China's "Singles Day" Is the World's Biggest Online Shopping Blitz 120
hackingbear writes "While the Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving is the busiest online shopping day in the U.S., it pales in comparison to China's Singles' Day on November 11, which started out in the 1990s as a protest to Valentine's Day. Sales on Singles' Day last year for Alibaba Group, China's biggest e-retailer, totaled more than $3.1 billion, doubling the $1.5 billion spent by U.S. consumers on Cyber Monday in 2012. This year, Alibaba's two ecommerce sites, Tmall and Taobao Marketplace, are expecting sales of at least $4.9 billion."
When is American Thanksgiving? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When is American Thanksgiving? (Score:4, Funny)
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Unfortunately, some of the partyers have become extremely obnoxious about the music, insisting that only their music be played or they will trash the block. We may need to phone the police.
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The Canadians remind me of Wilson, the next door neighbor you never saw and only heard him talk behind the fence.
If memory serves, Wilson was far more intelligent and savvy to the ways of the world, and solved most of his neighbour's problems.
I'm not sure that was the metaphor you were going for :)
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Canadians have free healthcare because they understand the true definition of the word socialism.
Canadian banks didn't go bankrupt.
Canada doesn't start wars with other countries.
I'm pretty sure the metaphor is correct.
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Well, add the current politics and I agree! Despite being lambasted as horrible extreme right-wingers, the conservatives' position of basically "OK, we'll spend 100% of revenue on social programs but no more than 100%" is wisdom we need down here. We're going to have such a hangover the next day when the punch bowl finally runs dry!
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Canada's health care system is in some trouble and costs are rising due to various issues, but it is not in danger of "collapsing" into the mess that the US had, or is currently working towards. The wealthy often do go to the US and elsewhere for more timely treatment of critical illness, but if anything that relieves pressure on the domestic health care providers (and they still have to pay taxes and subsidies into the healthcare system regardless).
And don't use our wealthy going elsewhere for treatment as
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There wasn't even one Columbus, his actual name was Cristóbal Colón.
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There wasn't even one Columbus, his actual name was Cristóbal Colón.
Cristoforo Colombo
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Kris Kristofferson
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It's always the "fourth Thursday of November".
And Black Friday (the day for crazy sales that people camp out overnight for) is the day after Thanksgiving.
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They're not camping out much any more. Most of the big retailers are opening now on Thanksgiving evening and staying open all night. My wife has to go in to work at 8:00 p.m. Thursday. WalMart of course started that foolishness, and all the rest of the big box stores followed along like good lemmings. If I were to buy anything on Friday it would go to those stores who valued their employees enough to allow them a complete and uninterrupted holiday with their families.
The day after Thanksgiving is also N
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What are you, a kommunist?
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As a Canadian, I want to prepare for my online shopping discounts, but I can never remember when it is...
This isn't a holiday though; It's an anti-holiday... it was meant as a joke. It'd be like finding out that Christmas got the crap kicked out of it by people buying unadorned aluminum rods.* This is China's version of that... their parody holiday is kicking the crap out of our real holidays.
*) For the three people in the audience who didn't catch the reference, google 'Festivus'. And get out more.
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As dutch person born in south america I say fuck you and watch more seinfeld.
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You expect everybody to understand a reference to a US-American TV sitcom about white, straight New Yorkers from two decades ago. Maybe it's your incredibly narrow American perspective that should get out and know more of the world.
You expect everybody to understand a reference to a "Single's day", which originated from Nanjing University in 1993? Oh wait.. that was when Seinfeld was on TV. Now given that it's obviously become very, very popular over there in the same amount of time, to the point that you, a lowly Anonymous Dimwit on Slashdot have now heard of it... is it really that much of a stretch to say that one of the most popular sitcoms of that era might be well-recognized to the people that visit this site; A primarily englis
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1. I understood the reference and I'm a french-speaking Canadian living in Québec.
