China's Singles Day shopping festival is more than halfway over. Here's how consumers are spending

cnbc.com:

BEIJING — Early indicators of China's biggest shopping event of the year reveal a pickup in select categories amid expectations of relatively modest growth in overall sales.

China's version of Black Friday kicked off on Oct. 14, more than a week earlier than last year, as e-commerce players Alibaba and JD.com grapple with tepid consumer spending. The shopping festival, also known as Singles Day or 11.11, has in recent years evolved into a weeks-long promotional period since Alibaba launched it in 2008 on Nov. 11.

«What we're seeing so far, it's going to be slightly better in terms of GMV growth over last year,» Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, told CNBCThursday. The company helps foreign brands — such as Vitamix and IS Clinical — sell online in China and other parts of Asia.

GMV refers to gross merchandise value, an industry measure of sales over time. China's e-commerce giants stopped reporting Singles Day GMV in 2022 during the pandemic. In 2021, Alibaba said its GMV rose by 8% while JD's climbed by 28%, totaling more than $139 billion.

Singles Day GMV this year as of Oct. 30 was 845 billion yuan ($119.1 billion), according to research firm Syntun. It was not clear how the GMV figures compared to 2023 given the extended promotional period this year.

Around 80%, or roughly $95 billion, came from Alibaba, JD.com and PDD, while nearly 20% was generated via livestreaming sales platforms Kuaishou and ByteDance's Douyin, the Syntun report showed.

While Singles Day GMV no longer grows by 30%, Cooke said he expects around 15% growth this year, better than the 11% increase in 2023, when the festival lasted for 19 days, according to his company's data.

«Things that are experiential-based are