China’s Single’s Day shopping festival losing its appeal

Chinese annual shopping event called Single’s Day or Double 11 was started by the c-commerce giant Alibaba and adopted by other websites like Pinduoduo and JD.com. It began as a one-day event but soon became a festival, as Chinese shopping platforms began the promotions weeks ahead to lure in shoppers.

The pandemic, coupled with China’s sluggish domestic economy, a real estate crisis, and deflationary pressures, discouraged consumers from spending lavishly like before. This slowing trend pushed the e-commerce portals to offer promotions to markets abroad with global free shipping, thus helping local merchants to sell worldwide.

Customers believe discounts aren’t as significant, and prices are inflated before merchants offer discounts. Moreover, the government’s latest financial stimuli have failed to boost consumer confidence.

The gross merchandising volume sales across major e-commerce portals grew by only 2% compared with double-digited growth pre-pandemic, Syntun, the data provider, reported.