2. He gave you the Festivus keyword so that you could find more about the subject.
3. Go watch Seinfeld right now.
4. After you're done with Seinfeld, watch Corner Gas. It's kinda like the Canadian version of Seinfeld. Seinfeld was a show about nothing, Corner Gas is a show about nothing in the middle of nowhere.
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That was from Seinfeld? Now I don't feel bad about missing the reference. I watched most of one episode, was disgusted at how much press such a truly abysmal piece of dreck was getting, and never went back.
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I remember hearing about
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America's fall (Score:1, Funny)
in 2013 the communists beat the US at consuming useless crap.
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Don't worry. It's not really communism. It's just a plain old fashioned dictatorship pretending to be communism.
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That is real communism. After so many failures you realize it's built into the philosophy.
Too much concentration of power.
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Well as I understood it even they advocated for it to be libertarian....you know...after the people were ready and the dictatorship of the proletariat had made the world so just and fair that it was no longer needed itself anymore and naturally would fade out of existance. (no problem there right?)
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A philosophy that expects people in power to voluntarily give up that power. Yeah, that'll work out just great.
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Perhaps the truth is that if your system relies on more than a fraction of the population to be paying attention then it is flawed. This is why spam fighters fight for opt-in not opt-out. This idea that if you don't take up arms and violently revolt or get a huge constituency together to oppose something, then you consent.....is just bullshit.
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Communism would be stateless. Besides, China has been Capitalist since the economical reforms of the 80s or so.
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Communism is not the navel gazing of communist philosophers.
Communism is what you get when communists run things.
Ergo China is real communism. So was the USSR. So is N. Korea.
Those are the outcome of the philosophy. Not social evolution until eventual utopia. Accept this fact. Communism/socialism concentrates power in a very unhealthy way.
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Yeah, the American model is working so much better. And the Russian model is infinitely healthier now that they're a capitalist democracy. And there are absolutely no socialist nations worldwide that are clearly more successful states.
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You'll find that most of the 'successful' socialist nations are capitalist welfare states (e.g. Scandinavia).
They realize they need capitalism so they have something to tax.
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Socialism means 'the people control the means of production'. Not 'the government maintains a social safety net'.
Having the government 'control the means of production' is a very bad idea. The government already has too much power.
As to the mix. We have too much 'social safety net' in the USA already. But we still have 'left wing extremists' that want a purely government based economy and are willing to call anything short of that 'a purely capitalist free-for-all'.
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More than half of Americans own stock. The point of capitalism is that stock ownership is control of the means of production. I'd argue that we're well on our way to 'the people control the means of production' in America - but it really needs to be more direct. Defined benefit pension plans decouple people from control.
I don't know why it's so hard to explain that capitalism is basically orthogonal to "free markets" (except that stock is bought and sold for money), and thanks for pitching in, but more
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You can't have free markets without ownership. Socialism denies people ownership of means of production. Socialism light would at least deny them the right to buy and sell those means of production.
Saying that 50% own stocks == socialism is calling black white. It's like putting the actions of SE Asian socialists (Pol Pot) onto the capitalists.
You can't have even reasonably 'free' markets without capitalism. It's hard to explain that they are orthogonal because it's wrong.
There is no difference betwe
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You seem to have a very narrow definition of socialism - do you expect each person to have an equal share of the means of production? That sounds like straight-up communism to me - equality of outcomes. I'd define socialism as "the people own the means of production", where you seem to insist that's the opposite of socialism.
There is no difference between 'the means of production' and any other 'good'. If you restrict trade in means of production you certainly don't have a free market.
They are very different indeed: one is wealth, the other bling (what people ignorant of economics mistake for wealth). They just both (under capitalism) happen to be valued in currenc
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The people own the means of production is _capitalism_. Granting most people don't plan well enough or work hard enough to gain much ownership.
You're _sure_ there's a better system? WTF?
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All communist states will always devolve to totalitarianism. It's built into the philosophy.
No true Scottsman is a fallacy. Communism is what actually happens when communists are in charge, not what Marx and Engles dreamed of.
