Chinese e-commerce firms report growth in sales, shoppers for Singles' Day shopping festival

abcnews.go.com:

China’s e-commerce firms reported an increase in the number of shoppers and a growth in sales for this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, although final figures were not publicly revealed

HONG KONG — China’s e-commerce firms reported an increase in the number of shoppers and a growth in sales for this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, although final figures were not publicly revealed.

Alibaba, which operates the Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms, said 45 brands – including Apple, Nike, and Chinese appliance brands Haier and Midea – surpassed 1 billion yuan ($138.3 million ) in gross merchandise value, which measures the value of transactions made.

Alibaba said in a news statement Tuesday that Taobao and Tmall saw “robust growth” in gross merchandise volume – a common metric for sales during the festival – and a “record number” of buyers, though it did not provide specifics.

The Hangzhou-based firm also said that the number of 88VIP members – its paid e-commerce membership program – who placed orders during the festival increased by over 50%.

Rival online retailer JD.com said Tuesday the number of shoppers for its Singles’ Day promotion period grew 20% and that it achieved “double-digit growth” in transaction volume and orders.

Though Alibaba and JD.com previously reported the final sales figure for Singles’ Day, both platforms stopped doing so since 2022, though estimates by third-party companies suggest that sales growth have slowed post-COVID 19.

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 amid a lagging domestic economy and