BEIJING: Chinese retailer Alibaba made a history by selling $2 billion of goods in the first hour of China’s annual “Singles’ Day”.
That compares with $3.1bn in sales seen in the first half of last year’s event.
Singles’ Day is considered the world’s biggest online retail sales day. It compares with “Cyber Monday” in the US – the day after Thanksgiving also marketed as a big online shopping day.
Alibaba said it expected to break sales records during the annual event, offering big discounts to boost sales.
“I bet the number [of goods bought] is going to be scary,” said Alibaba’s executive chairman Jack Ma last week. He estimated that 200 million packages would be shipped from orders made during the day.
