(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) As China's largest online shopping festival, the sales performance of "Double 11" is often regarded as a "barometer" of China's macroeconomics.
According to the big data company Star Map Data Report, the total e-commerce sales of the entire network during "Double 11" in 2025 will be approximately 1.7 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of approximately 14% from 2024. From 2023 to 2024, the sales of the entire "Double 11" network will be approximately 1.14 trillion yuan and 1.44 trillion yuan respectively.
Retailers have mainly extended sales promotion cycles this year to boost sales. Many merchants started their “Double 11” promotions early. The retail data platform "Syntun" shows that from October 7 to October 31, the cumulative sales during this year's "Double 11" period were 1.0263 billion yuan, an increase of only 2.4% compared with the same period last year.
Chinese households are seeing their wealth shrink due to the prolonged downturn in the real estate market. House prices have dropped by about 20% or more from the market peak in 2021, with the decline particularly evident in small and medium-sized cities and the second-hand housing market. Many homeowners remain concerned that home prices will fall further. As a result, Chinese consumer confidence has been dampened and consumer demand has been suppressed. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to September 2026, China's total retail sales of consumer goods was 37,000.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 1.1%. Max Zenglein, senior Asia-Pacific economist at The Conference Board, said: "Optimism about the recovery of domestic demand has faded, and improvements in market confidence have repeatedly proven to be short-lived."
Middle-class consumer confidence plummets
Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai, believes that on the one hand, the confidence of China's middle-class consumers has dropped significantly; on the other hand, many discounts offered during this year's "Double 11" are not as strong as before.
Yaling Jiang, founder of market research company ApertureChina, said that more and more consumers are experiencing "discount fatigue." As merchants offer discounts throughout the year, the promotional push that Double 11 can bring may be waning.
Ms. Liang, who works in furniture sales, said "extra" purchases such as cameras and game consoles have been kicked off the shopping list. “We are experiencing a consumption downgrade,” she said. “Even our income levels are experiencing a certain downgrade.”
Industry data shows demand for big-ticket consumer goods such as luxury goods and cars has been particularly hard hit. From January to September this year, China's domestic passenger car sales continued to decline, falling by nearly 25%. Luxury goods consumption is also experiencing a downturn. LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi, and Kering, which owns brands such as Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, have recently said that customer demand in the Chinese market has declined.
Healthy living-related products performed well
In retail, however, not all categories were sluggish. Today, new “status symbols” in people’s minds are increasingly linked to health, lifestyle and experiences. Jacob Cooke, CEO of Beijing-based consulting firm WPIC Marketing + Technologies, said sales of health-related products are performing relatively well. Online sales of imported fish oil increased nearly 43% year-on-year in the 12 months to September, according to WPIC data. Other supplements targeting sleep, joint and bone health also saw sales growth between 28% and 37%. He predicts that this year's "Double 11" sales will achieve a certain growth.
Jiang Yaling, founder of market research company ApertureChina, believes that a core trend in consumer culture this year is "returning to life itself" - people no longer pursue ostentation, but refocus their attention on "basic life needs and intrinsic satisfaction."
Market experience integrated with AI
What’s more, strikingly, e-commerce giants such as Alibaba have turned to artificial intelligence to nudge budget-conscious consumers to spend more. For example, before the launch of the “Double 11” promotion, Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall platforms had already integrated its self-developed “Qwen” artificial intelligence model to assist in processing consumer orders and provide product recommendations.
During this year’s “Double 11” period, artificial intelligence-related tokens appeared on the shelves of major e-commerce platforms as an independent category for the first time. According to Chinese media reports, "Lipstick Brother" Li Jiaqi sold about 2 trillion words of computing power services in half an hour during a live broadcast.
Although many households have become cautious about spending, youth unemployment is about 18%, and income growth has lagged, the total savings of Chinese households remains huge. According to data released by the People's Bank of China, as of the end of July 2026, the total deposits of Chinese households (households) were approximately 172.84 trillion yuan. This also means that there is still huge consumption potential in China, although consumer preferences and consumption patterns are changing.
