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Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

nytimes.com

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Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#81

Post by shalmanese »

adventured wrote: post #70
shalmanese wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a hugely significant number. $18B is $13.20USD for every man, woman and child in China. Considering China's GDP is $8000USD, that's basically 60% of a single day's earnings for every person in China being spent at just one company in 12 hours. It would be the same as everyone in the US spending $100 on the same day or $32B in a single day (which is almost half of US online spending for a year).

US consumers spend over $32 billion every day of the year. The average American adult spends $57,000 per year as of 2016. The consumer economy in the US is around $13 trillion. http://www.businessinsider.com/13-trillion-us-consumer-getti... China's GDP is $11.x trillion for 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

That's a bit of a misleading stat since most consumer spending is on stuff like housing/transportation/food/utilities.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#82

Post by adventured »

shalmanese wrote: post #81
adventured wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US consumers spend over $32 billion every day of the year. The average American adult spends $57,000 per year as of 2016. The consumer economy in the US is around $13 trillion. http://www.businessinsider.com/13-trillion-us-consumer-getti... China's GDP is $11.x trillion for 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

That's a bit of a misleading stat since most consumer spending is on stuff like housing/transportation/food/utilities.

That's not misleading at all. That's how consumer spending is measured. How would you go about explaining that water, electricity and food are not consumption goods, but an iPad is?

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#83

Post by seanmcdirmid »

taobility wrote: post #23
nullnilvoid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting because the US was the record holder less than five years ago. Five years later, China's Single's Day is several times that of the US's Black Friday. Very soon, it will be an order of magnitude bigger than the Black Friday of the US.

More reasonable reason, the online shopping experience in China is much much better than in US. In China, if you are living some metropolis, the logistic is really faster than in US without any prime membership (normally within two days). And also the price is much cheaper compared with physical retail store. So, most people would prefer online shopping if possible.

Online shopping works pretty well in the USA. My wife (Chinese) doesn’t see too much difference since we moved to the USA from Beijing last year. We no longer buy things like bottled water (well, we don’t need to!) or other groceries/soft goods online like we did in BJ, but we have semi daily packages of everything else.

China has great same day logistics using poorly paid guys on electric bikes (so food and soft good delivery is very reasonable), but everything else is equivalent or a bit worse than the states.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#84

Post by odiroot »

golergka wrote: post #69
oh_sigh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gallon of baijiu is a life time supply of baijiu, dependent on intake rates.

Less than 4 liters of any alcoholic drink, including pure 100% alcohol, sounds like a month-long supply at the very best.

I think the parent wanted to say baijiu is an acquired taste.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#85

Post by oblio »

taurath wrote: post #10
lunaru wrote: post #4

Every year around this time we get the singles day news that yet another record has been broken. I'm going to guess it's going to be the same next year and the year after that since the Chinese middle class is growing (and adopting Western debt-driven spending). Not really a surprise. If anyone in the US wants to partake in the frenzy, I believe aliexpress is doing a Singles Day thing (using US timezone, so it hasn't…

I really don't think the US is prepared for what happens when the entire world turns towards Chinese consumers and away from them.

Why would this happen? Are French markets ignored because the US exists? Nobody wants to leave billions on the table...

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#86

Post by olegkikin »

djaychela wrote: post #19

I've only bought a few things from Alibaba over the years, but most of them have turned out to be either faulty or a typical case of 'chinese manufacturer disappointment' which has led me to being reluctant to buy anything larger/more expensive. When I was in Marrakech a couple of years ago, the guy who owned the riad we stayed in referred to many things in the souks as being "China quality", and I guess that's the p…

You need to realize that pretty much all electronics is manufactured in China / Hong Kong these days. You can get quality things, you can get cheap crap.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#88

Post by adventured »

tunetine wrote: post #29
nullnilvoid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I was living in China, I wished China had the Black Friday as in the US because of discounts and promotions. Now I am back in the US, I wish the US had the Single's Day as in China. What a Change!

I feel like the deals in the U.S. have really gone downhill or maybe they were never deals to begin with. The internet has made everything pretty transparent at least.

Deals in the US vary in direct proportion to the state of the economy (or a given retailer's plight). In 2009-2011 for example, the deals were frequently tremendous due to bad economic condition of consumers.

Now the US has a U6 unemployment rate near 20 year lows and has added $45 trillion to its household wealth number in the last seven years, while incomes have also been rising modestly well the last several years. The need for substantial deals to move most merchandise is vastly reduced accordingly.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#89

Post by neves »

djaychela wrote: post #19

I've only bought a few things from Alibaba over the years, but most of them have turned out to be either faulty or a typical case of 'chinese manufacturer disappointment' which has led me to being reluctant to buy anything larger/more expensive. When I was in Marrakech a couple of years ago, the guy who owned the riad we stayed in referred to many things in the souks as being "China quality", and I guess that's the p…

Nowadays everything is made in China. A lot of things we buy are just repackaged stuff that sells for 3x the original price. I've bought decent stuff like a manual coffe grinder, or glass bottles, usb cables, or cheap gopro accessories. You are just cutting the middle man.

Re: Alibaba hits nearly $18B in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours

#90

Post by ivm »

PakG1 wrote: post #76
voltagex_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please enlighten us - it's often a whole different world if you're used to Amazon.

I don't think it's worth shopping from China unless you're in China or reselling stuff made in China and have deals directly with the suppliers. A lot of products are cheaper buying from retailers outside of China if you're also outside of China. The cost isn't worth it to ship to individuals outside of China unless you're willing to pay the shipping fee, and that erases the cost benefit that most people would hope t…

Shipping via regular post from AliExpress is often free or very cheap while the same items on Amazon cost 3-5 times more and shipping to my country is $10-15. The downside is 1-2 months waiting times vs. a week from Amazon but I can wait.
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