U.S. holiday weekend sales no match for China's Singles' Day

EVEN with a combined record sales on Black Friday and Thanksgiving plus the projected sales for Cyber Monday, online sales in the United States for the holiday weekend remain merely a fraction of what was raked in during China's 11.11 Singles' Day sales earlier this month.

According to Adobe Analytics, which measures 100 of the largest retailers in the U.S., retailers raked in US$7.9 billion on Black Friday and Thanksgiving, with Cyber Monday expected to bring in another US$6.6 billion.

Although the numbers hit a record high in the U.S., they were still no match for the US$25.4 billion total online sales recorded during the 24-hour Singles' Day sales on Nov 11 – Alibaba's largest shopping festival.

According to Adobe, as reported by Reuters, TVs, laptops, toys and the PlayStation 4 were the top sellers during the U.S. sales.

As for Alibaba's Singles' Day sales, Malaysians were noted to be the biggest shoppers among all Southeast Asian nations with more than 40 orders made per minute via platforms including Lazada.

According to e-commerce service ShopBack Malaysia, Malaysia's average spending per customer that day was US$24 (about RM100) with the country's top shopper spending about RM11,000 worth of orders via ShopBack.