China's 618 shopping fest sets record, but daily spending slips

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By Sophie Yu and Casey Hall China's largest mid-year shopping festival, 618, ended on Wednesday with record sales, though daily spending dropped amid an extended sales period aimed at enticing consumers to part with more of their hard-earned money.The longer sales period helped the combined gross merchandise value (GMV), a business metric commonly used in e-commerce, reach an all-time high of 855.6 billion yuan ($119 billion), according to retail data provider Syntun. That was 15.2% higher than the prior year's 742.8 billion yuan.The festival, originally a single-day event celebrating JD.com's HKEX:89618 founding on June 18, has evolved into a month-long affair spanning all major e-commerce platforms.This year's pre-sales began on May 13, a week longer than in 2024, leading to lower average daily spending of 23.1 billion yuan, compared with 24.8 billion yuan last year, according to Reuters calculations.Alibaba Group's NYSE:BABA Tmall kept its top position on sales, the data showed, followed by JD.com HKEX:89618, ByteDance's Douyin and Pinduoduo Holdings' NASDAQ:PDD Pinduoduo. Syntun did not provide sales figures for each platform.Despite the upbeat figures, the world's second-largest economy's retail sector continues to struggle due to concerns over employment stability, stalled wage growth and the ongoing property crisis.Retailers and the government have sought to lift subdued spending by deepening discounts and expanding consumer subsidies but analysts say longer festivals and year-round discounts have dampened excitement for these kinds of events. "I don't have anything special to buy during the 618 shopping festival. Because there are always great deals, I can buy whatever I need whenever," said Xu Binqi, who works in Beijing's film industry. "Take skincare products as an example, I buy them whenever I run out, and the prices are no higher than during the 618 festival."Rachel Lee, general manager of market research firm Worldpanel China and co-author of Bain & Co.'s recent China Shopper Report, said that when consumers are budget-conscious, they seek affordable alternatives, and discounts play a lesser role. "Standalone promotional discounts will find it increasingly difficult to drive volume growth," she said.This year, JD.com said the number of users placing orders for the 618 event more than doubled year-on-year, with over 2.2 billion orders across...

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