China’s Singles Day shopping spree enters final stretch

A delivery courier sorts packages along a street in Beijing, on Nov 11, 2022. China's biggest online shopping festival, known as Singles' Day, is typically an extravagant affair as Chinese ecommerce firms like Alibaba and JD.com ramp up marketing campaigns and engage top livestreamers to hawk everything from lipstick to furniture as they race to break sales records of previous years. — AP

BEIJING: China’s Singles Day shopping bonanza entered its final stretch Nov 11, with all eyes on whether sales can top a record 1 trillion yuan (RM651.14bil) despite the country’s struggling economy.

Conceived by technology giant Alibaba, the informal holiday’s title riffs on a tongue-in-cheek celebration of singlehood inspired by the four ones – “11/11” – that denote its date of Nov 11.