Today is the Singles Day, commonly referred to as the “Single Dog Day”, taking place in China on the 11/11 each year. The event was created by the giant Alibaba and is not unlike Cyber Monday. You may ask yourself why “single dog?” and you wouldn’t be alone. The story behind the 11/11 shopping bonanza is one targeting singles who are home alone, with no husband, wife or partner, essentially like a dog, home alone. Very funny, but there’s no doubt that it works like a charm for the Chinese retail market.

Early this morning Alibaba and Taobao started to release their astronomical 2016 sales figures.

Within the first 7 minutes last night (after midnight), they had already been 10bn RMB (almost £1bn) in sales. Within the first hour, 35bn RMB (almost £3bn) and at this time (9pm China time) 100bn RMB (appx. £8.5bn). All the other retail and online shop takings are still to be measured and released.

Last year the total sales hit 91bn RMB (appx £8bn).

In comparison, Cyber Monday and Black Friday (in the US) generated about $3bn each, according to Adobe. That’s about 1/3 of what has been taken in China this 2016.

Update: 1bn orders were shipped.