When we think about global giant companies, Amazon is one of the first names that cross our minds, because of its profitability and the huge operation. Last quarter, for instance, Jeff Bezos‘ company reported $ 70 billion in sales worldwide. But have you imagined another company that could reach more than half of it in sales in only 24h? Yes, it is possible and was exactly what Alibaba just did in this year’s Singles Day, according to Forbes. 

After breaking its own record by achieving the $ 30 billion sales mark from the previous year in only 16 hours, Alibaba announced that by the end of the day in China, a new global record was set, $38,4 billion in sales reached in 24h.

ALSO READ: Alibaba reveals that this year Singles Day sales reached $ 38.4 billion

But these astronomic numbers weren’t the only great surprise of this edition, after years figuring among the largest markets from AliExpress, now Latin America is really entering in Singles Day’s game, especially in Brazil. 

Despite having previous editions in the country since 2017, this was the first year that Brazil took the spotlight in Alibaba’s Singles Day strategy. “We saw a huge sales growth in Brazil this past year,” explained Ken Huang, Alibaba’s Head in Latin America, about why the country became so attractive to the Chinese retailer in an interview for the Brazilian media outlet Exame. 

As soon as Singles Day’s date was fast approaching, Alibaba’s announced that for the first time would put efforts to make the sale significant in the Brazilian retail market. This statement does not refer only a huge investment in online media, the Chinese giant went further by closing strategic deals with local partners, such as the fintech EBANX that besides of being AliExpress payments partner in the country, had also led a special campaign, starred by the Brazilian TV hostess Sabrina Sato, with the goal of making Singles Day known and popular among Brazilians. 

As a result, once the sale was on, EBANX registered 335.000 purchase orders in AliExpress and other retailers that had also joined the Singles Day challenge in Latin America, which represents around 150 orders per minute and an increase of 50% in relation to the previous Singles Day in the country, according to Exame. 

Nevertheless, it is just the first step. Alibaba, the responsible for the huge success of the Chinese Singles Day, said in an interview with Exame what are the next steps that the company is planning, in order to make sales grow year after year in Brazil. According to Huang, to decrease the delivery time is the biggest challenge and the company is studying the best way to improve it. 

READ ALSO: “AliExpress plans to open a distribution center in Brazil“

“Um negócio da China” or a “Chinese deal”, translating for English, is an old Brazilian expression that came from the colonial times when people traveled for months in order to bring spices from China to America and it is used to translate the feeling of a successful deal or business. 

What the people who invented the expression back then could never imagine is that years later, Alibaba would reach the goal of translating it to our current reality. Although the sales promotion hasn’t reached its highest potential in Brazil yet, the growth rates are already surprising, and we could not imagine a better way to explain it otherwise of saying that Singles Day had proved itself as a truly “negócio da China” in Brazil this year.