Last year, Alibaba reported Singles Day sales
of 213.5 billion yuan ($30.8 billion), or more
than 13 times its daily average of about 16
billion yuan ($2.3 billion).
Suning said sales of smartphones and other
electronics passed 1 billion yuan ($160
million) in the first minute after midnight. The
company said later sales were up 86% over
2018’s Singles Day but gave no total.
Dangdang, an online book retailer, said it sold
6.8 million copies in the first hour.
Chinese online spending is growing faster
than total retail sales but also is weakening
as economic growth decelerates. Growth
declined to a multi-decade low of 6% over
a year earlier in the quarter ending
in September.
Online sales of goods rose 16.8% over a year
earlier in the first nine months of 2019 to
5.8 trillion yuan ($825 billion), according to
official data. That was more than double the
8.2% growth rate for total consumer spending
but down from an average of about 30% in
recent years.
E-commerce made up 19.5% of Chinese
consumer spending, compared with about
11% of spending for American consumers.
Yang Wei, a migrant worker in Beijing, planned
to skip the online rush.
“I feel like the difference (in price) is not that
big, and since everyone’s buying all at once,
the logistics and delivery are slower,” said
Yang. “I think that it’s actually better for me to
buy when not everyone’s buying.”