China’s big “Singles Day” shopping holiday improved a bit in 2025 over the previous year, but retailers said the pace of growth slowed as customers looked for bargains, instead of spending big on luxury items.
“Singles Day” falls on November 11, or “11/11.” The name is both a pun on the date and an invitation for single people to go shopping online. The number “1” also resembles the Chinese ideogram for a lonely or single person. Some Chinese refer to the day as “Double 11.”
Singles Day was created in 2009 by e-commerce giant Alibaba, which had the idea to create a “holiday” that would encourage single people to show themselves a good time with an online shopping binge. “Even if you don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you can at least shop like crazy!” was one of Alibaba’s early slogans.
The shopping holiday was a huge success at first, with a rapidly growing number of merchants participating. Brick-and-mortar retail outlets began running Singles Day specials as well.
Singles Day has grown into the biggest one-day sales event in the world, generating more revenue than either Black Friday or Amazon Prime Days in the United States. The biggest early stumbling block to the growth of the shopping extravaganza was that other countries proved very resistant to joining in. Alibaba and other Chinese retailers have made sustained efforts to market the holiday around the world, but less than a third of global consumers are aware of Singles Day or Double 11 as of 2025. The close proximity of Singles Day to the hotly anticipated Black Friday shopping event could be part of the problem.
The second problem is that Singles Day grew bigger and more diffuse. Much like Black Friday, Singles Day has grown to encompass the entire month of December, which naturally reduces the spike of enthusiasm for the original one-day “holiday event.” This also seems to have changed the spending habits of Chinese consumers, who spend the protracted Double 11 season hunting for bargains on practical purposes, instead of binging on luxury items or spectacular gifts for their love interests.
Singles Day 2024 was a disappointment for Chinese retailers, thanks to a sluggish economy and a disappointing stimulus plan unveiled by Chinese Communist Party leaders. Market researchers noted that prices had been slashed so deeply throughout the year that buyers saw little appeal in the Singles Day sales.
Singles Day 2025 improved over the dismal 2024 numbers by somewhere between 14 percent and 18 percent, according to various analytics firms, but the rebound was still considered underwhelming.
“Consumers have been tightening their belts, spending cautiously due to a prolonged slump in the property market, lagging wages and high unemployment among the young Chinese who usually would be most likely to splurge on online purchases,” the Associated Press (AP) noted.
The AP cited a relatively upbeat analysis from WPIC Marketing + Technologies CEO Jacob Cooke, who described the sales figures as a “positive signal for China’s consumer economy.”
“The longer sales window means year-on-year comparisons are imperfect, but the underlying indicators – strong participation, high engagement, and broad category strength – show that consumers are still spending,” he argued.
On the other hand, CNBC called Double 11 a “stumble” this year, with a shift toward less-profitable groceries, pet food, and other necessities.
CNBC noted that some of the biggest Chinese e-commerce sites have grown reluctant to release their Singles Day sales data, whereas triumphant announcements of incredible sales growth were common in years past.
Some retailers also fared better than others this year. JD.com reported exceptionally high sales on Singles Day, with a 40-percent increase in total customers and a 60-percent surge in order volume compared to October.
