The Singles' Day Bonanza eclipsed last year's record-breaking ¥36.2 billion in sales by 1:23pm, by which time more than 160 million goods had been sold - over 40% on mobile, compared to last year's 21% and 5% in 2012. To quote Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai, nothing represents "the unleashing of consumption power of China like Singles' Day".

Singles' Day's posters have a similar look and feel to previous years, but the scale of sales is almost unrecognisable, with an average of 640% a year growth since the first Singles' Day just six years ago.

Delivering the Parcels

One of the least appreciated, but most impressive feats of the massive shop-athon, is the logistics that happens behind the scenes to ensure the goods are delivered to the ever-discerning consumer in every corner of China, and increasingly around the world in more than 200 countries.

One delivery company who wont be sleeping much over the next week is YTO Express, one of Alibaba's logistics partners and the Chinese airlines' biggest customer. The delivery giant currently employs 130,000 staff in 2,000 branches, covering 2,100 cities. To cope with the spike in deliveries around Singles' Day, the company rented 615 additional trucks and hired an 30,000 temporary staff - part of the 250,000 extra staff hired between China's courier companies for Singles' Day.

The calm before the storm - staff at YTO idle beside empty conveyor belts in their Shanghai distribution centre, 12 hours before the online shopping frenzy. Normally 80,000-100,000 parcels are shipped a day. This years Singles' Day could be as much as 2 million parcels.

The Vendors

27,000 Tmall vendors slashed prices, offered sweeteners, launched exclusives and busted their butts to capitalise on the surge in demand over Singles' Day. Sino Supreme, the exclusive Tmall seller of Elle, elle.tmall.com, handbags knows firsthand just how massive Singles' Day can be, being the top seller of handbags in during the 24-hour sale last year. The company who normally shifts around 200 products a day, sold 25,000 on 2013 Singles' Day, and hoped for 27,000 this year.

30% of Sino Supreme's entire year's marketing budget was invested in driving Singles' Day sales, with marketing starting in September including Paris Fashion Week, exclusive Singles' Day launches and the inevitable price drops. The company retains about 25% of Tmall shoppers, so the Singles' Day sales provide a powerful engine for acquiring new customers.

The Buzz At Alibaba Campus in Hangzhou

The centre of Singles' Day is the Alibaba HQ in Hangzhou in the Yangtze River Delta close to Shanghai. The stunning 164,000 square metre campus is Googleplex-style, with Chinese characteristics. 14,000 of Alibaba's 33,000 workforce are based there, and a large share of the 11,000 staff working on Singles' Day. Just an hour out from another historic day of online shopping, the campus was unexpectedly relaxed, indicating just how honed Alibaba has their annual shopping festival after six years.

You've gotta love China - even the CEO of Alibaba, Jonathan Lu, managers a two-finger peace sign for the camera. Both he and COO Daniel Zhang appeared quietly confident and relaxed three hours before Singles' Day launched.

Likewise, Alibaba employees (Aliren if their tenure spans at least three years), also managed the Chinese salute, not letting the world's biggest online shopping day cramp their dinner just a few hours out.

Alibaba staff getting their caffeine fix, half an hour out from the midnight launch of Singles' Day 2014. The campus cafe is rumoured to be the busiest Starbucks in China, with a 200 cup-queue and 1-hour wait when we were there.

30-minutes to go, the relatively quiet Alibaba campus lit up like an Avatar set, could be any night.

Inside, 600 Chinese and international media crammed into the campus auditorium, bracing themselves for the millions and billions that would ensue once the clock ticked over past midnight.

And they weren't disappointed.

Click/tap here to see photos and statistics from Alibaba's Campus on Singles' Day 2014.

Photos: Pre-Alibaba's 2014 Singles' Day Bonanza

Delivering the Parcels

The Vendors

The Buzz At Alibaba Campus in Hangzhou

China's Singles' Day Breaks More Records

Photos: The Singles' Day Stampede at the Alibaba Campus