China’s Singles Day is an annual frenzy of online consumerism that ranks as one of the wonders of the modern commercial world. The 24-hour sale far outstrips Black Friday in the US, on which it was modelled.
Last year, Chinese and international superstars including Scarlett Johansson and David Beckham were enlisted to generate a buzz. Singles Day racked up $17.8bn of sales generating some 467m parcels, more than five times more than US consumers spent on Black Friday.
The man behind this extravaganza is far from the showman you might expect. Daniel Zhang, the chief executive of Alibaba who developed the concept in 2009, is a mild-mannered, bespectacled accountant who speaks in a quiet hush in a Berlin hotel lobby on a swing through Europe.
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