China's Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) appears to be happily counting its way to the bank since first-hour sales of its Singles Day celebration reached a record $2 billion worth of merchandise sold by the e-commerce giant. That means the company founded for ex-school teacher Jack Ma would likely exceed the $5.8 billion sales record it logged on Nov. 11, 2013.

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The ka-ching of Alibaba's electronic cash register makes Black Friday and Cyber Monday appear pale in comparison since the Chinese Singles Day is currently the largest global online shopping craze. In contrast, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday yielded combined sales of $3.7 billion in 2013, Forbes cited data from comScore.

Forbes predicts that Singles Day sales for 2014 would top $8 billion.

For 2014's celebration, 27,000 Chinese merchants are joining the rush to attract billions of yuan, selling a wide range of products from garments to devices and even condo units.

However, while the numbers could be daunting given that China has more than 1 billion consumers, profits may not be that too hefty because of steep discounts offered by online retailers to get a larger share of the Chinese wallet.

Quartz cited the case of handbag and luggage Elle which generates 15 percent of its yearly sales on Singles Day. Besides the huge price reductions, merchants also need to deduct from their profit the 3 to 5 percent commission that Alibaba charges for participating in the country's anti-Valentine spending frenzy when unattached Chinese - who number in millions - buy themselves presents rather than expect a gift from a girlfriend or boyfriend, which is what happens on Feb. 14 each year.

Other costs include marketing, hiring of temporary staff and lower sales in the run-up to 11/11 when price cuts could go as high as 50 percent off the regular price.

Ordering online is just one side of e-commerce. For a transaction to be completed, the retailer must have the item delivered. For Singles Day, YTO Express, a delivery partner of Alibaba, hired 30,000 more delivery staff, rented more trucks and also augmented the workforce at its 40 additional processing centers.

Singles Day is a testament of the phenomenal growth of Alibaba, which launched in New York its initial public offering in September and raised a record $25 billion fresh capital. In a span of five years, during China's 2009 Singles Day, Alibaba only had 27 merchants now up to 27,000 or a thousand-fold increase.

TagsSingles Day, e-commerce, Black Friday, cyber monday