Chinese shoppers snapped up food supplements, facial masks and baby milk powder at the world's largest&nbsp;shopping&nbsp;festival, with brands such as&nbsp;L'Oreal&nbsp;and&nbsp;Nestle&nbsp;among the&nbsp;biggest winners, Alibaba data showed.

The Chinese e-commerce giant's annual&nbsp;Singles'&nbsp;Day&nbsp;shopping&nbsp;blitz on Monday&nbsp;brought in a record 268.4 billion yuan ($38.38 billion) in sales, more than six times the amount of online sales made in the United States on Black Friday&nbsp;last year.

It kicked off this year's 24-hour&nbsp;shopping&nbsp;bonanza with a live performance by US&nbsp;pop star Taylor Swift followed by the live-streamed marketing of over 1,000 brands.

Alibaba said on Tuesday&nbsp;that 299 brands surpassed 100 million yuan in gross merchandise value, including LVMH's Givenchy, home appliance manufacturers Dyson and Philips and sportswear maker Under Armour.

Fifteen brands made over 1 billion yuan in sales, it said. These included Huawei Technologies, Apple, Nike, Xiaomi Corp and Fast Retailing's Uniqlo.

Food supplements were the most popular import product, while sales of makeup, diapers and face wash were also strong.

Sales growth for the annual&nbsp;shopping&nbsp;festival this year eased to 26 per cent, the weakest since the event started in 2009, in a reflection of how e-commerce sales in China have been slowing.

Analysts, however, said the growth rate had slightly beaten their expectations, saying that more aggressive promotions, a focus on attracting more customers from rural cities, and even the overall slowing economy might have helped as people sought to buy goods at discounted prices.

Citic Securities had predicted a 20-25 per cent&nbsp;expansion, while Daiwa Capital Markets had an estimate of 23 per cent.

"What's happened is that you've had a lot of consumers this year being a little bit more careful about their purchasing because the economy's slowing down," said Ben Cavender, managing director of consultancy China Market Research Group.

"I think this year especially, people were kind of waiting for&nbsp;Singles'&nbsp;Day&nbsp;and kind of waiting to make some of those medium-sized purchases that they didn't want to pay full price for."

The event has been replicated at home and abroad, with&nbsp;Singles'&nbsp;Day&nbsp;promotions found at rivals such as China's JD.com and Pinduoduo as well as South Korea's 11thStreet and Singapore's Qoo10.

JD.com, which started its sales campaign on November&nbsp;1, said transaction volume exceeded 204.4 billion yuan over the eleven&nbsp;days.

Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing said the online event also boosted visits to its physical stores, of which it has 700 across China, adding that its Heattech thermal underwear and Ultra Light Down jackets were among its most popular items.

Chinese shoppers snapped up food supplements, facial masks and baby milk powder at the world's largest shopping festival, with brands such as L'Oreal and Nestle among the biggest winners, Alibaba data showed.

Chinese shoppers snapped up food supplements, facial masks and baby milk powder at the world's largest shopping festival, with brands such as L'Oreal and Nestle among the biggest winners, Alibaba data showed. The Chinese e-commerce giant's annual Singles' Day shopping blitz on Monday brought in a record 268.4 billion yuan ($38.38 billion) in sales, more than six times the amount of online sales made in the United States on Black Friday last year. It kicked off this year's 24-hour shopping bonanza with a live performance by US pop star Taylor Swift followed by the live-streamed marketing of over 1,000 brands. Alibaba said on Tuesday that 299 brands surpassed 100 million yuan in gross merchandise value, including LVMH's Givenchy, home appliance manufacturers Dyson and Philips and sportswear maker Under Armour. Fifteen brands made over 1 billion yuan in sales, it said. These included Huawei Technologies, Apple, Nike, Xiaomi Corp and Fast Retailing's Uniqlo. Food supplements were the most popular import product, while sales of makeup, diapers and face wash were also strong. Sales growth for the annual shopping festival this year eased to 26 per cent, the weakest since the event started in 2009, in a reflection of how e-commerce sales in China have been slowing. Analysts, however, said the growth rate had slightly beaten their expectations, saying that more aggressive promotions, a focus on attracting more customers from rural cities, and even the overall slowing economy might have helped as people sought to buy goods at discounted prices. Citic Securities had predicted a 20-25 per cent expansion, while Daiwa Capital Markets had an estimate of 23 per cent. "What's happened is that you've had a lot of consumers this year being a little bit more careful about their purchasing because the economy's slowing down," said Ben Cavender, managing director of consultancy China Market Research Group. "I think this year especially, people were kind of waiting for Singles' Day and kind of waiting to make some of those medium-sized purchases that they didn't want to pay full price for." The event has been replicated at home and abroad, with Singles' Day promotions found at rivals such as China's JD.com and Pinduoduo as well as South Korea's 11thStreet and Singapore's Qoo10. JD.com, which started its sales campaign on November 1, said transaction volume exceeded 204.4 billion yuan over the eleven days. Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing said the online event also boosted visits to its physical stores, of which it has 700 across China, adding that its Heattech thermal underwear and Ultra Light Down jackets were among its most popular items.

