原文地址：http://news.yahoo.com/singles-day-chinas-online-shopping-holiday-070856641--finance.html

原创翻译：龙腾网 www.ltaaa.com

 

By JOE McDONALD | Associated Press – Sun, Nov 11, 2012

BEIJING (AP) — Lei Shujie, a designer in Shanghai, piled up a wish list for the quirky holiday dubbed "Singles Day" that has grown into China's — and possibly the world's — busiest online shopping day.
Clothes, a pillow, a cabinet to give a friend — Lei put off buying until Sunday, when retailers promised discounts of up to 70 percent. "The prices are irresistible," she said.
Singles Day was begun by Chinese college students in the 1990s as a version of Valentine's Day for people without romantic partners. The timing was based on the date: Nov. 11, or "11.11" — four singles. Unattached young people would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to woo that special someone and end their single status.
That gift-giving helped to turn it into a major shopping event as sellers of everything from jewelry to TVs to cars saw a marketing opportunity and launched Singles Day sales. It is China's answer to Cyber Monday in the United States — the day after Thanksgiving weekend, when online Christmas shopping begins and merchants have their busiest sales day.
Companies that rushed to cash in on the holiday ranged from Alibaba Group, operator of China's biggest e-commerce platforms, to rival platforms such as 360buy Ltd., mom-and-pop companies that sell online and delivery services.

雷舒洁（音译），一名上海的设计师，列出了长长的“光棍节”网购清单。这个被称作“光棍节”的奇怪节日已经成为中国，甚至可能是世界最繁忙的网络购物日。

衣服，枕头，送给朋友的柜子 ，这些东西雷准备推迟购买，直到周日——当零售商承诺的折扣高达70％时。“这个价格让人无法拒绝”她说。

光棍节始于上世纪90年代的中国大学生中，对于没有浪漫伴侣的人来说，这是另一个版本的情人节。节日时间的确定基于“11月11日，”或“11.11”——4个单身的人。单身的年轻人彼此间送礼物或聚餐，吸引异性好感，从而结束自己的单身状态。

送礼帮助把“光棍节”变成一个重要的购物活动，从珠宝到电视到汽车等等的销售商们都从中看到了商机，并推出了光棍节的销售活动。这个中国节日就相当于美国的"网络星期一"（译注：网络星期一：感恩节周末后的一天，网上圣诞购物开始，商家最繁忙的销售日。）

这一节日里，匆忙套现的商家之中，既有中国最大的电子商务平台运营商阿里巴巴集团，也有它竞争对手的商务平台如京东商城（一家提供在线销售和交付服务的零售公司）。

"This is very, very big for us," Steve Wang, vice president of Tmall.com and head of website operations, said in a phone interview before sales started.

The 50,000-plus merchants on Alibaba's consumer-oriented Taobao and Tmall.com platforms, took in a total of 19.1 billion yuan ($3 billion) from midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday, the company announced early Monday.
That would top the total of $1.25 billion that research firm comScore said U.S. online retailers took in last year on Cyber Monday and might make Singles Day the biggest e-commerce sales day on record.

The spending binge will be welcome news for communist leaders who want to shift the basis of growth in the world's second-largest economy from trade and investment to consumer spending and service industries. Weak global demand for Chinese exports has added to the urgency of ramping up domestic consumption.

China has the world's biggest population of Internet users, with 538 million people online. Its population of online shoppers also is the biggest at 193 million, versus 170 million for the United States, according to Boston Consulting Group. It trails the U.S. and Japan in online spending but, despite average incomes less than one-tenth the American level, is forecast to rise to first place as early as 2015.

