The Singles Day, or Double 11, is a Chinese shopping holiday that originated as an unofficial holiday for bachelors. The date, November 11, was chosen because the number "1" resembles a "bare stick", which is a Chinese slang for a lonely man with no significant others, and four "1"s abstractly refer to the demographic group of single men. The holiday has ironically also become a popular date to celebrate relationships, with over 4,000 couples being married in Beijing on this date in 2011, compared to an average of 700 a day. The holiday has become the largest offline and online shopping day in the world, with Alibaba shoppers exceeding 213.5 billion yuan in purchase during the 2018 celebration. Rival JD.com hosts an eleven-day shopping festival as well, which garnered USD $19.1 billion, bringing the Chinese total to USD $44.5 billion. In 2019, Alibaba said that its gross merchandise volume for the whole event came in at 268.4 billion yuan, an increase of 26 percent from the previous year.
Origins
The Singles' Day, or Bachelors' Day, originated at Nanjing University in 1993. Singles' Day celebrations spread to several other universities in Nanjing during the 1990s. November 11, consisting of four "1"s, was chosen as it represents four singles. There are several ideas explaining the creation of the Singles' Day festival. The most widely accepted idea is that the holiday grew out of Nanjing University's dorm culture. One origin story is that in 1993, four male students of Nanjing University's Mingcaowuzhu dorm discussed how they could break away from the monotony of being single and agreed that November 11 would be a day of events and celebrations in honor of being single. These activities spread through the university and eventually made their way into wider society. The spread increased with social media use, and the event has become increasingly popular within contemporary Chinese culture and society.
Description
Singles' Day serves as an occasion for single people to meet and for parties to be organized. The holiday was initially only celebrated by young men, hence the initial name "Bachelors' Day." However, it is now widely celebrated by both sexes. "Blind date" parties are popular on this day, in an attempt to alter the single status of the participants. Some universities organize special programs to gather singles together for the celebration. Singles may take on an annoyed or self-deprecating attitude in response to remaining single as a university student, but university initiatives have helped curb that negativity.Although this date is meant to celebrate singlehood, the desire to find a spouse or partner is often expressed by young Chinese people on this date, while other love-related issues are discussed by the Chinese media.
Shopping
The event is not an officially recognized public holiday in China, although it has become the largest offline and online shopping day in the world. Sales in Alibaba's sites, Tmall and Taobao, have reached US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, US$14.3 billion in 2015, US$17.8 billion in 2016, and over US$25.4 billion in 2017. JD.com also achieved a sales record of US$19.1 billion in 2017, while Lazada drums up US$123 million. As more people join in the celebration of this holiday, many companies have taken the opportunity to target younger consumers including businesses such as restaurants, karaoke parlors, and online shopping malls. For example, the Chinese online shopping mall Taobao sold goods worth 19 billion CNY on November 11, 2012. On Singles' Day 2017, Alibaba set a world record for most payment transactions during the festival. Its mobile wallet app Alipay processed 256,000 payment transactions per second. A total of 1.48 billion transactions were processed by Alipay in the entire 24 hours, with delivery orders through Cainiao reaching close to 700 million, breaking the previous record set in 2016. The event is now nearly four times the size of America's biggest shopping days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 2011 marked the "Singles Day of the Century" as this date had six "ones" rather than four, increasing the significance of the occasion. In 2011, an above-average number of marital celebrations occurred in Hong Kong and Beijing on November 11.
Symbolism
The following symbolism has been associated with the special date:
"1": the digit 1 symbolizes an individual, a single person.
"11": two individuals, finding each other, and being together on one side of the special date.
2 x : a celebration of two different and separate couples, each comprising two single individuals finding each other on the special date.
Outside China
Singles' Day has since been popularized through the internet and is now observed at several places outside of China as well. The holiday has particularly grown in Southeast Asia, with customers in the Lazada's Southeast Asian marketplaces ordering 6.5 million items in 2017. This is in part thanks to heavy promotions by the Lazada group in this region. In the United Kingdom, Single's Day, also called National Singles Day, is celebrated on March 11. It was initiated by a group of internationally recognised dating experts in order to help singles either embrace their single status or 'do something about it'. Media Markt, a German company, promotes Singles' Day in their stores. Belgian Mediamarkt also participates, but reactions have been negative since November 11 is the anniversary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that ended World War I, and the day is associated with somber commemoration of the war dead in Belgium. In 2016, Swedish electronics retailer Elgiganten promoted a Singles Day campaign in Norway before implementing it in the other Nordic countries the following year.
Trademarks
The term "双十一" was trademarked in China by Alibaba Group on December 28, 2012, under registration numbers 10136470 and 10136420. On October 2014, Alibaba threatened legal action against media outlets that accept advertising from competitors that use this term.
