Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday—Single’s Day is the biggest shopping holiday in the world. Each year on November 11, shoppers in China rush online to empty their wallets. In 2017, they spent more than $25 billion!
Single’s Day began in the early 1990s, when students at Nanjing University bought themselves presents to celebrate an “anti-Valentines Day.” They picked the date because it’s a collection of ones.
In 2009, Alibaba, China’s online superstore equivalent of Amazon, started offering 24-hour deals. Since then, Single’s Day has kept growing. Retailers now offer more than 15 million discounted products on the holiday. Spending increased by 40 percent from 2016 to 2017. A four-hour party and concert kick-started the event. What a way to celebrate the single life!