HONG KONG (AP) — So far, signs say Singles’ Day, China The country’s largest online shopping festival is failing to entice worried consumers to spend more, even when offered good deals.
Singles’ Day, a historic discount campaign similar to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the United States, focuses on November 11, or 11-11, which is Wednesday. But it starts weeks earlier and is seen as a barometer for the economy as a whole.
Retail data platform Syntun said that as of October 31, cumulative sales from this year’s festival stood at just over 1 trillion yuan ($154 billion), broadly similar to last year’s figure for the same period.
Retailers managed to increase sales mainly by extending the festival: total Singles’ Day sales in 2025 reached a record of nearly 1.7 trillion yuan ($254 billion).
But demand from Chinese consumers has been stifled as confidence has been hit by, among other factors, a prolonged slowdown in the real estate sector. “Optimism about a recovery in domestic demand has faded,” said Max Zenglein, senior economist for the Asia-Pacific region at the Conference Board. “Improvements in sentiment have repeatedly proven to be short-lived.”
E-commerce giants like Alibaba have turned to artificial intelligence to try to get thrifty shoppers to spend more. Alibaba’s platforms Taobao and Tmall, for example, were integrated with Alibaba’s Qwen AI this year before the campaign even began to help shoppers manage orders and product recommendations.
For the first time, Singles Day AI token plans are being offered and heavily promoted. This month, a livestream by Li Jiaqi, nicknamed the “Lipstick King” after selling huge quantities of lipsticks, saw sales roughly equivalent to 2 trillion tokens in half an hour, according to Chinese media.
Consumers feel stuck
Although the economy as a whole continues to grow at a relatively robust pace, expanding by 4.6% in annual terms from January to September, much of this momentum came from a export boom. Retail sales of consumer goods rose just 1.1% year-over-year during the same period.
China’s huge domestic market has been suffering for years the real estate slowdown has families feel worse off. Housing prices are down about 20% or more from the 2021 market peak, with smaller towns and the secondary market suffering more.
Even though house prices appear to be stabilizing in big cities, many homeowners aren’t convinced they won’t fall further, said Andy Rothman, founder of consultancy Sinology.
In the furniture manufacturing hub of Foshan in the south, Gabby Liang said she was feeling cautious.
“I buy a lot less online, especially when it comes to non-essential items,” the 24-year-old said. “Last year, during the Single’s Day festival, I bought quite a few skincare products. But this year, I plan to buy less.”
Other shoppers said they were cutting back on big spending. “I may not be as inclined to seek out famous or high-end brands as before,” Beijing resident Kong Min said of this year’s Singles’ Day.
China’s middle-class consumers have lost a lot of confidence, and what’s more, many of the discounts offered during the festival are not as good as before, said Shaun Rein, general manager of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai.
More and more shoppers are suffering from “discount fatigue,” said Yaling Jiang, founder of ApertureChina, a market research company. Discounts are offered year-round, so the impact of Singles Day might diminish, she said.
“If you consider what Singles’ Day originally was: a shopping holiday where people expected the biggest discounts of the year,” she said. “This is no longer true after expanding to multiple platforms and then to a one-month duration.”
Liang, who works in furniture sales, said extras like cameras and game consoles would not be on the list this year.
“We are experiencing a deterioration in our consumption,” she said. “Even the amount we earn has somehow been devalued. »
Domestic demand remains weak as exports soar
Business is at a standstill, Liang said, as Chinese buyers tighten their belts, despite rising exports to regions like the Middle East and Africa.
Sales in China have suffered as an oversupply of many goods, from automobiles and televisions to shoes and electronics, has intensified competition in crowded sectors, prompting manufacturers to step up expansion overseas.
Exports increased by 35% year-over-year in October, fueled by high tech items like semiconductors and electric vehicles, and China is on track to surpass last year a record trade surplus of $1.2 trillion.
But domestically, demand for big-ticket items like some luxury goods and cars has been hit particularly hard.
Passenger car sales in China have been slumping for most of this year, falling nearly 25% between January and September, industry data shows. This is partly due to the government recall grants This year.
This contrasts sharply with the 71% increase in passenger car exports during the same period.
Luxury goods purchases also suffered. LVMH, which runs Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi, and Kering, whose brands include Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, have both reported falling customer demand in China in recent months.
Chinese leaders have for years pledged to accelerate growth by domestic demand. But strong export growth has dampened the sense of urgency about launching policies to boost the domestic economy, analysts say.
“As long as China continues to make progress in realizing its industrial and technological ambitions, policymakers have little incentive to fundamentally rebalance the economy in favor of household demand,” Zenglein said.
There are still some positives as the status symbols change
When it comes to retail, not all categories are suffering. The latest consumer status symbols are increasingly linked to health, lifestyle and experiences.
“This is not a simple case of expensive items being dropped,” said Jacob Cooke, CEO of Beijing-based consultancy WPIC Marketing + Technologies. Sales of health-related items are doing relatively well, he said.
According to WPIC data, for the 12 months ending in September, online sales of imported fish oil increased nearly 43% year-over-year. Other supplements targeting sleep, joint and bone strength increased between 28% and 37%.
Cooke expects some growth in Singles’ Day sales this year.
ApertureChina’s Jiang sees the defining trend in consumer culture this year as “just living life,” moving people away from grand gestures and focusing on “the bare necessities and inner fulfillment.”
While many families are hesitant, with youth unemployment around 18% and income growth lagging, Chinese household savings remain enormous. With its population of 1.4 billion its spending potential is enormous, even as consumer preferences and spending habits evolve.
According to Zenglein, an economist at the Conference Board, the trend in Chinese consumption is not one of outright weakness, but of growing divergence, with pockets of stronger demand despite gloomy general sentiment.
“It’s still enough to make a living, but there’s just not much to spend,” said Liang from Foshan.
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