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

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The Singles’ Day shopping festival is looking less shiny this year as e-commerce firms look abroad for growth

HONG KONG — 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.