Nov 11 (China) - Alibaba's Singles Day in China, the largest online shopping event of the world has broken records and registered sales of over $ 30.8 billion in about less than 16 hours. The company said that they sold USD 1 billion worth of goods in just 1 minute on Singles Day.
Singles day is equivalent to the Yakata event that happens on Nigerian online retailers like konga. But it is similar only in concept as sales of Yakata event are no where close to Singles day sales figures. Yakata actually goes on for a week and not even a day. And the website that created the yakata event was itself sold to another company for lack of profits.
In the USA the black Friday event is followed by "CYBER MONDAY" which is the Monday after thanksgiving and offers buyers great deals online. It will be interesting to see if Cyber Monday and also break records and match the Singles Day of China.
The huge success of Singles Day in China shows the strength in consumer buying at a time when some news analysts are predicting a recession in 2020. It shows just how far they are from reality.
This year the mood for the Yakata is not likely to be upbeat because the government has imposed fresh charges on use of debit cards to make purchases online. In China such things cannot happen as they have been boosting online businesses for almost a decade now. Singles Day started in 2009 and just 11 years later it has grossed over $ 30 billion.
That is almost near the amount of Dollars that Central Bank of Nigeria has in its foreign reserves. Maybe increasing some more taxes can help the central bank perhaps a tax of browsing the internet can help.
reporting for easykobo.com on Monday, Nov 11 2019 from Lagos, Nigeria