光棍节:网络购物的狂欢节

Unattached Chinese women and men celebrate Singles Day on November 11 because the date is composed of the number "one," which is evocative of the Chinese word for bachelor, "guang gun," meaning bare stick.

Although it started as a campus joke in the 1990s, the unofficial Chinese holiday has in recent years has evolved into a "real" one in people's minds. Instead of having parties many celebrate with an online shopping spree.

Chi Jingqiang is an online shop owner from Shandong Province. He sells bachelor badges and dog tags. His products are on the Singles Day gifts recommendation list due to the amusing sayings on badges, like "Life is short, stay single," "Proud to be single." Chi said he started the business only recently.

"I opened this shop on a whim. When talking with my friends at dinner about Singles Day the other day, the idea of selling gifts like this online popped up in my head. I think it's a good business chance, so I took action right away and started the shop in October. It's doing pretty well. I sold more than 2,000 badges a day at the best time."

Chi sells the badges with a very low price, about 1 yuan each; he says profit is not his priority, but a good credit rating is. A good credit rating will make his shop more attractive to customers and he has long term plans to expand his business and sell products for all holidays..

A long-time online shop owner Tian Yue says that on Singles Day all the online shops will see a boost in page views and sales.

"Page view volume will rise at least by 50 percent, like if you normally have 10 customers clicking your page a day, you will see 15 clicks during the holiday. And sales volume will rise by 30 percent on average."

At the same time, large B2C marketplaces, like Tmall, 360buy, Cooba and Sunning are all using the holiday to feature sales promotions in the hope of boosting the traditionally bleak retail period.

Tmall and Cooba have opened their special half price marketplaces with hundreds of brands and thousands of commodities. 360buy and Sunning have also slashed prices by up to 50 percent or offer in-store rebate coupons equaling price of the product.

Office worker and avid online shopper Hou Ying says she's been waiting for the discount campaign for some time, and has prepared a whole list of things she's been planning to purchase.

"The list includes daily items like and electric kettle and thermal jugs that I need to replace; and of course clothes and shoes are also on the list. I can spend a couple of thousand yuan on them, and I will get them all."

Online shopper Dong Fangyuan says she has her rules when it comes to online shopping.

"My rule is to shop rationally. You buy what you really need. If you have to make the purchase during discount seasons like this, you shop around and compare the prices. For things you don't need urgently, keep them on a list and place the order when there is a discount."

Online shop owner Tian predicts that online shopping platforms will have similar campaigns more often than ever. Because Singles Day is also called "Double Eleven", businesses may promote "Double Twelve" and "Double Ten" in the future. He advises that if you can't find a good bargain this time, just be patient. There will always be another discount season.

For CRI, I'm Wang Wei.