2 min read 11/11/2023, 01:40 PM IST
Beijing, China’s yearly “Singles Day” shopping event ended at midnight on Saturday. This year, people didn’t seem as excited to shop because the economy is not doing so well. Created by the company Alibaba in 2009, “Singles Day” has become a big shopping event that lasts for more than a week this year.
Last year, people spent a huge amount of money on Singles Day, but this year it seems like it might be different. A survey by Bain found that 77% of people said they were not planning to spend extra money during the event. Reasons for the decreased excitement were things like people not wanting to buy a lot of things and preferring to only buy what they really need.
Some people said the sales this year were not as good as before. They said that some websites raised prices before the event and then offered discounts that were not really good deals. Guan Yonghao, 21, said that the prices are similar to other days. He and others are choosing to save money because of financial uncertainties.
Jacob Cooke, who runs a company that helps businesses sell things online, said that Singles Day is not as exciting as it used to be. This is because there are now other events and live video shopping that take away from the specialness of Singles Day as a day for great deals.
Livestreams, who are important for selling things online during these events, also said they didn’t do as well as last year. Liu Kai, who sells things online, said that this year’s Singles Day sales were not as high as in the past.
The event is called 11/11, and it’s a day for singles. It started on some websites in late October. Alibaba and JD. com didn’t share how much they sold last year because they didn’t sell as much as the year before.
The decrease in sales happened at the same time as China’s prices going down in October. This shows it’s difficult for officials to make people want to buy more things. Beijing has put in place different ways to help the economy, especially focusing on the housing market. They also have a plan to spend a lot of money on building things like roads and bridges to make the economy stronger.
