11/11 and China's E-Commerce Power

Double Eleven, or Singles Day, a made-up Valentines-esque holiday in China held on November 11, has quickly turned into the single biggest online shopping day of the year. Although making up holidays for the sake of stimulating consumer spending had always seemed like an American thing to do, for the E-Commerce giant Alibaba, China's own fake shopping holiday brought in over $5.75 Billion USD in 24 hours last year, with even more growth anticipated for this year.

With Alibaba's impressive IPO earlier this year, it can't be denied that China has become an E-Commerce powerhouse, with $409B in projected online spending in 2014. Some large retailers, namely TopShop and Costco, are skipping opening brick and mortar shops altogether and are going straight to online when selling to Chinese consumers. Will this launch strategy become a trend for retailers moving forward? China has certainly accounted for a large proportion of big brands' retail sales in the last decade, but developing nations with similar consumption patterns are next. E-Commerce becomes a viable solution as technology becomes more readily available in those nations and the price of land and real estate rises. It will be interesting to see if straight-to-online will be successful for retailers entering into certain developing markets, and what the implications will be for brands in the long run.