A joke holiday in China just shattered the record for the world's biggest online shopping day ever

A Chinese holiday that began as a joke has become the biggest online shopping day in the world, crushing even Cyber Monday and Black Friday — and this year's event already annihilated 2014's spending record. Singles' Day started as an ironic anti-Valentine's Day celebration of people who aren't in relationships; it isn't a traditional holiday in China. Fittingly, Singles' Day is always held on 11/11 — because the date is full of the loneliest number.

The holiday's popularity is only growing: 2015 just shattered 2014's record of $9 billion in sales, exceeding it by noon in China. And the day isn't even over yet — The New York Times predicts this year could see as much as $13.8 billion spent in total. To help encourage buyers to wait until November 11 to splurge, steep discounts are offered all day long by the Chinese mega e-commerce website Alibaba, which controls 80 percent of the nation's online shopping market.

While Singles' Day hasn't quite caught on yet in the United States, businesses such as Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale's are participating for the first time this year. And it's no wonder they want to cash in on the fun — Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day in the U.S., has only ever earned a little over $2 billion.

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