China’s Double 11 discount frenzy reached surreal heights when a shopper from the east of the country snapped up a flat in the northeast for just 11 yuan (US$1.7). Pioneered by Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao in 2009 as China’s equivalent of Black Friday, the month-long shopping spree ran through mid-November after generating more than 1.6 trillion yuan (US$240 billion) in online gross merchandise value last year. The flat is a two-bedroom, 68-square-metre unit on the seventh floor in...