China's e-commerce company Alibaba sells record $14.3 billion on Singles Day

Elizabeth Weise | USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO - Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba did a record $14.3 billion in sales on Singles Day Wednesday, breaking last year's record and blowing past its estimates of $11 billion in sales.

The precise sales figure as the clock struck midnight was $14,341,847,366, according to Alibaba.

“Last year, at $9.3 billion, it was the biggest online sales day in history. I think we can absolutely say that this has topped that,” said Katherine Wilson, director of marketing insights for Clavis Insight, a Boston-based e-commerce analytics company.

Alibaba shares (BABA) were down 2% in trading Wednesday, at $79.80.

Mobile sales made up the bulk of orders — 69%, Alibaba Group Holding Limited said.

At its peak, Alipay, Alibaba's online payment system, was processing 85,900 transactions per second, the company said.

Singles Day is a creation of Chinese online retailer Alibaba, which six years ago took an obscure Valentine's Day-like holiday that began in the 1990s and turned it into an excuse to go shopping for oneself. In its English materials, the company brands the event as a Global Shopping Festival.

It’s difficult to compare sale prices between the United States and China as many of the items being sold aren’t exactly the same. However Clavis Insight collected data on some sales offered during on Alibaba. They included:

Columbia 650 Punta down jacket, originally $470, on sale for $235.

New Balance retro running shoe, originally $78, on sale for $39.

Sketchers shoe, originally $117, on sale for $58.

Singles Day wouldn't fly in the U.S.

While Alibaba Jack Ma has said he’d like to export Singles Day to the United States, it’s not likely, say experts.

Singles Day in China takes place on Nov. 11, because 11-11 looks like singletons or bare branches (i.e. branches without leaves and fruit), a term for bachelors in Chinese.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, Nov. 11 is celebrated as Veterans Day and Remembrance Day respectively, because it is the day the First World War ended, on Nov. 11, 1918.

Trying to take a solemn holiday and turn it into a day devoted to spending money on yourself would probably not go well, said Arthur Dong, a professor of strategy and economics at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

"It would backfire, given the sentiments in the United States and how much respect Americans generally have for people who served, I think it would be bad for the companies that tried to do it, they would be tainted by this naked consumerism,” he said.