Alibaba's Singles' Day sales surge 60 percent to $14.3B

Even $2k/month does not reach $4K per 90 days.

EDIT: Oops, sorry. I apologize for this silly error. I know it sounds bizarre, but I was converting 90 minutes to 1.5 hours a minute ago, and for some reason converted "90 days" to "1.5 months". :-)

Or maybe I can blame it on an errant gamma ray that tweaked a bit in one of my cores.... :D

2. Who do you think directs the logistics and distribution of products. Alibaba has large stakes in logistics providers and directs the operations (Cainiao). There is no UPS/USPS type provider but a bunch of smaller ones who have to be managed by Alibaba. So while they are ramping up actual ownership of fulfillment centers, they are not like eBay where the seller just creates a shipping label drops it off at the UPS office and it shows up at the buyers door without eBay's involvement.

- number of packages

Courier costs ~ 1.5USD, and on top of that, for 11-11 you need small amount to get it for free. As a result, I have around ~30 packages coming to me, from which 5-6 six are from Xiaomi. That's thanks to free delivery, instead of preparing what I want and bundling shopping together I just got multiple packages - and orders.

Number of delivery people:

- for singles days there are horror stories of what's happening in centers. Even thought it's against the law (I think), guys are paid for number of delivered packages, so for workers it's a gold time to work. Last year some of them were working 22 hours a day just to have a huge influx of cash

- Alibaba had tents inside office where people were sleeping. That one just for fun, not related to above :)

Overall, if his work related research is equal in quality to the one he had for this post, that's a very nice sign of not to follow him.

The analysis points out that based on the quoted numbers the transaction volume exceeds Visa global peak traffic by about 3x. If a significant fraction of that volume was originating outside of China it would be a household name in major markets.

2) They'd need some sort of huge fulfillment centers a la Amazon.

The point is that even if Alibaba doesn't directly own or operate fulfillment and logistics they still need to be handled by somebody. If those fulfillment and logistic solutions are productive they are going to be capital intensive and would require more investment capital than Amazon and UPS combined. If they aren't productive they are going to be labor intensive and going to require a multiple of staff of those two companies combined.

Personally I think the analysis is well thought out. Assuming that the numbers aren't completely fabricated from whole cloth the only way that I can reconcile the numbers are:

1) Alibaba's logistic is massively localized and peer to peer. That means that almost all packages are moving a few blocks. Basically, packages of take out from the local shop.

2) Alibaba's transaction volume is mostly digital goods such as virtual flowers, music, etc. Not likely based on what goods are listed.

3) Alibaba is a trading platform. Gambling, currency exchange, commodities, etc. In that case Alibaba serves as a trusted intermediary. At that point transaction volume would be better compared against the NYSE than Visa or Amazon.

Personally I think the third option is most likely which would dramatically limit Alibaba's ability to monetize those transactions and it's valuation.

> Most people then figured that the users had multiple deliveries which is I guess a possibility.

Possibility? That's the default. Whenever I'm in China I have 5+ pending orders from Taobao at any given time. From a single battery to reels of components or $500 equipment. Pretty much always from independent distributors, often in the same city or the other 10+ million people city next doors. Often you get delivery two-three times a day with all handwritten slips and boxes of all sizes wrapped in layers and layers of tape. Whenever I go home late at night you pass the local shipping centers having spread their packages all over the sidewalk and close to my hotel there usually a few guys sorting packages in a small van and a couple of electric motorcycles.

Sure, the numbers might be inflated, but the article does the classic mistake of trying to understand China with a western mindset.

Those holidays are known to wikipedia, although it attributes "White Day" primarily to Japan and "Black Day" exclusively to Korea.

So the opposite of Valentine's Day is already placed; April 14th. I don't see why Western Forever Alone Day would need to be scheduled differently from Chinese Forever Alone Day -- the date was picked for being all ones. (And, I'm told, you can celebrate by eating 1-shaped Pocky.)

https://www.techinasia.com/alibaba-crushes-records-brings-14...

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34773940