Singles Day shopping off to a good start

The extended Singles Day shopping festival this year saw booming sales during its grand opening on Monday evening, with high-quality and intelligent electronic products and livestreaming sessions gaining popularity among Chinese consumers.

As China's biggest online shopping event, the 11-11 or Double Eleven promotional campaign is expected to play a vital role in further stimulating the purchasing appetite of consumers, bolstering the recovery of consumption and shoring up economic growth, experts said.

Data from Tmall, Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group's business-to-customer platform, showed that in the first four hours after the shopping carnival kicked off at 8 pm, 174 brands saw their sales surpass 100 million yuan ($14 million). In addition, the turnover of more than 12,000 brands surged over 100 percent year-on-year and the sales of nearly 6,000 brands skyrocketed more than 500 percent compared with the same period last year.

The transaction volume of Apple's products on Tmall exceeded 1 billion yuan within five minutes, while sales of domestic smartphone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo all surpassed 100 million yuan in the first four hours of the promotional event, according to Tmall.

Consumers preferred snapping up bargains via livestreaming on e-commerce platforms, with sales from some top-tier livestreamers on Taobao Live, Alibaba's livestreaming arm, surpassing 100 million yuan within a short period of time.

JD, another major Chinese e-commerce player, has intensified efforts to offer big discounts and lower-priced products, giving subsidies for commodities included in the consumer goods trade-in program, such as home appliances and computers. It has also stepped up efforts to upgrade supply chain systems and logistics services.

Furthermore, a series of products that represent scientific and technological innovations achieved by Chinese enterprises have been made available on e-commerce platform Taobao. These products cover fields such as information technology, artificial intelligence, aerospace, new energy and quantum technology.

For example, consumers can directly purchase the country's independently developed AS700 civil manned airship and enjoy discounts. The airship can be used for sightseeing, emergency rescue and aviation geophysical exploration, among other things.

Wang Yun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said, "Consumption has become the main driving force behind China's economic growth, and the Singles Day shopping carnival plays a pivotal role in unleashing consumers' purchasing potential, bolstering domestic demand and promoting consumption recovery."