Singles' Day

The Singles' Day or Double 11 (Chinese: 双11), originally called Bachelors' Day, is a Chinese unofficial holiday and shopping season that celebrates people who are not in relationships. The date, 11 November (11/11), was chosen because the numeral 1 resembles a bare stick (Chinese: 光棍; pinyin: guānggùn), which is Chinese Internet slang for an unmarried man who does not add 'branches' to the family tree. The four '1's also abstractly refer to the demographic group of single people. Paradoxically, the holiday has become a popular date on which to celebrate relationships: more than 4,000 couples got married in Beijing on this date in 2011, far greater than the daily average of 700 marriages.

The holiday has become the largest physical retail and online shopping day in the world. Alibaba shoppers exceeded 213.5 billion yuan (USD $30.7 billion) in total spend during 2018 Singles Day. Rivals such as JD.com hosts Singles' Day festival as well, which garnered USD $19.1 billion, bringing the Chinese total to USD $44.5 billion total sales volume in 2017. In 2019, Alibaba said that its gross merchandise volume for the whole event came in at 268.4 billion yuan (USD $38.4 billion), an increase of 26% from the previous year.

Image and content source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles%27_Day / https://www.catman.global/behind-the-biggest-day-in-retail-history