The Singles Day black hole

Dear readers,

I don’t know about you, but I was sucked into the Singles Day vortex this month.

On local TV, Shopee and Lazada ads have dominated every commercial break. Even kids like my 4-year-old remember the jingles.

Photo credit: Shopee

I succumbed and bought a chess set (after watching The Queen’s Gambit), a tabletop foosball set (to entertain the kids), and a USB hub.

After originating in China, Singles Day is now huge in Southeast Asia. As is custom, various ecommerce sites touted their astronomical numbers for the sales bonanza.

(One site has “boycotted” the festival and another has ignored it altogether, though they’re in the minority.)

But here’s one thing ecommerce sites don’t tell you: Singles Day sucks revenue from the days and weeks before and after the festival, one industry watcher tells me. Because of this, it’s hard to parse how useful Singles Day numbers are.

It’s logical: Consumers often hold on to their wallets as they wait for the flash sales and discounts to drop.

The festival has the effect of distorting quarterly numbers. Alibaba and Shopee, for instance, see their revenue numbers jump in Q4.

But its exact net benefit to the companies is questionable. Granted, Singles Day has significance beyond being a sales booster. But it seems shoppers have been conditioned to hold their purchases until the big event. How much they’re holding off is a big question.

There’s the flipside to this, too. What else should ecommerce sites do, besides holding a massive sales festival? It seems inevitable. If it’s not Singles Day, it’ll be something else. Sales have been embedded into the psyche of shoppers even before ecommerce was a thing (RIP, The Great Singapore Sale).