JD.com and Alibaba are operating in Suqian City, Jiangsu Province, China, on Dec. 29, 2023.<\/p>\n
Costfoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images<\/p>\n
BEIJING \u2014 Preliminary figures for China’s biggest shopping event of the year indicated slower sales as consumers tie their purse strings tighter amid weak economic growth.<\/p>\n
The Double 11 shopping festival<\/a> this year recorded 1.695 trillion yuan (about $238 billion)<\/a> in sales across all platforms, marking a 14.2% jump year on year, according to Chinese <\/strong>consumer research firm Syntun. <\/strong>That’s slower than the 26.6% year on year growth<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n Consumers were “more rational and willing to pay for real value, exhibiting a “tiered system based on needs” characteristic,” according to a Google translation of the report.<\/p>\n Singles’ Day, also known as Double 11, is China’s biggest shopping event of the year and, in terms of value of goods sold, far exceeds that of Black Friday in the U.S<\/a>.<\/p>\n But as China’s economic growth has slowed, companies have increasingly extended the promotional period, and stopped reporting gross merchandise volume \u2014 an industry measure of sales over time.<\/p>\n China’s top leaders last month signaled<\/a> they will increase efforts to support consumption. Beijing has preferred to subsidize consumer purchases of targeted goods such as electronics, rather than handing out cash.<\/p>\n The country is expected to report 2.8% year-on-year growth in retail sales for October, according to a Reuters poll. That would be down from 3% growth in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, which helps Western consumer brands sell online in China, estimated<\/a> overall sales growth this year will be in the “high-single digits to low-double digits” versus in 2024.<\/p>\n Still, more than 10 flagship online stores selling from fashion to health products saw orders at least 30% above expectations, Cooke said.<\/p>\n “That’s really rare for us,” he added. “We wouldn’t like to underestimate or overestimate our internal numbers.”<\/p>\n AI boost<\/p>\n During the sales period, e-commerce platforms received a boost from integrating artificial intelligence in their supply chain.<\/p>\n JD.com<\/a> reported a record transaction value<\/a> for this Singles’ Day as of Tuesday midnight, without disclosing the amount. The consumer electronics-focused platform reported a nearly 60% increase in orders and over 40% growth in users placing orders.<\/p>\n The Chinese giant kicked off its promotions this year on Oct. 9<\/a>, several days earlier than last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alibaba in contrast is pushing its shopping event through Nov. 14 this year, after kicking off promotions on Oct. 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n The two companies, along with Tiktok shop, ushered in 67 billion yuan solely on instant retail sale, a 138.4% year-on-year increase, according to data from Syntun.<\/p>\n In contrast, community group-buying, where consumers create groups to buy groceries in bulk, brought in 9 billion yuan \u2013 a 35.3% year-on-year decrease, the report showed.<\/p>\n Chinese smartphone and consumer electronics giant Xiaomi said that as of 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, it had sold 29 billion yuan worth of goods<\/a> across online platforms and physical stores for the Singles’ Day period.<\/p>\n Last year, Xiaomi started its campaign one day earlier and reported 31.9 billion yuan in sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n Across all product categories, Syntun recorded that home appliances ranked first for 16.5% of total sales (266.8 billion yuan) followed by mobile phones and digital products (14.6% of total sales), and apparels (14%).<\/p>\n