How is this a protest? (Score:1)
China's Single's Day on November 11, which started out in the 1990s as a protest to Valentine's Day.
Considering the fact that Valentine's day is a Hallmark holiday to get people to buy trinkets, how is setting up another Hallmark holiday to get people to buy even more trinkets a protest?
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China's Single's Day on November 11, which started out in the 1990s as a protest to Valentine's Day.
Considering the fact that Valentine's day is a Hallmark holiday to get people to buy trinkets, how is setting up another Hallmark holiday to get people to buy even more trinkets a protest?
By protesting in this way they want to draw attention to single people, who feel left out during usual holidays, especially during Valentine's Day. People participating in this so called protest are trying to show that they are an important demographic, who wants to be mentioned during other holidays and during marketing campaigns.
Re:How is this a protest? (Score:5, Funny)
We already have many holidays targeted at singles, with extensive marketing. They are called Friday Night, and sponsored by every beer and liquor company, plus Trojan.
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Go to a Pub/Bar Valentines... (Score:2)
It's already Singles Day (or night really). Everyone else feels obligated to be someplace else.
It also has the air of desperation that exists for singles at a wedding.
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I'm staying away from holidays with trojans or any other kind of malware, thank you very much.
Re:How is this a protest? (Score:4, Insightful)
No worse than "Mother's Day" or "Father's Day", both started to honor parents but promoted by commercial industries. All started out as a celebration but all plus Thanksgiving (Black Friday) and Christmas have become outlets for crass commercialism.
[John]
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No worse than "Mother's Day" or "Father's Day", both started to honor parents
Much like today, Armistice Day [wikipedia.org], which was about peace, but is now about honoring war and it's warriors [wikipedia.org], Mother's Day started out as a day to think about ending war and turned into one about buying overpriced crap.
In 1872 Julia Ward Howe called for women to join in support of disarmament and asked for 2 June 1872, to be established as a "Mother's Day for Peace".
It's quite sad how pro war and consumerism this nation has become.
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Yeah, give me cheap trinkets over sex any day!
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Well, you're posting on SlashDot, that's likely the only way it's going to go anyway.
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appealing to single people with discounts and goods in order to stay single year by year is pretty damned efficient use of psychology rather than blunt opression.
I think you misspelled "in addition to".
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Well, since an Anonymous Coward casually dismissed it in a single-sentence post on Slashdot, I guess we should all just give up on the idea of philosophy then.
Alibaba vs Amazon (Score:1)
Amazon is terrified of Alibaba's possible expansion into the US market. Alibaba is so much larger and can get better deals from the factories in China which Amazon doesn't have much hope of competing with. Online purchases are very price competitive with ppl shopping around for best deals, and Alibaba has a huge market advantage over their US-based rival, not to mention just sheer size.
In the end it's a win for consumers to have more competition in the online retail segment.
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Alibaba's has had an English language web site for years. The shipping costs kill most deals.
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Unless Alibaba starts putting warehouses in the US (so they can take advantage of bulk shipping).
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Weekly raids for counterfeit goods.
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But there's a hundred Chinese websites out there that will ship stuff to you free of charge. It usually takes a few weeks to get there, so if you don't need something right away, it's a great way to save money. Even paying for the courier rates aren't that bad if you're buying more expensive items.
If anybody tried to scale this up I'm sure that customs would step in. When I've bought 50-cent cables with $1 shipping on Amazon and such they often show up in little brown envelops with a stamp on them declaring the item as a gift. I'm sure customs can't stay on top of that when it is just little stores mailing 20 packages a week to the US, but try to do that from a warehouse and toss in a few Amazon complaints and you'll see shipments getting intercepted unless the paperwork is above-board.
I'm sure any
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Amazon is terrified of Alibaba's possible expansion into the US market. Alibaba is so much larger and can get better deals from the factories in China which Amazon doesn't have much hope of competing with. Online purchases are very price competitive with ppl shopping around for best deals, and Alibaba has a huge market advantage over their US-based rival, not to mention just sheer size.
