China has its own versions of Black Friday: 618 and Singles day. These annual shopping festivals, in June and November, are massive events for local shoppers and ecommerce groups. Until now, the sales figures for the June festival have been record breaking, with global celebrities joining the marketing drive to set the tone on spending for the rest of the year.
But this year, despite Rihanna making Chinese breakfast crepes on a livestream, sales are breaking records for the wrong reason: they fell for the first time ever for the mid-year festival.
Combined gross merchandise volume for China’s largest ecommerce groups fell 7 per cent to RMB742.8bn ($102bn) during the 618 shopping event, according to digital retail data provider Syntun. This was despite record discounts across brands, including 50 per cent off Lululemon apparel.