Singles Day, once a celebration for China's lonely hearts and now the world's biggest shopping spree, opens at midnight on Friday, with millions of shoppers eager to snap up cut-price deals. At a star-studded event in Shanghai, e-commerce giant Alibaba will count down the clock for the annual Nov. 11 event - a 24-hour extravaganza that outsells the U.S. Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined, and acts as a barometer for China's consumer spending. Alibaba alone saw $17.7 billion of goods sold on its platform at last year's Singles Day. Around China, consumers have already started scouting for deals and filling up online shopping carts, while delivery men - and robots - are gearing up for the estimated 1.5 billion parcels expected over the next six days.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/10/chinas-singles-day-will-be-an-important-test-for-online-retailers-like-alibaba.html