Alibaba sells over $9 billion during this strange Chinese holiday

The online retailing giant Alibaba has reported more than $9 billion in sales during China's Singles' Day, showing the world the buying power of Chinese consumers and the importance the company places on events in the year.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Alibaba Group Holdings had real-time figures on display on a massive screen at the group's Hangzhou campus, which showed that the sales swept 2013's $9.3 billion mark as Chinese and international shoppers took advantage of massive discounts on online goods.

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Single's Day is an event similar to Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the U.S., and this time around came just two months after Alibaba made a record $25 billion public share listing in the New York Stock Exchange.

Alibaba's founder and Executive Chairman, Jack Ma, said that Alipay, the financial services arm of the company, is also going to go public, but most likely in China.

Alibaba had made Singles' Day-which is a Chinese response to Valentine's Day but held on Novemeber 11-into an online shopping extravaganza back in 2009.

"You're seeing the unleashing of the consumption power of the Chinese consumer," said Joe Tsai, Alibaba's executive vice chairman.

This years numbers were boosted by "pre-sales initiative" which had merchants advertizing incredibly low prices as early as mid-October. They took deposits for these items but only processed the full payments and shipped goods on the actual day.

This year 27,000 vendors from 200 nations took part in the event, up from the just 27 Chinese vendors who took part in the first event in 2009.

"I don't think any other company in China can create a day like this," Tsai said.

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