Gala to entertain shoppers for Singles Day

When you mention Singles Day (Nov 11) now, perhaps few people will first associate it with bachelors in spite of the fact the day was originally "celebrated" by them.

This is all thanks to Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce titan, that first launched its online version of Black Friday with comprehensive discounts for Singles Day in 2009.

Then, the turnover on its online shopping platform, Tmall, was 50 million yuan ($7.5 million). Last year, however, the number ballooned to 168.2 billion yuan, more than 3,000 times that of 2009.