 

“这对我们非常非常重要 ”，Tmall.com（天猫商城）的副总裁，网站运营负责人王煜磊在购物节开始前的一次电话采访中说道。

阿里巴巴公司在周一表示，光棍节期间有超过五万名用户参加了淘宝和天猫两大消费平台的促销，从周六午夜到周日午夜的时段内，创造了总计191亿元（30亿美元）的交易额。

市场调查公司comScore周一公布说，光棍节超过了去年美国在线零售商在网络星期一创造的12.5亿美元的销售额，成为电子商务单日最大销售额记录。

关棍节的这种疯狂购物正是中共领导人所需要的，因为他们想把中国（世界第二大经济体）经济发展的模式从贸易和投资转向国内消费和服务业。全球对中国出口需求的疲软，增加对刺激内需的紧迫性。

根据波士顿咨询集团所说，中国有世界最大的网民数量，达到5.38亿人，网络购物者也达到了最大的1.93亿，超过美国的1.7亿人口。目前中国在网络消费上仍低于美国和日本，虽然中国的人均收入不到美国的十分之一，但据估计最早到2015年的时候，其网络消费将会排在第一名。

The Communist Party's latest five-year development plan calls for more than quadrupling annual e-commerce volume from 2010 levels to 18 trillion yuan ($2.9 trillion) by 2015. The party tries to block access to online material deemed subversive or pornographic but promotes Web use for business and education.

"The Internet today in China is similar to television in the 1960s and '70s in the West — the place where consumers congregate and companies need to locate," Boston Consulting Group said in an April report.

Alibaba, founded by a former English teacher, Jack Ma, grew into one of the world's biggest e-commerce players by linking Chinese suppliers with Western manufacturers and retailers. It branched into consumer sales with the 2003 launch of Taobao, which operates Tmall.com. Alibaba also operates China's biggest online payment system, Alipay.

Tmall.com accounted for 45.1 percent of business-to-consumer online sales in China in the three months ending in September, according to Analysys International, a research firm in Beijing. 360buy was in second place with 17.4 percent. Boston Consulting Group said more products were sold through Taobao in 2010 — about 48,000 per minute — than at China's top five bricks-and-mortar retailers combined.

"Alibaba has so many assets that they can integrate that it's hard to compete with them," said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a technology consulting firm in Beijing.

中共最新的五年计划中要求到2015年时电子商务的规模能够在2010年的基础上翻四倍还多，在2015年达到18万亿元（约合2.9万亿美元）。中共试图屏蔽网络破坏和色情内容，但鼓励人们利用网络来从事教育和商业活动。

“当今中国互联网的发展与上世纪6-70年代西方电视业的发展类似--消费者集中的领域就是企业该关注的领域”波士顿咨询集团在四月份的报告中这样说。

阿里巴巴由曾经是英语老师的马云组建，通过联络东西方制造商与零售商，成长为世界上最大的电子商务弄潮儿。该公司2003年推出面向消费者的淘宝--淘宝中还有淘宝商城这一模块。阿里巴巴同时也经营者中国最大的网上支付系统--支付宝。

淘宝商城在7-9月占有中国45.1%的网络直销市场，这一数据来自于北京一家搜索引擎的网络分析。360buy居于第二位，占有市场的17.4%。波士顿咨询集团说2010年淘宝平均每分钟售出48000笔货物，这比中国传统实体零售企业前5位的总合还多。

来自Marbridge--北京一家技术咨询公司的常务董事马克·纳特金说:"阿里巴巴拥有大量的资产和资源，他们可以进行整合，这样其它公司很难与其竞争。"

Other rivals include clothing retailer Vancl.com, bookseller Dangdang.com, Amazon.com Inc.'s joint venture with a Chinese partner, and traditional retailers such as consumer electronics chain Suning Ltd. that have expanded online. Walmart Stores Inc., which operates 340 outlets in China, boosted its online presence last month by expanding its stake in online retailer Yihaodian to a controlling 51 percent.

其他竞争对手包括服装零售商凡客网，以书籍为主的当当网以及亚马逊中国，和传统零售商如家电连锁企业苏宁电器的在线扩展——苏宁易购。在中国拥有340个网点的沃尔玛，上个月通过扩大其在1号店的股权至51％而力求在网购市场上占有一席之地。

In addition to its e-commerce platform used by other merchants, 360buy also is China's biggest online retailer, selling consumer electronics and other goods directly to customers.

