China’s Singles’ Day stumbles as frugal shoppers shrink the world’s biggest sale

BEIJING — 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.

The Double 11 shopping festival this year recorded 1.695 trillion yuan (about $238 billion) in sales across all platforms, marking a 14.2% jump year on year, according to Chinese consumer research firm Syntun. That’s slower than the 26.6% year on year growth last year.

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.

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.

But as China’s economic growth has slowed, companies have increasingly extended the promotional period, and stopped reporting gross merchandise volume — an industry measure of sales over time.

China’s top leaders last month signaled 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.

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.

Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, which helps Western consumer brands sell online in China, estimated overall sales growth this year will be in the “high-single digits to low-double digits” versus in 2024.

Still, more than 10 flagship online stores selling from fashion to health products saw orders at least 30% above expectations, Cooke said.

“That’s really rare for us,” he added. “We wouldn’t like to underestimate or overestimate our internal numbers.”

During the sales period, e-commerce platforms received a boost from integrating artificial intelligence in their supply chain.

JD.com reported a record transaction value 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.

The Chinese giant kicked off its promotions this year on Oct. 9, several days earlier than last year.

Alibaba in contrast is pushing its shopping event through Nov. 14 this year, after kicking off promotions on Oct. 15.

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.

In contrast, community group-buying, where consumers create groups to buy groceries in bulk, brought in 9 billion yuan – a 35.3% year-on-year decrease, the report showed.

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 across online platforms and physical stores for the Singles’ Day period.

Last year, Xiaomi started its campaign one day earlier and reported 31.9 billion yuan in sales.

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%).

The Singles’ Day numbers are a significant indicator of fourth-quarter spending trends that help consumer brands determine how to position for the next two quarters of the upcoming year, WPIC Marketing + Technologies’ Cooke said.

Consumption trends during the sales period showed that growth may be uneven across categories.

The mother and baby category underperformed during the Singles’ Day period, while pet products were in line with expectations, Cooke observed. Meanwhile, toys aimed at older audiences were “coming down to earth” after skyrocketing in popularity last year, he added.

Syntun’s data showed that the mother and baby category ranked 9th place in sales, bringing in about 61.1 billion yuan, while pet food reached 9.4 billion yuan sales across four e-commerce platforms – Alibaba, JD.com, TikTok shop, and Kuaishou.

Syntun’s report also showed that consumers were more focused on health, convenience and purchasing from brands that reflected their values.