The largest one-day sale on Earth has been happening all day long on Tuesday in China and around the world. The Chinese online retail giant, Alibaba, has once again rolled out their Single’s Day sale and it is projecting at least $11 billion in earnings for the company in just 24 hours.

The sale has happened every year for the past six years on the Chinese holiday known as Single’s Day. Alibaba founder Jack Ma had a brainstorm six years ago when he decided to take the somewhat obscure holiday that resembles Valentine’s Day in America and turn it into a shopping event where people can spend money on themselves. It only lasts for 24 hours and the response had been mind-boggling, according to USA Today.

The sale began at midnight Beijing time and in the first hour and a half Alibaba took in $5 billion. In addition, 75 percent of all sales were executed from cell phones. The company just calls it 24 hours of pure shopping madness. There is no excitement to see at the Alibaba website because transactions are happening offline for the most part. Unlike America’s Black Friday there are no special prices or events.

Last year’s Single’s Day sale brought in $9.3 billion for Alibaba. The company then shipped out, within 24 hours, 278 million orders. For people outside of China, the company has branded the event as the Global Shopping Festival. If conspicuous consumption has been the aim of it all, the sale, and Alibaba, have been supremely successful. Single’s Day, as lucrative as it is, still only accounts for slight less than 3 percent of Alibaba’s yearly revenue stream.

According to Chinese reports, hundreds of millions of Chinese are buying stuff all day long. They pause at work or while riding on the subway. Any time they get a few free minutes on Tuesday they are off to Alibaba to buy some stuff for themselves.

No one ever buys anything other that items for themselves on Single’s Day. It’s tradition after all.