During this year's mid-June 18 shopping festival, several e-commerce platforms in China recorded record transaction volumes, reflecting growing consumption potential and robust economic momentum.
E-commerce platform JD.com said in a statement to the Global Times on Wednesday that 83 brands had accumulated transactions of more than 1 billion yuan ($137.8 million) during the shopping festival, and more than 150,000 small and medium-sized merchants saw a 50 percent increase in sales.
New energy products saw robust growth, with transaction volumes for electric vehicle charging stations up more than 120 percent year-on-year. Transaction volumes for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware products, including AI computers, AI mobile phones, AI keyboards and mice, and AI learning devices, increased 150 percent year-on-year, the statement said.
The company told the Global Times that as of 12 a.m. on June 19, 365 Tmall brands had surpassed the 100 million yuan gross merchandise volume (GMV) mark during the shopping festival, with more than 36,000 brands doubling their GMV. 1.9 million small and medium-sized enterprises on Taobao achieved GMV growth of more than 100%. Around 30,000 merchants generated GMV of more than 1 million yuan.
During the shopping festival, multiple international brands including Apple, Nike, L'Oreal, Lancome, Adidas and Estee Lauder surpassed RMB 100 million in GMV on Tmall.
Livestreaming played an important role in product promotion. JD.com announced that orders placed on JD Live during livestreaming sales events increased by more than 200%. The number of Taobao's livestreaming channels, which generated more than 100 million RMB GMV, increased by 53% year-on-year.
According to media reports, data from the e-commerce division of Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu showed that as of June 18, orders on livestreaming channels surged 5.4 times, and the number of consumers purchasing through livestreaming channels surged 5.2 times.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) on June 17, 2024, the rapid development of livestreaming has expanded online consumption scenarios, leading to a 12.4% increase in online retail sales to 5.77 trillion yuan during the period.
In April, the Ministry of Commerce and 13 other government departments rolled out specific measures to promote and encourage trade-ins of consumer goods.In the first five months of this year, national retail sales rose 4.1 percent to 19.52 trillion yuan, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Observers say 618 shopping is an important opportunity to learn about new consumption trends and a barometer of China's consumer market.