L'Oreal, Nestle turn out to be the biggest winners at Alibaba's Singles' Day shopping fest

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, said on Saturday its Singles&#39;&nbsp;Day sales extravaganza hit $25.4 billion, smashing its own record from last year and cementing it as the world&rsquo;s biggest shopping event.

Once a celebration for China&rsquo;s lonely hearts, Singles&#39;&nbsp;Day has become an annual 24-hour buying frenzy that exceeds the combined sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States, and acts as a barometer for China&rsquo;s consumers.

As tills shut midnight on Saturday, Alibaba&rsquo;s live sales ticker registered 168.3 billion yuan, up 39 percent from 120.7 billion yuan last year. The dollar figure was up more steeply due to the strength of the yuan against the greenback this year.

The event began soon after a star-studded event in Shanghai late on Friday. As midnight hit, a deluge of pre-orders helped drive a <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/chinas-24-hour-online-shopping-binge-nears-16-billion-23970">billion dollars of sales on Alibaba&rsquo;s platforms in the first two minutes and $10 billion in just over an hour</a>.

&ldquo;In terms of scale it just dwarfs any other event out there,&rdquo; said Ben Cavender, Shanghai-based principal at China Market Research Group.

At just past the halfway mark, the headline gross merchandise volume swept past last year&rsquo;s dollar total just shy of $18 billion. Shortly afterwards, sales surpassed the 2016 total in the local currency.

The event gets shoppers around China scouting for bargains and loading up their online shopping carts, while delivery men - and robots - brace for an estimated 1.5 billion parcels expected over the next six days.

&ldquo;This is a big event for China, for the Chinese economy,&rdquo; Joseph Tsai, Alibaba&rsquo;s co-founder and vice chairman, said. &ldquo;On Singles&rsquo; Day, shopping is a sport, it&rsquo;s entertainment.&rdquo;

Tsai said rising disposable incomes of China&rsquo;s &ldquo;over 300 million middle-class consumers&rdquo; was helping drive the company&rsquo;s online sales - and would continue. &ldquo;This powerful group is propelling the consumption of China,&rdquo; he said.

The final total - more than the GDP of Iceland or Cameroon - leaves other shopping days in the shade. Cyber Monday in the United States saw $3.45 billion in online sales last year.

Investors closely watch the headline number, though some analysts say the way it is calculated is too opaque. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched a probe into Alibaba&rsquo;s accounting practices in 2016, including into its Singles&rsquo; Day data. That investigation is as yet unresolved.

Last year, the sales number rose by nearly a third at the eighth iteration of the event - though that was slower than the 60 percent increase logged in 2015.

Slower growth

At Alibaba&rsquo;s Friday night gala, the company&rsquo;s co-founder and chairman, Jack Ma, hosted guests including the actress Nicole Kidman, singer Pharrell Williams and Chinese musicians and film stars such as Zhang Ziyi and Fan Bingbing.

The excitement around the shopping blitz, however, masks the challenges facing China&rsquo;s online retailers such as Alibaba and JD.com Inc, which are having to spend more to compete for shoppers in a broader economy where growth is slowing.

&ldquo;A lot of the lower hanging fruit has been picked and there&rsquo;s increased competition for a share of consumer spending,&rdquo; said Matthew Crabbe, Asia Pacific research director at Mintel. The sale did though beat his forecast of 20 percent growth.

Online retailers were being forced to push offline as well as overseas to attract new shoppers, and the overall online retail market was close to &ldquo;saturation&rdquo;, raising questions about whether current rapid growth could be sustained.

&ldquo;They&rsquo;re having to spill over out of the purely online realm into the wider consumer market,&rdquo; Crabbe said.

This has sparked deals to buy bricks-and-mortar stores in China, and overseas tie-ups, especially in Southeast Asia. Technology, too, has been key, with virtual reality dressing rooms and live fashion shows to attract shoppers.

Alibaba also said it had turned 100,000 physical shops around China into &ldquo;smart stores&rdquo; for this year&rsquo;s event. Goods perused by people at the stores, but then bought and paid for on Alibaba&rsquo;s platforms, were added towards the sales total.

