In Beijing, in the middle of Monday afternoon, the deliverymen ran with their electric bikes from one side to the other without a red traffic light or a zebra crossing that stopped them. There they were, dressed in their anti-cold layers and anti-contamination masks, carrying packages and dodging any obstacle, be it a bicycle or an old woman with a cane , who dared to interfere in her path. And that was just the beginning of the week that they have more work in the whole year. "Neither Trump nor his tariffs can stop them," a Chinese student joked while looking at the mobile phone the printer was going to buy for his house.

Lets start by the beginning. By the electronic scoreboard installed at the headquarters of the giant Alibaba in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. 1,2,3 ... the Singles Day, 11 of 11, the date with the most online purchases in the world, broke records 96 seconds after midnight: 1,268 million euros.

Let's continue in the morning, first thing: 19,938 million euros. More than the Gross Domestic Product of Cyprus. More than 540,000 transactions per second starring in the biggest shopping show ever seen in such a short time, doubling the pace of Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday of his "friends" in the United States.

Almost nothing. The fault, as always, ironically speaking, is of the Chinese. Well, of one in particular: Daniel Zhang, who only two months ago became the head of Alibaba replacing the founder of the group, the richest man in China, Jack Ma (35.5 billion euros), the guy who does 20 years he stopped being an English teacher to start an e-commerce business and now he has removed himself from the middle to devote himself to Bill Gates style philanthropy.

Changes in Alibaba

Just 10 years ago, the then director Daniel Zhang, came up with a holiday that had been invented in the 90 four students of Nanjign University to celebrate his singleness by giving gifts. A kind of "anti Valentine". Gradually, Alibaba was turning this date into an obligatory day of shopping until it became a golden day for Chinese electronic commerce.

The record was to beat the 27,330 million euros sold on 11 of 11 last year. At noon, sales through Alipay, the electronic payment method, were already going for more than 24 billion. And after the Chinese had a snack, the figure exceeded the record of the previous year. And there are still several hours.

A decade ago, on the first Singles Day run by Alibaba, there were only 27 companies that participated and billed 6.6 million euros. Now, within the platform, they have done so with their generous discounts more than 200,000 companies, of which more than 20,000 are international firms, which will move more than 2,800 million packages in China.

As there were not enough dealers who arrive with their electric motorcycles to all corners of the country where a purchase is made, 400,000 more employees have been equipped so that no one is late for their cheaper acquisition.

China has done it again. Not even the trade war with Trump or, as a consequence of this, the brief slowdown in his economy, has diminished the desire to consume the Chinese in the year that has celebrated the 70th anniversary since Mao Zedong announced the People's Republic of China and to embrace communism. An idea that has been maintained from the political point of view, although now they call it "socialism with Chinese characteristics". Instead, looking at it from an economic perspective, the Asian giant is a consumption giant. And 11 of 11 is the day when it becomes the most consumerist country in the world.

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