Online site goes after Chinese in US on 11.11

On the day the world's biggest one-day shopping spree takes place in China, a US and China-based online company will be targeting Chinese consumers in America with deals from major companies.

The shopping bonanza in China is on Wednesday, known as Singles Day or 11.11, and DealMoon will start posting promotional codes for its products for Chinese consumers in the US on Nov 10 because of the time difference between the two countries.

Deals from seven major US department stores and more than 130 international brands will be offered by DealMoon. The site's executives say the deals will be as attractive as those offered to US consumers on Black Friday, the big brick-and-mortar and online sales event in the US the day after the Thanksgiving holiday.

"Some are even better than Black Friday," said Jennifer Wang, chief marketing officer of DealMoon, who calls the site "the Neiman Marcus of deal sites", a reference to the famous and expensive department store in Dallas.

DealMoon says its hundreds of shopping advisers aggregate about 500 products of mainly high-end brands daily, and the site has chosen Singles Day to serve up the deepest discounts of the year.

Singles Day, also called double 11 in China, takes place on Nov 11 every year as a celebration of singlehood. In 2009, Alibaba spotted a commercial opportunity with the day, and marketed it as a shopping day for single people to buy things to pamper themselves.

The singles shopping spree has grown, and last year Alibaba alone sold $9.34 billion in 24 hours, which surpassed the sales on Black Friday. American consumers spent $5.29 billion online over the entire Thanksgiving weekend in 2013, which includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

"In 2013, when I approached the brands (in the US), very few had heard of Singles Day. Though they were interested, they didn't give us many good deals," said Wang. "We got about 20 exclusive offers."