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5 takeaways from this year’s 618 shopping festival

From big discounts on Apple's iPhone 15 to Pinduoduo's real time discounting, here are the trends you need to know from this year's 618

by Robynne Tindall
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From popular product categories to the growth of AI tools, Robynne Tindall looks at the main trends from this year’s 618 shopping festival

The landscape of shopping festivals such as 618 and 11/11 (Singles’ Day) in China has evolved from single-day events into month-long celebrations, marked by extravagant galas and a crescendo of discounts and promotions. The festivals have continued to grow year on year, and this year’s 618 (which started on 20 May and ended on 20 June) has been no exception. Within the first four hours of the event kick-off, 59 brands on Taobao and Tmall reached a target of RMB 100 million (£10.83 million) gross merchandise value (GMV), while 376 individual products reached a GMV of over RMB 10 million (£1.08 million). Xiaohongshu announced that its sales had tripled year on year.

But sales figures are not the only important takeaway. Here, we summarise some of the key trends from this year’s 618 shopping festival.

launchpad CBBC

Popular categories: Electronics and home appliances

Apple offered some of its biggest discounts ever during this year’s 618, and consumers wasted no time in taking advantage of them, dropping over RMB 1.5 billion (£162.4 million) on iPhones in the first hour of sales on 20 May. On Tuesday, 18 June (the ‘official’ day of the festival), the iPhone 15 became a trending topic on Chinese social media. Chinese smartphone brands Huawei and Xiaomi also reported over RMB 100 million (£10.83 million) in GMV.

Home appliances, cosmetics and healthcare products also saw strong sales, reflecting the fact that Chinese consumers might be spending more rationally than during past shopping festivals, but are willing to shell out on products that they feel benefit themselves or their home.

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No more pre-sales

Tmall and Taobao dropped the ‘pre-sales’ format – where customers put down a deposit on products they wanted to buy – for this year’s 618, with the goal of simplifying the purchasing experience for consumers. The platforms leaned into a series of ‘flash sales’ instead, aimed at using limited-time discounts to tempt budget-conscious consumers to make impulse purchases.

Pinduoduo continues to push Tmall and JD

Budget shopping platform Pinduoduo (PDD) has emerged as a strong challenger to the more mainstream platforms during recent shopping festivals thanks to its low prices. This year, it has taken things a step further with an automated tool that tracks prices on other platforms and adjusts its own prices if it finds a cheaper offering. This shows that while the narrative has often been about value over pricing in recent years, customers are still attracted to bargains.

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AI tools go mainstream

During 618, Taobao customers could use large language model (LLM) based AI chatbot Wenwen to summarise the pros and cons of similar products, generate purchase recommendations, and compare deals to get the best prices. Taobao and Tmall merchants also benefitted from AI tools, including visual generative tools for product images (allowing manipulation of models or background images, for example) and text generation for marketing copy. Consumers have responded well to these innovations, with Alibaba reporting that the click-through rate of AI-enhanced images was 25% higher than original photos.

Brand-owned live streams are growing

Live streams managed and hosted by brands seem to be growing in popularity, which will be a boon for companies tired of paying high influencer fees. Figures released by Xiaohongshu showed that the number of brand-owned live streams on the platform on the first day of 618 this year was 3.8 times higher than the same period last year, and the GMV was also 4.2 times higher.

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