Alibabas Singles Day lures top global brands, amassing billions in sales FREE AMERICA NETWORK [Video]

For Alibaba, the future is retail. And a lot of it.

This Saturday, the Chinese e-commerce giant will hold its annual Singles’ Day event, which last year grossed a whopping $17.8 billion in sales, up from $14.3 billion in 2015.

To put those sales figures into perspective, Singles’ Day has surpassed the transaction volume for America’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday events combined, according to Fung Global Retail & Technology (FGRT).

The day also far outpaces Amazon‘s Prime Day, which is the most equivalent 24-hour, online shopping experience in the U.S.

Held every Nov. 11, Alibaba’s Singles’ Day started as a day for those individuals not in romantic relationships to celebrate themselves by shopping online. The 24-hour phenomenon has quickly become the world’s largest shopping day of the year.

In 2017, Singles’ Day is expected to break more records, as more than 60,000 global brands are set to participate.

Names like Lululemon…