Singles' Day set to break online shopping records in New Zealand

The world's biggest shopping day is just over halfway through and already it's looking like a record-breaker. 

While not many New Zealanders know about the Chinese E-commerce festival Singles' Day it's proving to be the most lucrative day of the year for Kiwi businesses. 

In just a minute and a half e-commerce giant Alibaba brought in $2.2 billion.

Within the hour it was $20 billion - up 32 percent on last year.

An online shopping frenzy was breaking out in China while New Zealand shoppers were blissfully unaware.

New Zealand Post, on the other hand, was bracing for the madness.

"People are really energised and starting to gear up," said Bryan Dobson from NZ Post.

Dobson says the orders will come through tonight and his teams will work non-stop until Christmas.  

"We plan for the busiest period pretty much for the entire year, we get on more staff, more vans, more flights, to make sure the presents get there and the parcels get delivered," he told Newshub.

Singles' Day started as a celebration for China's lonely hearts and is now a 24-hour extravaganza that outsells Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined.

Luckily for us "brand NZ" is a powerful one in China.

"They love our Kiwi natural brands," said skincare company Linden Leaves marketing manager Katherine Thomlinson.

She says this will be the biggest sales day of their year. 

"Memories is our number one selling product in China, last year, with Singles' Day, we sold in one day, what we would sell in a whole year in New Zealand, for that particular product and this year we're on track do even more than that," she told Newshub.

Monday's tally is still rising with 11 hours to go. 

Newshub.