November plays host to three of the world’s biggest online sales days. In China, there is Single’s Day on November 11 (11/11). Then in the U.S., Black Friday and Cyber Monday take place just as the Thanksgiving leftovers are getting cold, on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the next Monday, respectively. Many billions of dollars are spent by many millions of consumers chasing online deals.
Let’s start with Singles Day, the Chinese retail holiday called the “anti-Valentine’s Day.” Online retailer Alibaba reported Single’s Day sales of an eye-melting $25.3 billion, 39% higher than the previous year. No doubt helped by Nicole Kidman and Pharrell Williams, who were enlisted to entertain shoppers. At the peak of the e-commerce frenzy, Alibaba processed 256,000 sales transactions per second, with 90% of sales conducted on mobile devices.
In the U.S., Black Friday is traditionally driven by physical retailers, while the newer Cyber Monday is dominated by online retailers like Amazon. In 2016, $3.39 billion in Cyber Monday online sales eclipsed Black Friday’s $3.34 billion in online sales. Which puts into perspective the magnitude of Single’s Day: Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales together are just a small portion of one Single’s Day.
Entefy’s enFacts are illuminating nuggets of information about the intersection of communications, artificial intelligence, security and cyber privacy, and the Internet of Things. Have an idea for an enFact? We would love to hear from you.