Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce company, broke single-day online sales records during the country's biggest shopping holiday.
Topping $5.75 billion, the site matched last year's online sales in the first 13 hours of the 24-hour shopping day, which was on Sunday, according to Bloomberg. Last year, Alibaba's single-day online sales record totaled $3.14 billion.
China's biggest shopping day is called "Singles' Day;" it's a similar holiday to Valentine's Day in the US. The main difference with Singles' Day is that it's geared toward shopping. The idea is that people should pamper themselves by purchasing clothes, household items, and other goods on Singles' Day.
In the past, people would frequent brick-and-mortar shops for Singles' Day but now more and more people have turned to online shopping. As with Cyber Monday in the US, Web sites and online merchants in China offer a host of deals, discounts, and promotions. According to Bloomberg, overall online retail sales in China jumped from 4.3 percent last year to 6.3 percent earlier this year.
In the US, online shopping is also skyrocketing. Last year's Cyber Mondaybrought in an estimated $1.46 billion in sales. And, analysts are promising an even bigger spending year this coming holiday season. The Adobe Digital Index released a report last week that predicted more than $2.27 billion in online spending for this year's Cyber Monday.