The total sales growth of this year’s “Double 11” shopping festival in China has significantly slowed down compared to last year. Many e-commerce platforms have extended their promotional periods and stopped disclosing total transaction amounts, instead emphasizing structural highlights such as order volume and number of shoppers. Experts believe that this shift reflects underlying economic issues in China, including weak domestic demand and consumer confidence.
According to data provider Syntun, on November 12th, this year’s “Double 11” shopping festival is estimated to have reached nearly 1.7 trillion Chinese Yuan in total sales, representing a nearly 18% year-on-year growth. This growth rate (18%) is significantly lower than the almost 27% growth rate in 2024, only around two-thirds of it.
It’s worth noting that the duration of this year’s shopping festival has been extended compared to previous years. Due to the prolonged promotional period, year-on-year data may not be entirely comparable. Analysts suggest that e-commerce platforms extending their promotional periods are partly to help support sales in times of weak demand.
According to Shenzhen Business News, major e-commerce platforms have generally extended their promotional periods, such as Tmall, JD, and Douyin, prolonging the promotional period to over 30 days and extending the closing day to November 14th.
Unlike the past emphasis on “record-breaking transaction volume,” platforms like Tmall, JD, and Douyin have almost entirely abandoned the traditional indicator of total transaction amounts this year, instead highlighting “growth highlights.”
Although JD announced achieving record transaction volumes, it did not provide further detailed breakdowns, especially lacking specific explanations for domestic demand growth, leading to questions about the credibility of its data. Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao platforms have not disclosed total sales data yet and only mentioned that some merchants achieved sales growth of “over 100%.”
An article by Sina Finance described this year’s “Double 11” as the most “laid-back” one in history, with the major promotion gradually shifting from creating myths to daily sales. High return rates and profit issues have led to a decrease in merchants’ enthusiasm. The extended promotional period has left consumers feeling exhausted, lacking the previous excitement of the event.
American economist Davy J. Wong stated that the key issue of this year’s “Double 11” lies in the “poor quality of growth.”
He analyzed, “Platforms have extended the promotional period from a few days to almost a full month, forcing merchants to offer deeper discounts to boost sales. Consumers are clearly in a ‘buy only on sale, never at full price’ mode – they wait for promotions, compare prices repeatedly, and are becoming more cautious. This indicates a lack of confidence in future income.”
Wong believes this reflects a state of “external warmth, internal coldness, high leverage, and low confidence” in the Chinese economy. He stated, “On the surface, China is still in the range of ‘about 5% growth,’ mainly supported by exports and government-led fixed asset investments; however, the household and private sectors have clearly entered a deleveraging and contraction phase.”
Tan Kah-Siong, a professor at the Department of International Affairs and Business at the University of Nanhua in Taiwan, described the current situation as a “consumer shock” (significant stagnation in consumer activities). He told Epoch Times, “The slowdown in online sales growth is a classic scenario of deflation – prices are declining, and confidence follows suit. When people are indifferent even during the most impulsive consumption festivals, it indicates that the market’s heat has long dissipated.”
Looking at price data, China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) has just shifted from negative to slightly positive, while the Producer Price Index (PPI) has been in a deflationary range for several years. Wong believes the overall situation is closer to “low inflation + continuous industrial goods deflation” rather than mild healthy inflation.
Against the backdrop of declining overall fervor, structural changes are happening in the Chinese consumer market. Discussions on social platforms are notably less enthusiastic than in the past, with many consumers saying “it doesn’t matter if they miss pre-sales” and that “major promotions aren’t much different from regular prices.”
A white-collar worker in Beijing, named Lu Feng, mentioned that this year during “Double 11,” he only bought two pieces of clothing, as he didn’t find anything appealing. He noticed that offline stores were “quite busy” in the two days before “Double 11” to compete with online traffic.
Instant retailing emerged as a major “dark horse” this year. Tmall introduced a “place orders online, deliver within minutes” flash purchase model, making instant consumption a new focus during the main promotion.
Significant changes were also seen in the live streaming sector. Statistics showed that major anchor’s live broadcasts during the promotion period decreased by 40%, and the share of sales brought by top Douyin e-commerce key opinion leaders dropped from 35% three years ago to 9%. In contrast, brand-owned stores’ share increased to 69%, with medium and small-scale influencers and brand-owned stores together accounting for over 80% of live broadcast traffic.
Regarding the potential consequences of continued weak domestic demand and deflationary pressures, Wong analyzed from three perspectives.
At the corporate level, he noted, “In an environment of weak demand and declining prices, companies aggressively lower prices to maintain market share, while excess production capacity makes it difficult to exit. The result is ‘having quantity but no price’: producing a lot but at low prices and thin profit margins. Continued losses or near-zero profits directly weaken investment and recruitment, leading to a cycle of ‘low prices → low profits → low investment → low wage growth.'”
At the household level, adjustments in real estate, unstable employment, and slowing wage growth have led the middle class to adopt a defensive posture. “People tend to save more and borrow less; they postpone significant consumption and focus their spending on essentials. From a micro perspective, this is rational, but from a macro perspective, it further suppresses demand, exacerbating downward price pressure.”
Wong warned that persistent low inflation or mild deflation combined with structural overcapacity “could make the Chinese economy experience a certain degree of ‘Japanification’: slow growth, high debt, and pressure on asset prices.” He added, “But compared to Japan in the 1990s, China today has higher leverage and a more centralized political system, meaning the adjustment process may be longer and rely more on administrative measures rather than a one-time balance sheet clean-up.”
Tan Kah-Siong used more straightforward language, stating, “Continued deflation and declining domestic demand are like a broken heater in winter – the more you turn it on, the colder it gets. When prices fall, demand shrinks, inventory accumulates, companies lack the incentive to invest, people are unwilling to spend, and fiscal revenue evaporates.” He believed that this situation could lead China into an “economically false stabilization”: appearing stable on the surface but slowly shrinking internally.
He also commented on the atmosphere in Beijing’s political circles, saying, “It’s more like a ‘power defense battle’ rather than an ‘economic rescue battle’ nowadays. As long as data can be packaged, statistics can be manipulated, and public opinion can be guided, even if GDP drops by double digits, it can be described as ‘structural optimization.'”