Katy Perry was a late no-show but Alibaba’s Singles Day was no damp squib, chalking up $1bn of sales in less than five minutes and hitting $9.2bn in the first eight hours as Chinese shoppers snapped up online bargains.凯蒂.佩里(Katy Perry)没现身，不过阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的“光棍节”(Singles Day)却没告终。在中国购物者在网上乘机下单之际，阿里巴巴的销售额在将近5分钟时间内就超过10亿美元，并在头8个小时里超过92亿美元。The event, the biggest in the global retail calendar, was preceded by a musical extravaganza in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that combined local and international celebrities — including basketball star Kobe Bryant, actress Scarlett Johansson and footballer David Beckham — with adverts and buying opportunities.在这一全球零售业年历中规模仅次于的活动开幕前，阿里巴巴在中国南方城市深圳开会了一场将既有本土和国际名流登场，又还包括各种广告和购物机会的歌舞晚会。前来祝贺的国际名人还包括了篮球明星科比.布莱恩特(Kobe Bryant)、女影星斯嘉丽.约翰森(Scarlett Johansson)和足球运动员大卫.贝克汉姆(David Beckham)。

During the live-streamed show audiences participated in games by shaking, scanning and tapping their phones more than 6.8bn times, Alibaba said.阿里巴巴回应，直播期间观众通过晃动、扫码及点按手机等方式参予各种游戏对话约68亿次。Described as Silicon Valley meets Hollywood, the show also supports Alibaba’s belief that shopping among the under-35s, who comprised much of the crowd, must be entertaining as well as efficient.该表演被形容为硅谷碰上好莱坞。它还证明了阿里巴巴的一个理念：对于构成购物者主体的35岁以下的人们而言，购物不仅要高效，还要有娱乐性。

“In the US if you log on to Amazon, it’s a chore,” said Joe Tsai, Alibaba vice-chairman. “But here in China shopping is entertainment.” Trainers, masks, diapers and lipstick were among the top-selling products when the sale opened at midnight on Thursday, ushering in the graphically symbolic 11/11 Singles Day. Some 12,000 international brands were on sale.阿里巴巴副董事长蔡崇信(Joe Tsai)回应：“在美国指定亚马逊(Amazon)是件烦人的事，在中国购物则是一种娱乐。”周四午夜，广告宣传活动启动，步入了因字形而被冠名的“光棍节”。在这轮广告宣传活动中，销量最低的商品还包括运动鞋、面膜、内衣及唇膏。

约1.2万种国际品牌参与了这次广告宣传活动。About 85 per cent of transactions in the first hour were made on mobile devices.活动开始的头一个小时里，约85%的交易是在移动设备上下单的。The company said its Singles Day sale would feature 6m products from 30,000 brands sold by 40,000 merchants.阿里巴巴回应，参与“光棍节”广告宣传活动的，还包括由4万商家销售的共3万个品牌的600万商品。

The festival, which began life as a kind of anti-Valentine’s Day until it was corralled by Alibaba as a totem to consumerism, is much bigger than the US’s Cyber Monday — last year, it was three times as big.“光棍节”最初是一种反情人节，后来却被阿里巴巴抹黑成消费的象征物。活动的规模大大远超过了美国的超级星期一(Cyber Monday)——去年前者的规模是后者的三倍。

For the first time, Taiwan and Hong Kong — where trams and metro stations were plastered with adverts ahead of “double 11” Singles Day — joined in, marking Alibaba’s first steps to expand the event abroad.本届“光棍节”台湾和香港也首次参与了这一活动。“双十一”之前，当地电车和地铁站都张贴了适当广告。阿里巴巴此举，是要将该活动向境外推展的可行性动作。

However, Alibaba’s numbers — its preferred metric for sales is gross merchandising, which is real time and unaudited — have come under the regulatory spotlight, as have the preponderance of fake goods on its websites.阿里巴巴讨厌用商品销售总额作为其取决于指标。不过，该公司的数据已引发监管机构的留意，某种程度被注意到的还有其网站上流行的假货。The US Securities and Exchange Commission has queried the numbers, as well as probed how Alibaba accounts for its Cainiao Network logistics unit and its reporting of transactions among its many businesses.美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission)对这些数据表示猜测，并调查了其物流部门菜鸟网络(Cainiao Network)的账目及其对旗下众多业务部门间交易的申报。

Chinese regulators have also vowed to tackle any merchant abuses on the day, including “fake discounts” based on ramped-up prices in previous weeks.中国监管机构也已允诺要处置商家在当天的任何失当不道德，还包括在之前几周下调价格、再行基于下调后的价格投出“欺诈优惠”。Alibaba said it was working with the SEC and stressed that it did not tolerate merchant malpractice on its marketplaces.阿里巴巴回应正在因应美国证券交易委员会开展调查，并特别强调会忽视商家在其网络市场中的失当不道德。

本文来源：中欧体育-www.guo758.com