China's Singles' Day Sales Flat as Shoppers Hold Back

Shoppers Hold Back! China’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, the country’s biggest online sales event, is struggling to get cautious consumers to spend more despite discounts, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday, with early figures pointing to sales roughly level with last year.

Sales broadly unchanged

Retail data platform Syntun put cumulative sales as of October 31 at just over 1 trillion yuan (US$154 billion), broadly in line with the same period a year earlier, according to the AP. Total sales during the 2025 festival reached a record of almost 1.7 trillion yuan (US$254 billion).

Cautious shoppers…

The event centres on November 11 but starts weeks earlier and is seen as a barometer of the wider economy. It began in 2009 as “Bachelors’ Day”.

The AP noted that China’s economy grew 4.6% year on year in January to September, while retail sales of consumer goods rose just 1.1% over the same period. Home prices have fallen by roughly 20% or more from their 2021 peak, and youth unemployment is hovering around 18%.

Max Zenglein, Asia Pacific senior economist at The Conference Board, told the AP that “optimism over a recovery in domestic demand has faded.” Andy Rothman, founder and chief executive of advisory firm Sinology, said home prices appear to be stabilising in larger cities, though many homeowners fear further declines.

Shoppers cut back on extras

Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai, said middle-class consumers have lost confidence and that festival discounts are less generous than before. Yaling Jiang, founder of market research firm ApertureChina, pointed to fatigue among shoppers over discounts.

Gabby Liang, a 24-year-old furniture-sales worker in Foshan, told the AP she has been buying far less online, particularly non-essential items. She described it as a downgrade in consumption.

Spending patterns are shifting rather than simply falling, according to Jacob Cooke, chief executive of Beijing-based consultancy WPIC Marketing + Technologies. WPIC data showed online sales of imported fish oil rose nearly 43% in the 12 months through September, while other supplements grew 28% to 37%.

Passenger car sales fell almost 25% in the first nine months, industry data cited by the AP showed. Luxury groups LVMH and Kering have both reported softer demand in China in recent months.

This year’s festival also featured new products. AI token plans were promoted during Singles’ Day for the first time, and a livestream by Li Jiaqi, known as the “Lipstick King”, sold plans covering about two trillion tokens in half an hour, according to Chinese media. Alibaba has built its Qwen AI into its Taobao and Tmall platforms.

What’s next

Zenglein said that as long as China keeps advancing its industrial and technological ambitions, policymakers have little incentive to fundamentally rebalance the economy toward household demand. The AP noted China is on track to surpass last year’s record trade surplus of US$1.2 trillion.

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