2026 Singles' Day (11.11)

Singles' Day on November 11, written 11.11 because the four ones resemble people standing alone, began in the 1990s as a tongue-in-cheek celebration for unattached students at Nanjing University and grew into the world's largest online shopping event after Alibaba launched its first 11.11 sale in 2009. Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Douyin run massive discounts, with turnover in the hundreds of billions of yuan, and the shopping window now stretches from mid-October pre-sales through the day itself. Live-stream sellers, celebrity galas and flash deals at midnight are part of the spectacle, and logistics networks handle billions of parcels in the following days. Single people still mark the original spirit with dinners and blind-date events. It is not a public holiday, and retailers from Southeast Asia to Europe have adopted the date for their own sales. This countdown ticks to midnight Beijing time on November 11, when the main sale opens.