In the end it's a win for consumers to have more competition in the online retail segment.
I agree that Amazon's biggest drawback is the lack of direct China sellers. Since Amazon's ratings system is so broken and products have to be strictly described, the Chinese sellers on Amazon are not useful to buy from.
The Ebay Chinese sellers are much better and some have warehouses in the US.
While this isn't a huge deal for Amazon right now, the Chinese products have now been getting better and better and there are some products that are so unique and useful than anything available in the US. The Chi
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While this isn't a huge deal for Amazon right now, the Chinese products have now been getting better and better and there are some products that are so unique and useful than anything available in the US. The Chinese are able to offer super-low price, uniquely designed and useful products especially for the specialized needs - like specialty tools and electronics.
Any examples of these unique products?
One area from the top of my head: bicycling. Multi-thousand lumen LED headlamps with LiIon battery packs, countless LED and laser lights for bikes, bike computers and gadgets, clothing for riding bikes including reflector straps and wearable LED lights and so on.
apples and oranges (Score:3)
...China's biggest e-retailer, totaled more than $3.1 billion, doubling the $1.5 billion spent by U.S. consumers on Cyber Monday in 2012.
How many people live in China? How many people live in the US?
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A more valid comparison would be the amount of money spent per person, that removes the bias of large-populations.
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...China's biggest e-retailer, totaled more than $3.1 billion, doubling the $1.5 billion spent by U.S. consumers on Cyber Monday in 2012.
How many people live in China? How many people live in the US?
. A more valid comparison would be the amount of money spent per person, that removes the bias of large-populations.
Agreed. Here are some numbers:
Currently the US hosts: 317,047,520 people
China hosts: 1,349,585,838 people
(Source: http://www.census.gov/popclock/ [census.gov])
Ratio US to China: 1:4.2567
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Cyber Monday is a poor comparison also since it immediately follows and is a continuation of Black Friday. {it's an attempt to catch extra sales from those people put off by the large crowds associated with Black Friday in retail stores}
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Although there are many more people in China, they are also much poorer.
More people are doing the spending yes. But they are also spending a greater percentage of their money than the equivalent US shopper. So that makes them more consumerist, which I think is the point of the article.
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But China's middle class is roughly the same size as US middle class. But they just about met. In a decade China will have double the size of middle class, while US middle class is steadily shrinking.
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And then correct it for average income
Cyber Monday? (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting to see the term used here of all places.
Remember when that term was rolled out in 2005 and we laughed? It was a bad marketing term (I mean cyber-anything went out in the 90's) for an obviously-concocted day. The Monday after Thanksgiving was not the busiest online shopping day of the year at the time. http://slashdot.org/story/05/11/29/135240/cyber-monday-doesnt-exist [slashdot.org]
And here we are, a few years later....
Fleshlights and Dragon dildos (Score:2, Funny)
Just saying ...
opposite day (Score:3)
One of the things that has always bothered me is that citizens and politicians say our nation values peace but the only sorts of major awards we give out are to soldiers and we have several days honoring soldiers.
No awards and no days for war protesters, apparently because we value peace so much.
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Good point. And today is a good day to bring it up. Because originally this was Armistice Day (and still is in some countries). It was a day to celebrate peace - or at least, the cessation of war. From Wikipedia: "A Congressional Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday: "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."
What do people buy on Singles Day? (Score:2)
Cyber Monday and Black Friday are driven by people buying Christmas gifts. I can see party supplies being purchased for Singles Day those don't seem like big enough purchases nor are they likely to be purchased online. Or is it completely arbitrary and just an excuse for enough shops to have big sales and enough people are willing to make unrelated purchases on that day if they can get a good deal?
Sounds like a government-made thing (Score:2)
Celebrate your celibacy, because there's too many of us already!
Either that or it was made-up by a Chinese sex toy company.