Door 11: 11-11

What is the day with the highest sales worldwide? If you guess Black Friday in the USA, you're way off, because a month ago was the infamous Eleven-Eleven. A week before, colleagues asked me if I knew about it. First thought: Now we're sitting here on the other side of the world and they're coming to us with carnival?

The "Singles Day" was launched 10 years ago by the online shop "Alibaba" as a counter event to Valentine's Day. Weeks in advance, people wait and refrain from making major purchases to get the big bargain here. Then, right at midnight, the big party begins: In the first few minutes alone, the mail order companies make billions in sales. This year, Alibaba's sales alone amounted to around 35 billion euros! The competitors JingDong, TaoBao, etc. also achieve double-digit billion-dollar sales.

For comparison: The US Black Friday generated a total turnover of just under $10 billion in 2019. The result is an incredible number of packages. In some places, they are piled up in front of residential buildings, and here in Suzhou, too, you could still search for your package on the street in front of your house at night. Who would have thought that this day would be even crazier in China than in Germany ;)