Leading online retail platforms are gearing up for the annual Singles Day promotional campaign with warm-up promotions and deep discounts just around the corner.
The two major online retail platforms Alibaba and JD have pledged deep discounts set to be unveiled on Monday as merchants prepare for the largest promotion of the year.
Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao sites offer the largest vouchers worth 30 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion) covering more than one million types of products over the next month.
Thanks to the increasing interconnectivity of payment options between external service providers including WeChat Pay and China UnionPay, it's expected to mobilize the highest number of buyers during this year's sales period.
The Singles' Day shopping festival was first initiated by Alibaba in 2009, and now it involves all domestic online retail players, social commerce sites, and some physical stores.
The annual bargain-hunting occasion now covers nearly one month with the first batch of sales set to begin on the night of October 14, and online retailers pledged extra discounts.
Shanghai freelance consultant Fiona Jiang said she's planning on buying pet food and winter apparel, but she'll wait for early November when further discounts are expected to be offered.
"It costs too much time to work out the best deals during the pre-sale period so I always wait for a few more weeks," she said.
Combined sales of domestic online retailers during the promotional period have outstripped the sales of US shopping holidays Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined in previous years, but the growth rate has waned amid more cautious consumer spending.
New merchants have been a strong propulsion of consumer spending with more than six million new store openings on Taobao since the beginning of this year.
In the third quarter, the number of brands that opened official stores on Tmall surged by 70 percent from the previous quarter.
Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao sites are offering the largest amount of vouchers worth 30 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion).
JD's grand promotion is centered around the theme of "affordability and quality" which is expected to cover more than 600 million buyers with highlights including flagship smartphone launches and generous trade-in incentives to encourage device upgrades.
JD's on-demand retail service which connects with third-party vendors and pledges same-day or next-day delivery service also offers discounts and special customer service benefits in collaboration with over 600,000 physical stores across the country.
Both Alibaba and JD are also offering extra subsidies in addition to the government-backed trade-in program for home appliances and smart devices.
