The Singles' Day shopping festival loses its shine under China's lagging economy

HONG KONG (AP) — Merchants and consumers alike found the Singles' Day shopping festival Monday less shiny than in years past as e-commerce firms look abroad for growth.

The annual event named by the numeric form of its Nov. 11 date was started by e-commerce platform Alibaba, which offered attractive discounts to entice shoppers to spend big. The extravaganza has since expanded to other platforms like JD.com and Pinduoduo in China as well as abroad.

While Singles’ Day was previously a one-day event, shopping platforms in China now kickstart the festival weeks ahead to drum up sales volume. The festival has also traditionally been regarded as a barometer of consumer sentiment.

But amid China’s lagging domestic economy, dragged down by a real estate crisis and deflationary pressures, consumers no longer go all out on purchases during the shopping extravaganza.

“I only spent a few hundred yuan on daily necessities,” said Wang Haihua, who owns a fitness center in Beijing.

Wang said that the prices offered on e-commerce platforms during Singles’ Day are not necessarily cheaper than usual.

“They’re all tricks and we’ve seen through it over the years,” she said.

Zhang Jiewei, a 34-year-old who runs a barber shop in Xi’an city, echoed Wang’s sentiments, saying that he no longer trust Singles’ Day promotions as some merchant tend to raise the usual price of a product before offering a discount, giving consumers the illusion they are getting a deal.

“I used to buy a lot two or three years ago and I even purchased a mobile phone (during Singles’ Day),” he said.

“I stopped doing that following the pandemic because of less income. I am not going to buy anything this year,” Zhang added.

Some experts say that Beijing’s recent stimulus measures have had little impact to boost consumer confidence.

“People are not interested in spending and are cutting back on big-ticket items,” said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. “Since October 2022, the weak economy means that everything has been on discount year-round, 11.11 is not going to bring in more discounts that the month before.”

Rein said he expects low growth for the Singles’ Day shopping festival as consumers tighten their spending in anticipation of difficult economic times ahead.

Categories such as sportswear and fitness, however, have been doing well as customers “trade down a Gucci bag for Lululemon sportswear,” he said.

Platforms like JD.com and Alibaba, which operates e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall, previously used to publish the value of transactions made during the festival, but have since stopped revealing the total figure. While yearly growth used to be in the double digits, estimates of recent figures have dwindled to low single-digit growth.

Syntun, a data provider, estimated that last year’s gross merchandising volume sales across major e-commerce platforms grew just 2% to 1.14 trillion yuan ($156.40 billion), a far cry from double-digit growth before COVID-19.

Merchants who typically take part in the Singles’ Day shopping festivals say the costs of participation no longer pay off, amid high advertising fees and unsatisfactory sales.

Zhao Gao, who owns a garment factory in eastern Zhejiang province, said that after paying advertising costs to e-commerce platforms he would only break even after sales.

“The platforms have so many rules for promotions and customers have become more skeptical,” he said. “As a merchant, I no longer participate in the Singles’ Day promotions.”

Another merchant, Du Baonian who runs a food company processing mutton in Inner Mongolia, said that overall sales in the past year have fallen 15% as consumers downgraded and reduced consumption.

Du said that while he still takes part in the Singles’ Day promotions, the higher expenses do not typically generate returns because of sluggish sales.

“We are seeing shrinking revenue, but advertisement on the platform can help us to maintain our leading sales position,” he said, adding that he was considering advertising on more e-commerce platforms to target more consumers.

Meanwhile, e-commerce platforms grappling with a slowing domestic market have also turned to overseas markets to seek new growth, offering promotions like global free shipping and allowing merchants to sell globally with ease.

Alibaba, for example, said in a blog post on its Alizila site that some 70,000 merchants saw sales double with global free shipping. In markets like Singapore and Hong Kong, new customers also doubled, Alibaba said.

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Associated Press researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.