After Singles’ Day, Chinese shoppers turn to Black Friday

For this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, Chinese consumers spent US$45.3 billion buying smartphones, laptops, and stocking up on snacks, tissues and shampoo.

Two weeks later and they’re spending again, but this time not on domestic bestsellers. In recent years, the US shopping festival Black Friday has become more popular in China as the desire for foreign brands grows.

Although Abacus News doesn’t have a specific figure for how much Chinese people spent on Black Friday, it’s definitely a small thing compared to Singles’ Day. In fact, Black Friday overall is tiny compared to Singles’ Day, which is the largest online shopping fest in the world.

There were Black Friday events hosted on Chinese ecommerce platforms where you can buy directly from popular overseas merchants. But international shopping sites are also favored by Chinese buyers, as their relatively little-known brands provide a sense of uniqueness.

American online shopping sites Shopbop and Mytheresa released ads in Chinese offering Black Friday discounts.

“Some luxury bags, clothes and watches can be so cheap on Black Friday,” said Qiqi Zhu, a professional overseas shopper, or so-called daigou in Chinese. “I usually get double or triple the number of customers during the Thanksgiving sale.”

Chinese cross-border ecommerce apps like Netease Kaola, Tmall International and JD Worldwide only cooperate with big brands, according to Zhu. “If you want to buy things that make you stand out from the crowd, you have to dig into foreign shopping sites.”

“It’s not just about the discounts,” said Tiffany Liu, a Shanghai citizen who spent around US$865 (6,000 yuan) on foreign clothing sites’ Black Friday sales this year: “They offer a lot of brands that you can’t buy in China.”

As a middle-class banker in her early 30s, Liu isn’t as crazy as many other locals are when it comes to the Singles’ Day shopping festival.

Instead, she looks forward to Black Friday every year. “I only buy daily necessities on Singles’ Day. Black Friday is the true shopping festival for me to hunt for stylish items for my closet.”