China’s second-largest annual shopping festival is coming to a quiet close, shining a light on sluggish consumer spending and a broader move by the country’s government to rein in extreme discount competition among online retailers.
The 618 festival takes its name from the founding date of e-commerce giant JD.com — June 18. What once served as a showcase for explosive online retail growth has gradually expanded from a single-day event into a weeks-long sales period spanning all major Chinese shopping platforms.
That extended format has made it difficult to keep shoppers excited, especially as China continues to grapple with a prolonged crisis in its real estate sector and ongoing trade friction with the United States — both of which have shaken job security for many workers.
Yu Yang, an engineer at an internet company in Beijing, said she barely made any purchases during this year’s festival. “I bought some laundry detergent, but not because it was discounted, it’s just I ran out of it,” she said.
This year’s event on platforms including JD.com and Alibaba’s Tmall kicked off in mid-May and runs through June 20 or 21 — roughly 40 days in total, which is three to four shopping days longer than last year depending on the platform.
Last year’s 618 festival, itself about a week longer than the 2024 edition, saw combined gross merchandise value — a standard e-commerce performance metric — jump 15% to 855.6 billion yuan, equivalent to about $127 billion, according to retail data firm Syntun. However, daily spending figures actually declined during that period.
For this year, analysts are projecting overall revenue to grow by a single-digit percentage, largely due to the longer event window. Final data from this year’s festival is expected to be released next week.
With Chinese regulators pushing back against cutthroat pricing tactics, Alibaba described this year’s festival as a “decisive shift,” saying “brands prioritizing healthy margins over headline sales figures” defined the event.
JD.com, PDD, and ByteDance-owned Douyin — the Chinese counterpart to TikTok — did not respond to requests for comment on this year’s 618 performance.
Derek Deng, who leads consumer products for Bain and Co. in Greater China, offered a positive take on the subdued atmosphere. “This time around, we feel that it is quite quiet. I believe this is a good thing for the market. This shows that people’s consumption patterns are normalised, people don’t just stock up during shopping carnivals,” he said.
The muted festival comes as China’s retail sales dropped 0.6% compared to the same period a year ago in May — the first year-over-year decline since December 2022, when the country was still operating under strict COVID-19 restrictions. Government data released Tuesday showed notable declines in spending on vehicles, home appliances, furniture, jewelry, and building materials, even as state subsidies were in place to encourage large purchases.
Meanwhile, the use of artificial intelligence by e-commerce companies expanded significantly in the first half of 2026, and industry watchers are paying close attention to how widely consumers are actually engaging with these new tools.
Alibaba, for instance, has woven its AI model Qwen throughout its Taobao platform, enabling shoppers to browse, compare, and buy products simply by having a conversation with the AI rather than manually scrolling through listings.
Jason Yu, general manager at CTR Market Research, noted that all the major e-commerce players are using 618 as a testing ground for their AI capabilities. “So it’s not just a battleground for e-commerce, but also more of a technology battleground for all these big platforms,” he said.
