Slowing Growth on Singles' Day Due to Rise of Other Shopping Events, Says Report

Declining growth on China’s Singles’ Day shopping holiday doesn’t necessarily reflect declining enthusiasm for the event or online shopping generally, Coresight Research reported Wednesday. Total transacted gross merchandise value across several e-commerce platforms on the Nov. 11 shopping day was $45.2 billion, says data services firm Syntun, a 24 percent sales growth vs. 44 percent growth last year. Coresight attributed slower growth to an overall trend in China, where 2018 retail sales growth is the weakest in 15 years. Singles’ Day remains the largest cyber shopping festival, though a growing number of other festivals with discounts present shoppers with other options once a quarter, it said. “Consumers have become familiar with the promotion cadence of the various e-commerce platforms and appear to be adjusting their plans to take advantage.” The Singles’ Day effect has extended offline. “Some brick-and-mortar stores, whether they have an online presence or not, joined the festival to take advantage of the immense consumer interest," said Coresight: The day helped accelerate the pace of online-offline retail integration and it promoted the concept of “retailtainment.”