Big, Bigger, Biggest: Singles Day, Cyber Monday And Amazon's Prime Day

Retailers adopt different strategies and marketing gimmicks to draw consumers out of their shells, especially amid the fluid economic environment, and force them into splurging on good and services they not only need but also want.

Designating days for focused shopping, when retailers allure potential customers with deals, discounts and coupons, have been the wont of retailers for some time now.

China's Singles' Day

The Singles' Day observed by the Chinese to celebrate bachelorhood caught the attention of the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA, which has used the day to its advantage for seven years now.

The Singles' Day is celebrated on November 11 every year, going by the the four "1s" in the date. Alibaba and its storied CEO Jack Ma saw a huge potential there and using heavy media marketing and promotion, the company has managed to push through billions worth of products to its customers through its Tmall.com and Taobao.com online shopping portals.

Related Link: Alibaba's Countdown To Singles' Day Already Started

Estimates pitch the value of Alibaba's Singles' Day sales in 2015 at $14.3 billion. The company is now gearing up for the 2016 Singles' Day shopping bonanza and has begun the countdown for the event. And what more: Alibaba is trying to sell the concept globally and has said it would launch Singles' Day sales in Hong Kong and Taiwan, beginning 2016.

Alibaba may have taken a leaf out of what we have locally in the United States, which has Black Friday, commemorating the start of the holiday selling season, and Cyber Monday shopping events.

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday, a term coined in 2005, was instituted to persuade shoppers flock online following trends that revealed a huge boost in online sales on the Monday that followed the Black Friday buying binge. The logic is shoppers, who missed out on Black Friday deals, may be on the lookout for remnant offerings when they return to their offices on Monday.

Cyber Monday falls on November 28 this year.

Adobe's Digital Index that tracked online sales on the Cyber Monday of 2015 revealed a record $3 billion in sales.

Amazon Prime Day

Meanwhile, U.S. online retail giant Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN has created a day for itself to take advantage of the cautious consumers who are left with appreciable disposable income in the wake of rising employment and higher wagers.

The Amazon Prime Day, created in 2015, to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the company, has been faring well, prompting consumers to push forward planned purchases and snaring consumers from competition. In 2016, the Amazon Prime Day was held on July 12, with the company offering over 100,000 deals across categories.

The deals were available to Amazon customers with Prime membership. Amazon termed the 2016 Prime Day sales as a roaring success, outpacing the inaugural Prime Day sales of 2015. The company said orders worldwide rose 60 percent and in the United States, by 60 percent, thus ringing in its biggest ever one-day sales.

At the time of writing, Amazon shares were down 0.83 percent at $810.93, while Alibaba shares were up 0.07 percent at $104.02.

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