Tmall aims to break $3 billion record as it prepares for massive Singles Day sale

China celebrates Singles Day — it’s like the opposite of Valentine’s Day — on November 11, but Alibaba’s B2C ecommerce platform Tmall is already gearing up for its massive one-day sale. Between Monday and August 22, the company is signing up vendors to participate in the sales event, which it promises will be even more exciting than last year’s and will include offline events, interactive elements, and preorders in addition to the deep discounts the day has become known for.

It’s not too hard to understand why Tmall is getting excited for the day even though it’s still months away; together with its C2C sister site Taobao, it did $3 billion in sales on Singles Day in 2012. As we pointed out at the time, that’s more than double what the US generated on Cyber Monday, and given that absolutely everything about China’s internet is growing, there’s a good chance the Alibaba platforms will rake in even more money this year. In fact, sales were up more than 360% year-on-year in 2012, so if the companies see a similar spike in 2013, it’s possible they’ll break the $10 billion mark.

Vendors who want to participate this year have to abide by some serious rules though: every item must be on sale for at least 10 percent off compared to the its regular price between September and November (and 50 percent off compared to its MSRP, though there’s probably some fudging allowed here), and every item must include free shipping. Prices cannot dip below their Singles Day levels for at least 30 days after the sale is over.

(via TechWeb, image source)