Chinese company offers lifetime of booze for 11,111 yuan

[SHANGHAI] Feeling down on "Singles Day" this weekend? A Chinese white liquor maker wants to lift lonely spirits by offering a lifetime supply of booze for less than US$1,700.

Jiangxiaobai Liquor Company is making its offer Saturday during China's biggest shopping festival - held every November 11, or 11/11 - with an equally numerically symbolic price tag of 11,111 yuan (S$2,278.47).

It is selling the lifetime supply of grain-based baijiu, a typical Chinese alcohol, on e-commerce giant Alibaba's business-to-customer Tmall platform.

The offer will be limited to 99 lucky customers, who will receive 12 boxes of the liquor, each month.

Each box contains 12 bottles of 45-degree booze made from sorghum.

The endless batch can be inherited by a family member if the customer dies within five years of the purchase.

The offer is significantly lower than the original price of 99,999 yuan, and the actual selling price will be even less than 11,111 yuan after using store coupons and other discounts provided by Alibaba.

A single bottle sells for 15 yuan.

"Double 11" or "Singles Day" was created by Alibaba in 2009 as China's online answer to the late-November US "Black Friday" shopping spree, and it draws hundreds of millions of consumers every year.

Jiangxiaobai Liquor Company, based in the southwestern city of Chongqing, first started offering the product on November 11 last year.

But some people have been suspicious, doubting the company can really provide a lifetime of booze without affecting its business.

The firm says it will issue a certificate pledging to a full refund if it fails to deliver the alcohol in the next 30 years.

"Now my only concern is the company's lifespan," said one person on the Twitter-like Weibo.

Another joked that now they can "drink until we die".

Alibaba says Double 11-related sales last year reached US$17.8 billion in gross merchandise value, up 32 per cent from 2015.

AFP