China Focus: Online shopping bonanza breaks records

HANGZHOU, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than two billion yuan was spent in the first 70 minutes of a 24-hour shopping bonanza at China's largest business-to-customer online purchase website on Sunday.

More than 10 million people swarmed to Taobao.com, for its 24-hour 50-percent-off carnival because of "Single's Day." November 11 (11/11)represents four single people.

The sale has been initiated by the e-commerce company Alibaba Group with Taobao.com and Tmall.com, based in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang Province.

As of 11:18 a.m. Sunday, trade volume reached 7.9 billion yuan (1.265 billion U.S. dollars), exceeding the 5.2 billion yuan in the 24 hours on Nov. 11 last year.

Volume reached 10 billion yuan as of 1:38 p.m., which was the target for the 24 hours. It was realized 10 hours in advance, according to the company's statistics.

The sales carnival is also testing the banking system and express delivery systems.

Wu Liying, a bank employee in Hangzhou worked overnight to avoid any collapse of the banking system.

"It's been too hustle and bustle," Wu told Xinhua. "The scale has exceeded the daily volume, which has brought great challenges to our system."

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