Anne Zhang, Henry Xiao

    zhangy49@gmail.com

    GUANGDONG was the province that spent the most money on the Chinese mainland during yesterday’s shopping spree, followed by Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, according to data released by China’s Internet retail giant Alibaba. The Singles Day sales volume surpassed 45 billion yuan (US$7.3 billion) by 6:30 p.m.

    Nov. 11 is celebrated as China’s Singles Day and it has become the country’s — and by some estimates, the world’s — busiest day for online retail since Alibaba began promoting it as a shopping festival six years ago.

    Alibaba Group made 36.2 billion yuan Nov. 11 last year, more than the combined US$3.7 billion of online sales made on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to comScore, an American Internet analytics company.

    Alibaba broke last year’s record in less than 14 hours after its two shopping platforms — Taobao and Tmall — were opened at midnight yesterday.

    People from 211 countries and regions outside the mainland joined the shopping spree, with Hong Kong, the United States and Russia claiming the three top-buyer spots.

    In addition, the total sales volume of 18 major online retailers in China, including Tmall, Taobao and JD, reached 54.69 billion yuan by 2 p.m. yesterday, according to Syntun, a U.S.-based company that provides data analyzing services.

    Alibaba’s logistic company, Cainiao, which means “rookie,” has hired more than 1.3 million temporary delivery workers to handle the large amount of packages created yesterday.

    Shenzhen SF Express has also signed a contract with Boeing to use one of its passenger planes for cargo purposes. The express giant will have 36 cargo aircraft deliver the Singles Day packages and it’s estimated that its shipment capacity could reach 1,800 tons in a single day.

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    Despite the shopping frenzy across the country, some local shoppers in Shenzhen said they behaved more rationally during this year’s shopping festival.

    A 28-year-old woman named Tu Li spent more than 4,000 yuan online last Single’s Day. But this year she spent only 2,000 yuan, purchasing some children’s clothes and bedding for her family.

    “I put all the products I needed in the shopping cart beforehand and just clicked‘Buy’when the shopping spree started at midnight Nov. 11,” Tu said.

    Tu added that unlike last year, she didn’t buy anything that was cheap but not on her shopping list.

    A young mother surnamed Zhang, a full time employee at a local media outlet, bought some baby products yesterday that cost her about 500 yuan.

    “Mothers like me usually don’t have much time to go shopping in malls. So we choose to shop online,” Zhang said.

    Most mothers she know had compared products a few days in advance to choose the most cost-effective ones to buy yesterday, she said.

    Another young woman surnamed Tan is an experienced online shopper. She spent 900 yuan on clothes and accessories yesterday, 500 yuan more than the amount she spent on Nov. 11 last year.

    Tan said that based on her shopping experiences, prices of most clothing brands on Tmall.com didn’t drop significantly yesterday. Some retailers even raised their prices a week before they dropped them yesterday, she said.