China’s eCommerce leaders are turning a cautiously optimistic eye toward Singles Day on Nov. 11, touted as the biggest shopping day in the world, despite the specter of slowing economic growth and increasing scrutiny by Chinese regulators about their operations, CNBC reported Tuesday (Nov. 2).
Alibaba made Singles Day — or Double 11 — a shopping festival in 2009 when it offered steep discounts on its Tmall shopping platform, and the event has steadily built to overtake Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other traditional shopping holidays on the worldwide calendar.
Like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Singles Day promotions now begin well before what was once a single day of savings to a week or more of deals. JD.com and Alibaba kicked off promotions Oct. 20 and added more this week, the CNBC report says.
Singles Day 2020 snagged 840 billion yuan ($131.3 billion) in gross merchandise value, reflecting the value of a company’s eCommerce orders across all its platforms.
Alibaba and JD.com are both targeting customers in small cities across China as Singles Day approaches.
Meanwhile, China’s new laws — from antitrust to data protection — and scrutinization of eCommerce companies’ practices has added a new element to Singles Day. Alibaba got slammed with a $2.8 billion fine in April as Chinese regulators investigated whether it had monopolistic tendencies.
And China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last week urged Chinese eCommerce firms to curb marketing spam via text messages.
Related: China’s Pressure Ahead of CBDC Rollout Points to Privacy Issues
Meanwhile, China is pushing merchants to accept central bank digital currency (CBDC), and McDonald’s has been trying out the digital offering at 270 outlets, but Nike and Visa haven’t taken the hint yet.
China seems to be blocking all other digital currency options for everyday purchases in favor of the CBDC, about three months before the Winter Olympics kick off in Beijing. All cryptocurrency-related transactions, including bitcoin, are illegal in China.
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