E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reported more than $9 billion in sales on China's Singles’ Day, illustrating the buying power of the Chinese consumer and the importance of the event in the retail calendar. The shopping day, similar to Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the United States, comes less than eight weeks after Alibaba's record $25 billion public share listing in New York. Founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma said that Alibaba's financial services arm, Alipay, also will definitely go public, probably in China, but he felt a bit nervous due to the higher pressures and expectations now that Alibaba is a listed company. Alibaba turned Singles' Day, a November 11 Chinese response to Valentine's Day, into an online shopping festival in 2009. Alibaba had sales of 35 billion yuan during last year's festival. The numbers this year were boosted by a pre-sales initiative under which merchants advertised prices early, taking deposits for the items but only processing full payments and shipping the goods on Singles' Day itself. The “11.11 Shopping Festival” began with just 27 merchants in 2009. This year's festival is global, reaching shoppers in more than 200 countries. The gLawcal Team LIBEAC project Tuesday, 11 November 2014 (Source: Reuters)