京东商城除作为其他商家的电子商务平台外，其本身也是中国最大的电子零售商，直接向客户销售的消费类电子产品和其他商品。

The source of Singles Day's rise as China's online shopping day is a matter of debate by Chinese commentators and industry analysts.

中国评论家和业内人士分析，光棍节作为中国网购日兴起的原因是一个值得讨论的问题。

Some cite demographics and timing: University graduates who adopted the holiday earn more and shop online. Singles Day comes as people receive monthly paychecks and need to buy winter clothes. Unlike other events such as the Lunar New Year, China's biggest family holiday, it involves few other expenses such as travel or banquets, leaving more money for gifts.

有人把关棍节疯狂购物的原因归于人口和时机因素：那些毕业的大学生现在赚了更多的钱，他们接受了关棍节这种节日并且也喜欢网购。光棍节到来之际，正是人们发工资的时候，并且此时正需要购买冬装。不像春节这样中国最大的传统佳节，光棍节很少有旅游、宴会等其它开销，可以留有更多的钱去买礼物。

And there is the romantic angle that might prompt shoppers to open their wallets.

光棍节还有些许的浪漫因素在里面，可以刺激消费者们打开自己的钱包。

"This is about giving a gift that will woo that perfect someone," Natkin said. "If you play your cards right, you only need to make that purchase once."

“这是个送礼求爱的好时候，”Natkin说：“如果抓住了这个时机一次成功，以后就不用再花钱了。”

Lei, the Shanghai designer, wound up buying only the pillow from her shopping list for 118 yuan ($18) because other discounts weren't as big as she hoped.

"I will wait to see if I can get them later," she said.

Companies began preparing for Sunday months in advance.

At its headquarters in Hangzhou, southwest of Shanghai, Alibaba set up 200 lounge chairs for its 800-strong staff to rest during the day. The company rented 180 rooms at nearby hotels for longer breaks.

On Tmall.com, called Tian Mao, or "Sky Cat," in Chinese, goods ranged from clothes, books and furniture to discounts on restaurant meals and travel packages. An auto dealer in the southern city of Shangrao offered 23 percent off BMW 3-series luxury cars ordered Sunday.

China's delivery companies had 800,000 employees working Sunday, including 65,000 temporary workers hired for the holiday, the China Daily newspaper said, citing the country's delivery industry association.

One of the biggest, YTO Express Co. Ltd. in Shanghai, planned to have 30,000 vehicles on the road, the newspaper said, and expanded its daily handling capacity by 50 percent to 6 million packages for the day.

蕾（音译），上海设计师，非常兴奋地仅从她的购物清单上用118元（合18美元）买到了枕头，因为其他物品的折扣不像她期望地那么多。
“我想看看过些时候能不能买到它们”她说。

公司们提前几个月就为这个周日准备了。

总部坐落在杭州（位于上海的西南部）的阿里巴巴为其800名强大的员工设立了200个躺椅用于在这一天休息。这个公司在附近的旅馆租了180个房间用于员工较长时间的休息。

在Tmall.com，在汉语中叫做天猫（拼音），或者“天猫”（英语直译），其商品涵盖从衣服，书和家具到饭店用餐折扣和旅行套餐。一个南方城市上饶的汽车经销商为周日下的订单提供了宝马3系列奢华车23%的折扣。

中国的快递公司有80万员工在周日工作，包括6.5万名假日雇佣的临时工，中国日报报道，引用全国快递行业协会的话最报纸报道，位于上海的YTO快递有限公司（一个巨大的公司），计划派3万辆快递车上路，并且在此日提高50%处理能力达到每天6百万包裹的处理量。

今天很残酷，明天更残酷，后天很美好

 

最后修改：2024 年 02 月 20 日
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