Ahead of so-called Singles' Day on the 11th of this month,2013, online sales have already begun peaking. The leading e-business platform, tmall.com, has promoted its fifty-percent-off discount to attract consumers. They are also trying to attract buyers through social media. Vice President of tmall.com Wang Yulei says more than 20 thousand online stores have joined the Double 11 Day sales. But this number has doubled. The final number of how many products going to be on sale has not been known yet. But so far, many more products planned to be put on shelves with discounts. During last year's Singles' Day, tmall.com, together with taobao.com, reached a record of 19.1 billion yuan in sales, which considered a milestone in the e-business history of China. Singles' Day was first started by Chinese college students in the 1990s as the opposite of Valentine's Day, a celebration for people without romantic partners. The timing was based on the date: Nov. 11--or double 11--for singles. Single young people would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to show love to someone and end their single status. But now, the Singles' Day has been promoted as a kind of grand craze just for the shopping season, thanks to thousands of discounted products being promoted online. Taobao.com was the first big e-retail platform which used the double 11 idea to promote sales. Taobao.com reached one million yuan worth of sales on that day in 2009, when they first promoted the Singles' Day idea. In 2010, the sales increased to 936 million yuan. The figure climbed up to 5.3 billion yuan in 2011, putting huge demand on shipping services. The figure doubled in 2012. E-commerce is considered to be replacing the traditional retailing industry, but the reality is both sides are learning from each other. Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?
Singles' Day promotes online sales. Why Singles' Day is so popular. How people celebrate Singles' Day. What the definition of Singles' Day is.