#1: The Addictive Spectacle of Alibaba’s Shopping Holiday
This is issue #1 of the Magpie Digest newsletter, originally sent on 11/16/2017
This past weekend saw another 双十一 (“Double Eleven”; November 11th, also known as Singles’ Day) come and go. The holiday got its start in the 1990s as 光棍节 (“Bachelor Day”), an opportunity to revel in (or attempt to change) one’s single status. In recent years, however, it has been thoroughly co-opted by e-commerce giant Alibaba into a day of deep discounts and frenzied purchasing. There is plenty of coverage about this year’s record breaking numbers (including from a seafood industry wire!), so we will focus on the bigger picture instead.
(No, not the 22 minute-long picture (Facebook / Youku) that Jet Li executive produced about Alibaba CEO Jack Ma’s daydreams of defeating the world’s best martial artists in single combat, which debuted during the four hour Singles’ Day televised gala. That one you can watch on your own.)
Self-Deprecating Memes About Compulsive Shopping
Reading online conversations about Singles’ Day (and around online retail in general), there are some noticeable themes: a sense of panic-induced purchasing, self-deprecation about a lack of self-control, and performative regret. Two terms commonly tossed around in conversations leading up to the holiday are 剁手 (“hand amputation” in a last-ditch effort to prevent additional purchases) and 吃土 (“eating dirt” because you are too broke to eat anything else after a shopping bender).
Alibaba itself officially recognized the 剁手族 (“Hand Amputation Tribe”) in a report about its customers back in 2013, in which it classified them as white-collar consumers who spent an average of 161,600 RMB ($25,000 USD!) per year online. The report also revealed that men actually made more online purchases than women, though this did little to deter the common narrative of women as the compulsive, irresponsible shoppers.
The mind boggling amount of money being spent online can be explained in part by changing consumption habits.
For the majority of young people, e-commerce is not just for luxury goods or impulse purchases anymore — it is how they are making the vast majority of all transactions, from designer shoes to delivery dumplings, from toilet paper to basic services delivered to their door.
In the US, Black Friday sales tend towards high-end electronics, but China’s Singles’ Day craze extends to household goods, fashion, and even groceries. Among Alibaba’s announced sales figures for the day: 2.7 million Canadian shrimp and literally a billion diapers.
On the other hand, there is also an element of truth lurking beneath the jokes about compulsion and addiction. This year, Alibaba reported that 90+% of all Singles’ Day purchases were made on mobile, which reflects year-round behavior. On these omnipresent devices, e-commerce platforms have perfected the art of generating a sense of urgency and opportunity all year round by offering expiring coupons, discount events, limited stock, and ever more elaborate ways to earn deals. Coupled with the living memory of famine and rations and a societal obsession with face, you can see how the memes start to feel a bit like a cry for help.
When the Gamification of Shopping Goes Too Far
Occasionally, these behavioral traps become so elaborate, people take notice. This year, the gamified mechanics around Singles’ Day discounts became so convoluted that they became their own phenomenon, with many people expressing astonishment and poking fun at the mental gymnastics required.
“Xiaoming wants to buy a 399RMB coat on Singles’ Day. If we know that she has paid a deposit of 20RMB and that there’s a ‘triple your deposit’ promotion, but all deposits count as 50 RMB after 2 AM…and the store has a get 10 off for every 399RMB spent coupon that only applies to the total amount spent minus any deposit promotions…how much did Xiaoming pay? Final math question for the 2018 high school examination, the kind you have to spend 30 minutes on!”
Commerce Over Romance
There was a time when Singles’ Day was all about confessing long-harbored crushes, but the first moments of November 11th are now celebrated with frantic attempts to purchase everything saved to one’s shopping cart before the goods sell out or the servers crash — Alibaba registered a terrifying average of 256,000 transactions per second during the first 10 minutes of the 11th. There is no better demonstration of this holiday’s complete transformation over the last decade than this woman’s hilariously outraged reaction to a midnight call from an admirer, which interrupted her buying frenzy.
Love might be a powerful drug, but it’s no match for an urgent deal.
Read more:
- Sixth Tone — 6 Shopping Trends to Watch Out For This Singles’ Day (English)
- Radii China — Alibaba’s Singles’ Day Gala Blurs the Line Between Shopping and Entertainment (English)
- Papi Jiang — In past years, money was my main obstacle to enjoying Singles’ Day. This year, it’s also brainpower. (Chinese, video)
- Zhihu — How to treat an amputated hand (a very literal response from a healthcare app) (Chinese)
Magpie Digest is a service offered by Magpie Kingdom, a project by Christina Xu, Tricia Wang, and Pheona Chen to help busy people stay attuned to China’s rapidly shifting conversations from abroad.
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