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BEIJING (Reuters) – Total sales at Chinese e-commerce giant JD. com rose 10. 3 in the 18 days to Sunday at the first primary shopping festival since the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the company said, a sharp drop since the event’s expansion from 2021. matrix 27. 7
This year’s figure is the slowest for the retailer, showing how customer appetite in the world’s second-largest economy has been reduced through lockdowns to prevent the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and slowing economic conditions.
Chinese buyers acquired goods worth 379. 3 billion yuan ($56. 48 billion) on JD’s platform during the “618” period, it said on its official WeChat account.
“We are getting better delivery in urban and rural areas,” it added in a statement, referring to efforts at the event that relied on its supply chain infrastructure and virtual intelligence technology.
The 618 event is the largest grocery shopping festival of the moment in China after Singles’ Day in November and was presented in 2004 to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of JD. com.
JD. com’s competitors, led by Alibaba Group and Pinduoduo, tend not to release figures of 618.
But Consultancy Syntun estimated that Alibaba’s Tmall market, JD. com and Pinduoduo combined generated 578. 4 billion yuan ($85. 89 billion) from 618 sales last year, up 26. 5 percent from a year earlier.
Shopping festivals are historically popular in China, with many shoppers delaying their purchases to take advantage of deep discounts offered to attract shoppers.
But there were already signs of declining customer demand on such occasions last year, when rival Alibaba recorded a sales expansion of just 8. 5% in its Singles’ Day frenzy, also the slowest in history.
Over the past three months, China’s war to engage COVID-19 has resulted in participation measures of varying intensity in dozens of cities, affecting spending, livelihoods, and supply chains.
To encourage this year’s call, major e-commerce platforms have led brands to offer bigger discounts for the 618 event, but some corporations and agents told Reuters they plan to reduce that share.
In addition to e-commerce businesses, more platforms and offline outlets joined this year’s event, adding short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou.
($1 = 6. 7160 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Sophie Yu, Brenda Goh)