Chinese consumers have spent billions of dollars shopping online for anything from diapers to diamonds on Singles Day, a day of promotions that has grown into the world's biggest e-commerce event.
China's largest e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group, said on Sunday sales by the thousands of retailers on its platforms for the 24-hour period on Saturday amounted to 168.3 billion yuan ($A33.3 billion), setting a new record for the company. It was 39 per cent more than sales clocked last year on Alibaba's platforms of 120.7 billion yuan.
By comparison, American shoppers last year spent more than $US5 billion shopping online on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, according to Adobe, which tracks such data. Shoppers also spent $US3.39 billion on Cyber Monday last year, the largest single online shopping day in the US, Adobe said.
In China, Alibaba's main rival, online retailer JD.com, did not provide a sales figure only for Saturday but said cumulative sales over the 11-day period starting on November 1 through Saturday totalled 127 billion yuan.
Starting at midnight Friday, diamonds, Chilean frozen salmon, tyres, diapers, beer, shoes, handbags, and appliances were shipped out from JD.com's distribution centres on trucks bound for deliveries across China.
China is already the world's largest e-commerce market and the share of online shopping that makes up all consumer spending grows every year.
Singles Day was begun by Chinese college students in the 1990s as a version of Valentine's Day for people without romantic partners.
