{"id":38221,"date":"2024-11-10T23:09:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T04:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/the-singles-day-shopping-festival-loses-its-shine-under-chinas-lagging-economy\/10\/11\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-11-10T23:09:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T04:09:13","slug":"the-singles-day-shopping-festival-loses-its-shine-under-chinas-lagging-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/the-singles-day-shopping-festival-loses-its-shine-under-chinas-lagging-economy\/10\/11\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"The Singles’ Day shopping festival loses its shine under China’s lagging economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

While Singles\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

But amid China\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only spent a few hundred yuan on daily necessities,\u201d said Wang Haihua, who owns a fitness center in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Wang said that the prices offered on e-commerce platforms during Singles\u2019 Day are not necessarily cheaper than usual.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all tricks and we\u2019ve seen through it over the years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Zhang Jiewei, a 34-year-old who runs a barber shop in Xi\u2019an city, echoed Wang\u2019s sentiments, saying that he no longer trust Singles\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to buy a lot two or three years ago and I even purchased a mobile phone (during Singles\u2019 Day),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stopped doing that following the pandemic because of less income. I am not going to buy anything this year,\u201d Zhang added.<\/p>\n

Some experts say that Beijing\u2019s recent stimulus measures<\/a> have had little impact to boost consumer confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are not interested in spending and are cutting back on big-ticket items,\u201d said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. \u201cSince 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rein said he expects low growth for the Singles\u2019 Day shopping festival as consumers tighten their spending in anticipation of difficult economic times ahead.<\/p>\n

Categories such as sportswear and fitness, however, have been doing well as customers \u201ctrade down a Gucci bag for Lululemon sportswear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n