singles' Day now serves as an occasion for single people to meet, speed dating and parties. It's a popular date for weddings as well. On that date, media discusses and covers love-related issues and relationship topics. Despite being a way to celebrate singleness, it is currently more of a bargain shopping day than celebrations, becoming the largest physical and online shopping holiday in the world, currently four times bigger than "Black Friday".
Singles' Day is the world's biggest shopping event. It turned the celebration into a major commercial event starting in 2009, offering steep discounts on merchandise. Alibaba sites, TMall and TaoBao are some of the online stores which rack up huge sales every year on the day with sales estimated at $157 billion USD (1.1 trillion yuan) in 2022. For a sense of scale, ecommerce giant Alibaba's gross merchandise volume during Singles' Day was approximately USD $84.5 billion.
While Western retailers have started to offer Singles' Day discounts, the shopping event has yet to take hold in the U.S. Singles’ Day has become the world’s biggest 24-hour online sale. It is also expanding globally with retailers offering Singles’ Day sales in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, Russia and Brazil.
So, single or not, it is a time of year started splurging on yourselves, putting an emphasis on self-care, wellness and self-love. It represents a chance to live your best life by capitalizing on maximum savings and endless choices during the biggest shopping festival.
