Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 96 posts

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#31

Post by icantdrive55 »

laurentdc wrote: post #10
kogepathic wrote: post #3

> and a weakening yuan may curb enthusiasm for foreign wares. I don't get it. Aren't most brands these days made in China or south east Asia? (looking at you, fashion brands) Now, I don't speak Chinese so I stick to AliExpress, but you don't typically find non-Chinese made products for sale there (at least in the realm of clothing or electronics)

> Aren't most brands these days made in China or south east Asia? (looking at you, fashion brands) They are. And the highest, most expensive fashion brands are still made by underpaid Chinese workers in Italy or France, so they can stick a "Made in $country" logo on the final product.

I have a sister that makes shoes in Los Angeles.

She pays all her workers minimum wage, but that only started a few years ago.

The rest of the companies, who share the cobbler machinery, most do not pay minimum wage, and many don't bother to carry workman's comp. I noticed certain owners moved around a lot, and if their was an accident; you had a very nervous owner at the hospital. (The employees are 90% plus illegal aliens. All from Latin America. Most are just glad to work. After a few months, the enthusiasm wears off. I was suprised over the loyality. They just don't know, or care that they are being exploited. One or two key craftsman are paid $10 an hour, until they teach the next genuinely gifted craftsman. It seemed like 1 out of 10 had the artist/mechanical ability to earn $10hr.)

I felt the owners were just taking a chance by not paying minimum wage/not paying workman's comp. The workers didn't complain. If a worker caught on to his/her rights; they were let go. I was shocked their wasen't more problems, but the workers seem content.

It wasen't a sweat shop, but the shop was far from legal. She sell her shoes at a range of around $350.00 to $1500.00.

(The high end shoe market is still wide open. I used to find it amazing what women spend on shoes. I'm now shocked at what men spend on sneakers. )

(I outed her because she is without morals, or ethics. Plus--no one will differentiate her from the rest of the cheaters. I always found the denial that goes into a lot of business is staggering.)

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#33

Post by abc_lisper »

andr wrote: post #11

This is one instance where 99.999% reliability doesn't really cut it.

It is not that hard. I work on a similar system, with a demand of maybe 30 minutes(take a guess, there are not may of us) over the entire year.

What I do is, have an active-active system in a data center, and with another similar system in another DC.

Having said that, your average online stock brokers do the same thing.

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#34

Post by dalbasal »

andr wrote: post #11

This is one instance where 99.999% reliability doesn't really cut it.

I guess if they run a 0.001% risk of doing something disastrous then it doesn't cut it. If 0.001% of purchases fail or orders get lost, or they have a few minutes of complete downtime, it might not be worth adding another 9.

It says something interesting about how think about "high reliability." What it really means is "must never, ever fail" which kind of makes "% reliability" a sort of strange euphemism, I think.

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#35

Post by baybal2 »

Ma tried to get to the West with B2C really really hard, but only got burned with the 10 Main fad store, a wasted office lease, and around $100m. wasted on online ads alone.

Interestingly, their biggest operation abroad is in Russia, where they spent zero on ads.

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#36

Post by adrianN »

dalbasal wrote: post #34
andr wrote: post #11

This is one instance where 99.999% reliability doesn't really cut it.

I guess if they run a 0.001% risk of doing something disastrous then it doesn't cut it. If 0.001% of purchases fail or orders get lost, or they have a few minutes of complete downtime, it might not be worth adding another 9. It says something interesting about how think about "high reliability." What it really means is "must never, ever fail" which kind of makes "% reliability" a sort of strange euphemism, I think.

High reliability means that it is much more likely that something else fails first. We could all be wiped out by a gamma ray burst for example, it makes little sense to make something last longer in expectation than the expected time between two major extinction events.

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#37

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kogepathic wrote: post #3

> and a weakening yuan may curb enthusiasm for foreign wares. I don't get it. Aren't most brands these days made in China or south east Asia? (looking at you, fashion brands) Now, I don't speak Chinese so I stick to AliExpress, but you don't typically find non-Chinese made products for sale there (at least in the realm of clothing or electronics)

Many things are made in what China calls "Special Export Zones" (SEZs). This is for goods that require lots of imported machinery and components to make, which are basically brought into the zones duty free. But as a consequence, what is made in these zones can only be exported.

So that iPhone you buy in China has to be imported into China with appropriate duty! Made in China but still imported on a dollar basis. Besides, the iPhone is For clothes, the amount that foreign companies is paying on material and labor was already ridiculously low, and they still pay for their other costs in dollars (or rather, not yuan) so....

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#39

Post by criddell »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #5

I've been very impressed by AliExpress, and ordered over 50 different things in just the past year. My experience has been nothing but positive. I've been filling my shopping cart for the past week, waiting for tomorrow's Singles' Day (aka 11.11 Shopping Festival). On a side note, I think their Android app is top notch (far better than any shopping app I've used before).

What country are you in? How long are the shipping times for you?

Re: Alibaba Posts $1B in Sales in 5 Minutes on Singles’ Day

#40

Post by Cerium »

kogepathic wrote: post #3

> and a weakening yuan may curb enthusiasm for foreign wares. I don't get it. Aren't most brands these days made in China or south east Asia? (looking at you, fashion brands) Now, I don't speak Chinese so I stick to AliExpress, but you don't typically find non-Chinese made products for sale there (at least in the realm of clothing or electronics)

Foreign goods are extremely popular on Tmall and Taobao. There are companies that specialize in shipping containers full of Costco Kirkland goods to China, and usually selling them for a good markup. For example: Ferrero Rocher chocolate boxes can be bought at Costco for between 9 and 13 dollars. They sell in China for 200-250 RMB (thats about 30 USD).

One of my wife's friends is a Chinese citizen who lives in Italy. She selects purses, backpacks, and occasionally wine and markets them in China. There is a lot of demand for showing up your friends with expensive imported goods. Even more benefit if you had to use a connection to purchase the goods.

Post reply on HN