Chinese shoppers can now participate in a celebrated American shopping ritual: Black Friday.
A group of high-end retailers in the United States have teamed up with Alipay, which will enable online shoppers in China to purchase goods through Alipay’s ePass. Alipay is China’s largest third-party payment service.
Merchants participating in the first Black Friday promotion include Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s,Macy’s, iHerb, Gilt, Ashford, Ann Taylor, American Apparel and Aropostale. The ePass payment option will allows Chinese shoppers to buy goods in yuan.
Alibaba received 278 million orders totaling $9.34 billion during the Singles Day shopping holiday on Nov 11. Alipay, Taobao and Tmall Global have been working to get Chinese consumers a piece of the action on Black Friday, Alipay said on Wednesday.
“Alipay is delighted to partner with Borderfree and Shoprunner to help leading US retailers introduce Black Friday to China and reach out to eager new customers through well-managed localized promotions, direct marketing and social media campaigns,” said Rebecca Lui, director of marketing and public relations for Alipay US.
Black Friday, Nov 28 this year, is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. It is called that because it is considered the day that retailers go “into the black” financially on their balance sheets. It is also the day that unofficially opens the Christmas holiday shopping season.