Sharjah24 – Reuters: China is set to get a picture of how the country's zero-COVID-19 policy and slowing economy have impacted shoppers' urge to splurge, as e-commerce platforms gear up to report takings from the mid-year "618" shopping festival this weekend.
Held in the run-up to June 18, 618 is China's second-largest shopping event by sales after Nov. 11's Singles Day, with bargain-hunters holding off purchases in anticipation of discounts spanning a range of brands.
Last year, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's 9988.HK Tmall, JD.com Inc 9618.HK and Pinduoduo Inc PDD.O hit a combined 578.4 billion yuan ($85.89 billion) worth of 618 sales, up 26.5% from the year earlier, showed data from Syntun.
But the world's second-largest economy has in the last three months been hobbled by government efforts to combat repeated waves of COVID-19 that has seen dozens of cities impose lockdown measures of varying intensity, in turn curtailing spending, impacting livelihoods and heavily disrupting supply chains.
Many cities eased curbs in June and have said they want to stimulate consumption to revive the economy, with incentives including vouchers, subsidies for car buyers and digital yuan payments. Read full story
Acknowledging that brands have been hit by the pandemic, Alibaba and JD.com are offering merchant support measures, such as pledging to speed up transfers of pre-sale deposits to help merchants' liquidity.
They are also encouraging brands to offer their biggest-ever discounts in hope of spurring spending, with JD.com stipulating that shoppers can get 50 yuan off for every 299 yuan they spend. Alibaba has a similar offer. Vendors foot the bill for these discounts.
Many shoppers in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing which have experienced pandemic lockdown measures have rushed to stock up on food and daily necessities even after movement restrictions eased due to fear of lockdown happening again.
The 618 event was conceived by JD.com in 2004 to celebrate its anniversary.
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