Increase in Sales Predicted for Singles Day 2019

Wednesday, November 6, 2019 - 14:42 by Graham Miller

Consumers from the UK are expected to spend more on Singles Day this year than ever before, with a Centre for Retail Research report from vouchercodes.co.uk suggesting that this sales event will generate around £1.3 billion when it arrives next week.

Starting life as a trend in China, this event has spread internationally thanks to e-commerce sites like Alibaba that offer safe shopping online, and in 2019 it is set to break records once again.

The study suggests that there will be a 13 per cent year-on-year increase in spending in the UK, meaning that it leads other European nations in terms of total online outlay for Singles Day, even if growth rates seen in Germany and France will be higher on average.

Although large sums of money are set to change hands when the event kicks off on the 11th of November, analysts also found that only 16.5 per cent of shoppers have actually heard about Singles Day. Awareness levels are generally higher in other countries, suggesting that there is still a long way to go in terms of growth in Britain.

Report spokesperson Jimmy New said that Singles Day was still significantly eclipsed by Black Friday, especially in the UK, although things were starting to change as more retailers were cottoning on to the potential to piggyback on this increasingly international festival.

For some perspective, the £1.3 billion that is expected to be spent on Singles Day by British shoppers this year is a drop in the ocean compared with the almost £26 billion that the Black Friday weekend generated last year. It might be harder for this event to gain traction, but as long as consumers can bag pre-Christmas bargains they might continue to pay more attention to Singles Day over the next few years.