On the day after Thanskgiving in the US, or Black Friday, lots of stores offer special discounts to mark the beginning of holiday shopping season. In China, a similar day falls on Nov. 11 when millions of Chinese shoppers go to Tmall.com and Taobao.com, two e-commerce websites operated by Alibaba. The 11.11 Shopping Festival, as the event is now called, is also known in China as Singles Day. The shopping festival first started in 2009 and Alibaba said it chose the date because it was easy to remember. Last year, Tmall and Taobao together produced 19.1 billion in sales on that day, according to Alibaba. This year's shopping festival kicked off with an even stronger start--sales hit 100 million yuan 55 seconds after midnight and reached 35 billion at the end of the day. The shopping spree  drew the attention of China's leaders, as Premier Li Keqiang recently praised Alibaba's founder, Jack Ma, for creating a day for consumption. China is trying to lead the country's economy to a slower, more sustainable growth model based on domestic   consumption instead of investment and exports. Online shopping is no doubt a growth point that will release spending potential. China had 564 million regular Internet users by the end of last year. It has surpassed the US to become the world's largest e-commerce market, with its online sales over 1 trillion US dollars (6 trillion yuan) by 2020. "The real-time nature of online consumption attracts millions of people to spend money and enjoy life. E-commerce opens a new channel for China to encourage domestic demand," Liu Yin, vice-president of the China International Electronic Commerce Center said. More importantly, it promotes employment and the logistics   industry with its sales model of "online purchasing plus express delivery", he added. Convenience, choice and low prices have increased online shopping, but there are still some problems with the one-day shopping spree. Some online shops, driven by the huge profits, took this opportunity to play price tricks. They raised prices to twice those of the originals in the early October and then offered discounts on Nov 11. Many consumers, driven by the advantage they could take, just went along for the ride. "They spend lots of time online to check what to buy and are happy to get what they don't really need at a lower price," wrote Jia Ge, an Internet analyst, on his Sina weibo. In this year's 11.11 Shopping Festival, Tmall and Taobao produced   _  in all.
19.1 billion yuan 100 million yuan 35.1 billion yuan 35 billion yuan