Monday, November 11, 2013

Singles Day (光棍節)


November 11 is an important day for lonely Chinese man : It is the Single's Day or Guanggun Jie (光棍节) where they celebrate their bachelor life. The date, November 11, is closen because it is single (one) quadrupled (1111). There are a lot of young single men in China and their number is increasing thanks to One Child Policy.

Single's Day started in Nanjing University in 1993 and later popularized by the large number of single men on the internet. It is a great opportunity for singles to party with single friends. 11/11/2011 was celebrated as Singles Day of the Century because it had 6 "ones" instead of 4.

Today, Single's Day is becoming as popular and commercialized as Valentine's Day as more people join in the celebration of this holiday. It has become a great opportunity for companies targeting younger consumers, restaurants, Karaoke, and low-price online shopping malls. For example, a Chinese online shopping mall called Taobao sold 19 billion CNY(about 3 billion USD) of their goods on November 11, 2012.

In Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) companies offer big discounts for this "special" day as they have discovered that young single man may tend to spend more on this day to forget his so-called "sad" situation (and a man in relationship or marriage would admire this single kings).

No woman, no kids and no family means much more disposable income and companies have discovered this.

Singles Day (光棍節)
Singles Day (光棍節)
Taobao, Lynx Mall, for example, has more than 20,000 online merchants, began early this morning there will be various promotions, everywhere Visible 50% or greater discount merchandising, trousers and footwear, cosmetics to baby food too. Others such as Jingdong Mall and Dangdang, also offer discounts on Singles.

Over 100 freighter aircraft and countless high-speed rail carriages and vehicles are gearing up to shuttle around Chinese cities for the shopping carnival of Singles Day on Monday.

The online shopping spree on Nov. 11., initiated in the name of "Singles Day," a celebration for those not paired off, has become the country's most popular annual commercial holiday and created an e-commerce miracle.
Source : Singles Day promotions kindle China's spending power

In China, November 11 – or 11.11 – is known as Single’s day, a new twist on Valentine’s day on which bachelors celebrate the single life. But rather than going online in pursuit of love, young Chinese consumers now search the web for what money can buy – turning Single’s day into a national day of online retail therapy.

With retailers joining in, by offering steep discounts on everything from infant formula to BMWs, this year’s event looks poised to be the biggest day for online shopping, by value of goods sold, in the world.

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