中国电子商务巨头阿里巴巴走向世界

In China, November 11th or 11-11' marks Singles Day'. But for China's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba, it's the biggest shopping day of the year. This year, sales on its platforms hit a record 57.1 billion yuan, or 9.3 billion US dollars, after completing the world's biggest initial public offering ever, two months ago.

The 11th of the 11th was once a little-known Chinese holiday. Invented by students, to celebrate being single.

Then China’s e-commerce giant, Alibaba, turned it into an online shopping bonanza. Merchants wanting to take part in the sale on its platforms, including Tmall and Taobao - must give shoppers discounts of at least 50 percent.

"Since it launched, I always used Taobao. It’s convenient, because you save more time than shopping outside. Unless it’s something I need, I wait until Singles’ Day to buy it, to get a big discount. Today I’m hoping to buy some new clothes and a treadmill.  It was 4,000 yuan before, now it’s half price, around 2,000," Online shopper Lu Hua said.

In return, Alibaba boosts website hits and support services for vendors. So they can run and market their stores better.

And it seems to be working. With sales of 10 billion yuan - or one and a half billion US dollars - in the first 38 minutes.

Now, the shopping spree is going global, through a new international platform, AliExpress.

This year, American Eagle, Zara and Calvin Klein are among the international brands taking part in the super-sale, for the first time.

Last year, this sale made 35 billion yuan or 5.7 billion dollars, in one day. That’s more than three times what Americans spent during Black Friday and Thanksgiving combined. One of the reasons is customers feel safe, with Alibaba holding their money from vendors, until buyers receive their goods.

As well as more security for customers, AliExpress, charges a lower commission to vendors, than Amazon and EBay. But e-commerce analyst, Jialin Jiang, says it’s product range can’t compete with those overseas rivals - yet.

"It (AliExpress) is still in the very early stages. And it can only sell goods like t-shirts and mobile phones. It’s not like Taobao or Tmall - they are selling more than that. It can’t compare with Amazon and EBay, because it is still a little small, just like a child, but it will grow very fast," Jiang said.

Since listing on the New York stock exchange in September, Alibaba’s stock surged more than 70 percent.

Its executive chairman, Jack Ma, was invited to the APEC Summit in Beijing. But he declined, saying he was busy, with the singles’ day sale.

A sign of just how important that one day is, for China’s increasingly global e-commerce giant.