China's Double 11 shopping frenzy enters its final stretch with 372.3 billion yuan ($56.2 billion) sales made from Nov. 1^st to Nov. 11^th midnight Beijing time on e-commerce giant Alibaba's platforms. The Tmall peak orders hit 583,000 per second. Sales of face masks on Alibaba fell sharply by 76.24% compared to the time of the COVID-19 outbreak in China.

The Chinese version of Black Friday on November 11, also known as Singles' Day in China, was first initiated in 2009 by Alibaba, and soon became a major yearly shopping carnival with participation from almost all of China's e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba's Tmall.com and Taobao.com, as well as JD.com and Suning.com.

Although China too is grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alibaba exhibited its confidence in Chinese consumers with the debut of additional brands and products – about 2,600 new imported brands and over two million new products are being introduced at this year's Double 11, the e-commerce giant announced in a press release.

In a first, this year the shopping spree has been extended by 24 hours (from October 21 to November 11) to tackle the pressure of logistics and better support online sales.

"Our merchants will also benefit from more exposure and selling opportunities that will help them recover from the impacts of the pandemic," said Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang.

JD.com, which also kicked off its Double 11 sales from October 21, announced over 200 billion yuan sales by Nov.11^th midnight.

China's retail sales rose by 3.3 percent in September, up by 0.9 percent in the third quarter, according to official data.

Owing to the pandemic, China's online sales rose by 15.3 percent year on year in the first nine months of 2020, accounting for 24.3 percent of retail sales, official data showed.

Considering that consumption has been a driving force behind China's economic growth and the changing international environment, the country has rendered expanding domestic demand as the strategic basis of its new development pattern.