China Market Research Group&rsquo;s Cavender said brands were also increasingly making smaller price cuts to avoid &ldquo;margins getting killed&rdquo;, and were often asking for deposits in advance. In previous years, prices were often halved.

Fu Wenyue, a 23-year-old dresser in Shanghai, said offers this year were smaller but more &ldquo;personalized&rdquo; as brands used big data to hone their targets. Fu spent 4,000 yuan on clothes, cosmetics and kitchen utensils in pre-event sales, and kept shopping on the day.

&ldquo;In actual fact, I think I spent even more than I did last year,&rdquo; she said.

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, said on Saturday its Singles'?Day sales extravaganza hit $25.4 billion, smashing its own record from last year and cementing it as the world?s biggest shopping event

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, said on Saturday its Singles' Day sales extravaganza hit $25.4 billion, smashing its own record from last year and cementing it as the world’s biggest shopping event. Once a celebration for China’s lonely hearts, Singles' Day has become an annual 24-hour buying frenzy that exceeds the combined sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States, and acts as a barometer for China’s consumers. As tills shut midnight on Saturday, Alibaba’s live sales ticker registered 168.3 billion yuan, up 39 percent from 120.7 billion yuan last year. The dollar figure was up more steeply due to the strength of the yuan against the greenback this year. The event began soon after a star-studded event in Shanghai late on Friday. As midnight hit, a deluge of pre-orders helped drive a billion dollars of sales on Alibaba’s platforms in the first two minutes and $10 billion in just over an hour. “In terms of scale it just dwarfs any other event out there,” said Ben Cavender, Shanghai-based principal at China Market Research Group. At just past the halfway mark, the headline gross merchandise volume swept past last year’s dollar total just shy of $18 billion. Shortly afterwards, sales surpassed the 2016 total in the local currency. The event gets shoppers around China scouting for bargains and loading up their online shopping carts, while delivery men - and robots - brace for an estimated 1.5 billion parcels expected over the next six days. “This is a big event for China, for the Chinese economy,” Joseph Tsai, Alibaba’s co-founder and vice chairman, said. “On Singles’ Day, shopping is a sport, it’s entertainment.” Tsai said rising disposable incomes of China’s “over 300 million middle-class consumers” was helping drive the company’s online sales - and would continue. “This powerful group is propelling the consumption of China,” he said. The final total - more than the GDP of Iceland or Cameroon - leaves other shopping days in the shade. Cyber Monday in the United States saw $3.45 billion in online sales last year. Investors closely watch the headline number, though some analysts say the way it is calculated is too opaque. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched a probe into Alibaba’s accounting practices in 2016, including into its Singles’ Day data. That investigation is as yet unresolved. Last year, the sales number rose by nearly a third at the eighth iteration of the event - though that was slower than the 60 percent increase logged in 2015. Slower growth At Alibaba’s Friday night gala, the company’s co-founder and chairman, Jack Ma, hosted guests including the actress Nicole Kidman, singer Pharrell Williams and Chinese musicians and film stars such as Zhang Ziyi and Fan Bingbing. The excitement around the shopping blitz, however, masks the challenges facing China’s online retailers such as Alibaba and JD.com Inc, which are having to spend more to compete for shoppers in a broader economy where growth is slowing. “A lot of the lower hanging fruit has been picked and there’s increased competition for a share of consumer spending,” said Matthew Crabbe, Asia Pacific research director at Mintel. The sale did though beat his forecast of 20 percent growth. Online retailers were being forced to push offline as well as overseas to attract new shoppers, and the overall online retail market was close to “saturation”, raising questions about whether current rapid growth could be sustained. “They’re having to spill over out of the purely online realm into the wider consumer market,” Crabbe said. This has sparked deals to buy bricks-and-mortar stores in China, and overseas tie-ups, especially in Southeast Asia. Technology, too, has been key, with virtual reality dressing rooms and live fashion shows to attract shoppers. Alibaba also said it had turned 100,000 physical shops around China into “smart stores” for this year’s event. Goods perused by people at the stores, but then bought and paid for on Alibaba’s platforms, were added towards the sales total. China Market Research Group’s Cavender said brands were also increasingly making smaller price cuts to avoid “margins getting killed”, and were often asking for deposits in advance. In previous years, prices were often halved. Fu Wenyue, a 23-year-old dresser in Shanghai, said offers this year were smaller but more “personalized” as brands used big data to hone their targets. Fu spent 4,000 yuan on clothes, cosmetics and kitchen utensils in pre-event sales, and kept shopping on the day. “In actual fact, I think I spent even more than I did last year,” she said.

China shopping festival smashes record with $25 billion haul

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