Beauty items, baby products and food were some of the hot picks when Singaporeans jumped on the "Singles' Day" bandwagon, a one-day sales event that took place yesterday - on Nov 11, or 11/11.

Local e-commerce sites such as Qoo10 and Lazada reported a huge increase in sales compared with last year.

A spokesman for Qoo10 said that as of 12pm yesterday, the site had already hit two million transactions, exceeding its expectations. At that time, there were more than 130 orders being received every minute.

The spokesman added that its bestsellers included beauty items, baby products and food such as bak kwa, bird's nest and cake.

The company is also predicting an overall 30 per cent increase in sales compared with last year.

Lazada also reported a surge in sales, with four times the number of shoppers on the website within the first hour of the sales, compared with last year.

The Singles' Day sale featured more than 300 official brands and 5,000 sellers offering over one million deals to shoppers.

Mr Alexis Lanternier, chief executive officer of Lazada Singapore, said: "Singapore shoppers are coming to Lazada to buy everything they need, including the latest gadgets and even stocking up on groceries. Customers are enjoying discounts of up to 90 per cent off and flash deals are being swept up within minutes of going live."

The top five items ordered from the website were hair product Joico Ice Erratic Molding Clay, Sperry Authentic Shoes, the Xiaomi Redmi 4X mobile phone, Dasani 12 x 1.5 litre bottles of drinking water and the Google Chromecast, a media streaming device.

Sue-Ann Tan