Chinese consumers spend big over Singles' Day shopping festival

Chinese shoppers have spent big over the Singles' Day shopping festival, showing the country's strong economic recovery following the COVID-19 epidemic.

The annual Nov. 11 shopping bonanza entered its final stretch at midnight Wednesday, with gross merchandise volume on platforms operated by Alibaba Group reaching 372.3 billion yuan (US$56.29 billion) in the 10 days leading up to the event through its first 30 minutes. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Sales on Alibaba's e-commerce platform Tmall exceeded 372.3 billion yuan (US$56.29 billion) between Nov. 1 and 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 11.

At the shopping peak, 583,000 orders were made in a single second on Tmall, setting a new online shopping record.

To cater to growing demand from Chinese consumers, Tmall launched this year's shopping festival early, with the first discount period running from Nov. 1 to Nov. 3 in addition to the normal full-day sales on Nov. 11.

More than 800 million shoppers, 250,000 brands and 5 million merchants have participated in this year's shopping spree, according to Tmall.

The event was first launched by Alibaba in 2009.