Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba cashed a record 213.5 billion yuan or 30.7 billion dollars in sales on Sunday during its 24-hour online retail frenzy Singles' Day, also known as 11.11 Global Shopping Festival.

Shoppers in China and across the world snapped up hot items including iPhones, furniture and milk powder, with Alibaba recording roughly 10 billion dollars in sales in the first hour after midnight.

The company surpassed last year's full-day sales record of 168 billion yuan in just under 16 hours.

Stats show more consumers are turning to imported goods.

In the first minutes of midnight trading, the top three destinations for imported goods on Tmall Global, the dedicated cross-border portal, were Japan, the United States and South Korea.

Belinda Chen is the general manager of the watch department of online retailer JD.com. She said they also tracked sales during the event, and found that imported goods are picking up steam.

"Well, imported goods continue to be one of the major trends for Singles Day. As you can see, we have high growth for imported goods from the US, Japan, and all across the world. Especially strong are the female categories for example diapers, and personal care categories. And interestingly this year we see very strong growth for home appliances and some 3-C categories as well."

JD.com, which launched its Singles Day sales on November 1, said cumulative sales amounted to over 150 billion yuan through Sunday.

Research from global consultancy Oliver Wyman predicted that around 57 percent of surveyed consumers intended to buy overseas goods and such sales would make up one-third of total consumer spending.