Singles’ Day became the world’s largest online retail sales event yesterday with Alibaba recording sales of £5.9bn (57.1 billion yuan) resulting in the shipment of 278 million orders, 43 per cent of which were transacted via mobile devices. Alibaba originally adopted Singles’ Day in 2009 to boost its sales but its origins lie in the early 1990s when students chose the date as an anti-Valentine’s Day on which it was deemed cool for individuals to buy things solely for themselves. Its popularity has grown year on year ever since and has now attracted the participation of thousands of major global brands like The North Face, Muji and Desigual, each offering “unbeatable” deals.
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