China’s mid-year shopping festival sets new records

Chinese woman shopping online

Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD have set new sales records during this year’s mid-year shopping festival digital sale thus far.

Across the 18-day sale, Alibaba’s Tmall platform brought in US$98.6 billion, with JD hitting $38 billion. The figures are consistent with the general recovery of China’s consumer retail market in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Chinese delivery services processed around 4.7 billion packages during the mid-year shopping festival – 48 per cent more than last year.

Online sales rose 4.5 per cent in China during the first five months of this year, as consumers largely remained at home to avoid contracting Covid-19. Consumer spending has been stimulated by government initiatives such as voucher issues.

As an indicator of spending and business activity, Chinese courier firms handled 7.38 billion packages last month.

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