Last week China celebrated Alibaba’s Singles Day, an extravaganza of online shopping that began as an anti-Valentine’s Day.
The event, created in 2009 by e-commerce giant Alibaba, smashed all records this year and now dwarfs America’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Sales reached a staggering 57 billion yuan (nearly £6 billion), up 58% on last year. But there wasn’t an applause when the tally was announced at Alibaba’s HQ. Why? The number of packages had exceeded the capacity of the country’s delivery system. The retailers, too, suffered – heavy discounts took their toll on profit margins and sales dropped off as customers waited for those discounts.
Alibaba has capitalized on the lull before the Christmas season, the rise in Chinese e-commerce and on China’s growing singles problem: due to the country’s one-child policy and the socioeconomic pressures to have a son, China has a shortage of women.
Meanwhile, some of my European single friends are booking their flights home for Christmas. ‘I can hardly wait to go home and hug my niece,’ Luisa said. ‘Perfect love exists: it’s the one we have for the nieces and nephews we see four times a year.’
‘I agree! And do you have plans for New Year’s Eve yet?’ I asked.
‘I’ll be spending it with family; it will be simple and low budget. My life is a bit uneventful at the moment but I’m enjoying this chilled pace.’
‘Mine is too,’ I said. ‘But I expect more exciting things await us both.’
Nothing, of course, stays the same for long (perhaps the Chinese will tire of the hype surrounding Singles Day next year), life often doesn’t go the way we planned yet even when our expectations are surpassed, things can go awry. As another friend recently said, ‘Be careful what you wish for because something else may have to be sacrificed.’
