[Saturday, 11 November 2023] location : worldwide
Every year on November 11, Singles Days also known as the bare sticks holiday or the 11/11 holiday, arises, and it’s the ideal opportunity to pamper yourself. What began as a day to celebrate and see the joy of being single has now evolved into the world’s greatest shopping holiday.
Single Day should not be confused with other festivals with a similar concept, such as National Single Day, observed on the final Saturday of September, and Singles Awareness Day, observed on February 15.
Origin of Singles Day
While the origins of Single Day are, as you might expect, an anti-Day Valentine’s celebration of being single, the holiday has evolved as it has grown in popularity. The Chinese holiday was founded in 1993 by students at China’s Nanjing University who wanted to create a day to celebrate being romantically unattached, or single. The holiday’s concept was simply to demonstrate pride and camaraderie in being single.
Single Day is usually celebrated on November 11, and the timing is not by chance. The date was picked intentionally because 11/11 signifies the symbol of four single ones, or many sticks, side by side. This is where the term “bare sticks holiday” or “single sticks holiday” comes from originates. Singles Day is written in Chinese as???, which translates as Singles’ Holiday.
How do we celebrate Singles Day
As the fun and pampering aspect of Singles Day grew in popularity, with people using the holiday as an excuse to treat themselves to fine meals, new clothes, and other luxury and lavish purchases that they would not normally make, Daniel Zhang, the then CEO of Chinese online shopping website Alibaba, was the first to see the commercial potential in creating a Singles Day sale back in 2009.
Over the years, the trend has spread globally, with many retailers other than Alibaba taking on board, such as fashion giant Uniqlo, which is providing flash 11/11 bargains for a 24-hour period beginning at midnight on November 11 The United States is no different, with almost one-quarter of merchants apparently partaking in Singles Day USA discounts. Singles Day subsequently became the greatest online shopping day of the year, with spectacular sales of billions of dollars, exceeding both Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
Some may note parallels between Singles Day and Prime Day, which was founded in a similar manner to Alibaba but by e-commerce behemoth Amazon. Similarly, Prime Day includes internet flash bargains that only last 24 hours.
The online success of Singles Day sales in 2020 is most likely due to the coronavirus epidemic, which caused many more individuals to stay at home and purchase online rather than going to the high street.
While many people perceive Valentine’s Day as nothing more than a commercial holiday designed to persuade us to spend money, Singles Day has become very much the same, and there doesn’t appear to be any attempt to conceal it as a commercially generated holiday that explicitly urges us to purchase. Regardless, the foundations of how we commemorate Singles Day remain the same for many, guaranteeing that regardless of our relationship status, we celebrate our friends, family, and, most importantly, ourselves.
Facts about Singles Day:
- Students launched Singles Day in 1993, but it wasn’t until 2009 that the celebration took on a new form with its first online sale.
- In contrast to Valentine’s Day, which celebrates the union of couples, relationships, and love, it was initially designed to honour singledom.
- The date was selected because 11/11 depicts four lone sticks.
- It has surpassed Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the largest shopping event on the planet.
Singles Day is traditionally a 24-hour shopping spree.