Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, made over US$74.1 billion in sales during the November 11 “Singles Day” event, one of the biggest one-day online shopping events in the world.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said this year's sales broke "multiple records," with the gross merchandise sales nearly double the 2019 sales total.

“If there were any lingering doubts about the health of China’s retail sector, the US$74.1 billion in gross merchandise volume transacted during Alibaba’s 2020 11.11 Global Shopping Festival should erase them,” Alibaba said in a statement. “The 11-day promotion shattered multiple records, as Chinese consumers flocked to homegrown and international brands.”

Alibaba noted that this year, the event featured two shopping windows, the first from November 1-3, and the second for 24 hours on November 11 to offer more opportunities for brands and merchants to extend deals to consumers.

It said total GMV for the event was calculated from Nov. 1-11, and easily beat last year’s US$38.4 billion figure — with US brands raking in US$5.39 billion for the entire shopping period, the largest contribution from a single country or region outside of China, according to Alibaba President Michael Evans.

Overall, Alibaba noted that the 474 participating brands each surpassed RMB100 million (US$15 million) in GMV this year.

Chinese economy back to pre-pandemic level

“The Chinese economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels,” said Alibaba founder and Executive Vice-Chairman Joe Tsai.

The e-commerce behemoth noted that the 11.11 festival was also "well-received" by China’s millennial and Gen-Z consumers, who have been largely unable to travel internationally.

Alibaba said overall, 31,766 overseas brands offered goods on Alibaba’s cross-border platforms this 11.11 and over 26,000 brands from 84 countries and regions took part in the “Singles Day 2020” event, offering 1.2 million new products from overseas to Chinese consumers.

According to Alibaba’s latest figures, the jewellery category saw the fastest growth, exceeding the category’s total sales from last year. 

Cainiao breaks delivery record

Alibaba’s logistics subsidiary Cainiao processed 2.32 billion orders for delivery during the sale, also surpassing the "record" 1.88 billion “Singles Day”-related packages in 2019.

Alibaba said Cainiao operated over 700 chartered flights to ensure fulfilment of cross-border product deliveries, and to speed up delivery of overseas goods to China, Cainiao worked with international merchants to move their products into seven Cainiao e-hubs.

Cainiao also rolled out new self-service technology at its post stations to enable fast parcel collection by consumers.

The Single's Day shopping craze is akin to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the US but introduced locally by Alibaba's e-platform Tmall on Nov. 11, 2009.