阿里巴巴雙十一銷售額8小時突破90億美元
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.
凱蒂.佩裏(Katy Perry)沒有現身，不過阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的“光棍節”(Singles Day)卻沒有失敗。在中國購物者在網上大舉下單之際，阿里巴巴的銷售額在不到5分鐘時間內就達到10億美元，並在頭8個小時裏達到92億美元。
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.
在這一全球零售業年曆中規模最大的活動揭幕前，阿里巴巴在中國南方城市深圳召開了一場將既有本土和國際名流登場，又包括各種廣告和購物機會的歌舞晚會。前來捧場的國際名人包括了籃球明星科比.布萊恩特(Kobe Bryant)、女影星斯嘉麗.約翰森(Scarlett Johansson)和足球運動員大衛.貝克漢姆(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.
阿里巴巴表示，直播期間觀衆通過搖動、掃碼及點按手機等方式參與各種遊戲互動達68億次。
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.
該演出被形容爲硅谷遇上好萊塢。它還證明了阿里巴巴的一個理念：對於組成購物者主體的35歲以下的人們而言，購物不僅要高效，還要有娛樂性。
“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.
阿里巴巴副董事長蔡崇信(Joe Tsai)表示：“在美國登錄亞馬遜(Amazon)是件煩人的事，在中國購物則是一種娛樂。”週四午夜，促銷活動啓動，迎來了因字形而被冠名的“光棍節”。在這輪促銷活動中，銷量最高的商品包括運動鞋、面膜、尿布及脣膏。大約1.2萬種國際品牌參加了這次促銷活動。
About 85 per cent of transactions in the first hour were made on mobile devices.
活動開始的頭一個小時裏，大約85%的交易是在移動設備上下單的。
The company said its Singles Day sale would feature 6m products from 30,000 brands sold by 40,000 merchants.
阿里巴巴表示，參加“光棍節”促銷活動的，包括由4萬商家銷售的共3萬個品牌的600萬商品。
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.
“光棍節”最初是一種反情人節，後來卻被阿里巴巴炒作成消費的象徵。活動的規模大大超出了美國的超級星期一(Cyber Monday)——去年前者的規模是後者的三倍。
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.
本屆“光棍節”臺灣和香港也首次參加了這一活動。“雙十一”之前，當地電車和地鐵站都張貼了相應廣告。阿里巴巴此舉，是要將該活動向境外推廣的初步動作。
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.
阿里巴巴喜歡用商品銷售總額作爲其衡量指標。不過，該公司的數據已引起監管機構的注意，同樣被注意到的還有其網站上盛行的假貨。
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.
美國證券交易委員會(Securities and Exchange Commission)對這些數據表示懷疑，並調查了其物流部門菜鳥網絡(Cainiao Network)的賬目及其對旗下衆多業務部門間交易的申報。
Chinese regulators have also vowed to tackle any merchant abuses on the day, including “fake discounts” based on ramped-up prices in previous weeks.
中國監管機構也已承諾要處理商家在當天的任何不當行爲，包括在之前幾週上調價格、再基於上調後的價格打出“虛假折扣”。
Alibaba said it was working with the SEC and stressed that it did not tolerate merchant malpractice on its marketplaces.
阿里巴巴表示正在配合美國證券交易委員會開展調查，並強調不會容忍商家在其網絡市場中的不當行爲。
