ABSTRACT
In 2009 it became an online event in a small way when the Chinese retailer Alibaba had its first Singles Day sale, featuring just 27 merchants. It is worth starting this chapter with Alibaba rather than Amazon. While Alibaba is only about half the size of Amazon, it is the only company that comes close to the internet behemoth in terms of the scope of its services and more importantly its ambition. The threat to the traditional retail model can best be illustrated by Amazon, the largest online retailer in the UK by some distance, with 435 million monthly visits to its website and more than twice the online sales of the second place retailer Tesco. The physical and online worlds were merged, allowing businesses to connect with customers, to expand markets and to enhance the experience of shopping in real places.
