Once upon a time it was just about being single or a bachelor. But not any more...
Black Friday has already come to China and early numbers estimate the totals to be somewhere close to $20 Billion dollars worth of sales. And yes that is US dollar equivalents not Chinese Yuan. This dwarfs the US's Black Friday which sells around $12 billion in a couple days at stores and another $2-3 billion online. According to The Atlantic, Alibaba, China's leading online seller, made 1 Billion dollars in the first 8 minutes!
While this doesn't affect our daily life in China like it does in the US. We don't have to worry about fighting the masses just to pick up something we forgot to buy before the madness begun. It still is a huge event. The shopping done on Chinese Black Friday isn't what you may expect. It isn't just big tvs, iPads and laptops. It's everything. One of my favorite quotes from the LA Times article was from a man named Xie Pu saying, “We didn’t even finish the toilet paper we bought last year, but will buy more tonight.”
11-11 is a day to stock up on everything, not just the tech and wrangler jeans. This also highlights the way almost everyone in China shops today. Online. After my classes end or lunch break begins I see many of my students rush to the back gate. And they are not rushing to get to their favorite restaurant first, they are picking up the packages they ordered from Taobao and AliExpress. When you leave the back gate you will notice small three wheeled "cars and trucks" with the logo's of there respective companies on the side. The sidewalks are littered with packages ranging in a variety of sizes. Often there are as many as 10 different delivery vehicles all along the road of the back gate exit.
Online shopping also has flattened the Chinese world. Villiages throughout the country can buy from anywhere and sell to anywhere. Here is a link to a NPR article about how furniture sales transformed a small town.
Shopping in China no longer just requires the ability to speak Chinese. Now that online shopping has become the standard not the exception, to truly shop like a local you have to be able to navigate the shopping apps and online shopping sites. This new way of Chinese living has a steep learning curve and offers more than a few problems if you aren't Chinese. But once you do, geographic location no longer limits your purchases like it once did.
While it has taken a while to get used to the new systems of China I am still grateful that on Chinese Black Friday there are not insane lines at every single store like the US.
If you want to check out some of the insane deals compared to our Black Friday check out the following website.
In the meantime happy online shopping in China and soon in the US! Cyber Monday is coming.
