Today is November 11, also now referred to as Singles’ Day in Chinese pop culture. E-commerce platforms have turned the day into a 24-hour shopping spree. This year, Tmall.com, a major online shopping platform of Chinese retailing conglomerate Alibaba Group turned over 1 billion yuan in just 52 seconds.

Jack Ma (right) applauds as a giant screen shows the remarkable sale volume that indicates Alibaba’s sales has passed 10 billion yuan ($1.47 billion) within seven minutes of the start of China's Singles Day online sale. [Photo/ Xinhua]

In the first hour of the day, the number grow to more than 35 billion yuan. That Is more than the platform’s trade volume for the whole day in 2013. 

The company says that customers actually spent 10 billion yuan on the website within seven minutes. By 2.30 a.m., it topped 50 billion yuan.