Originally, the date was celebrated by a small group of college bachelors, but in 2009 Alibaba's CEO Daniel Zhang began to use the day as a 24-hour holiday that offered online shopping discounts and offline entertainment.

[2][3][4] The holiday has now become the largest physical retail and online shopping day in the world, and spread to Southeast Asia.

The event is not an officially recognized public holiday in China,[13] although it has become the largest offline and online shopping day in the world.

[33][34][35][36][37][38] As more people join in the celebration of this holiday, many companies have taken the opportunity to target younger consumers including businesses such as restaurants, karaoke parlors, and online shopping malls.

[41]: 1  The event is now nearly four times the size of America's biggest shopping days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

[44] 2011 marked the Singles Day of the Century (Chinese pinyin: Shiji Guanggun Jie) as this date had six "ones" rather than four, increasing the significance of the occasion.

[47] In Indonesia, for example, 11 November is dubbed by some e-commerce websites as the "Harbolnas" (National Online Shopping Day),[48] though it is usually took place on 12 December.

[52] In 2016, Swedish electronics retailer Elgiganten promoted a Singles Day campaign in Norway before implementing it in the other Nordic countries the following year.

[53][54] The term "双十一" (Double 11) was trademarked in China by Alibaba Group on 28 December 2012, under registration numbers 10136470 and 10136420.

In October 2014, Alibaba threatened legal action against media outlets that accept advertising from competitors that use this term.