BEIJING, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Nearly two decades after its launch, China's Singles' Day shopping festival has become an increasingly influential event in global retail. Overseas brands and e-commerce platforms are adjusting their promotional schedules, supply chains and product launches to tap into the Chinese market.
Also known as Double 11 because it falls on Nov. 11, the annual online shopping carnival is one of the world's largest retail events. This year's edition, which has run for nearly a month, is set to conclude, highlighting a shift toward a wider range of services, smarter AI shopping assistants and more vibrant two-way trade through cross-border commerce.
SERVICE CONSUMPTION AS A NEW ENGINE
During this year's event, major e-commerce platforms expanded their offerings beyond traditional consumer goods and discounts, giving greater prominence to services. JD.com showcased more than 100 service products for the first time, while Suning offered packages such as a 9.9-yuan (about 1.47 U.S. dollars) whole-house appliance inspection.
The trend reflects broader changes in China's consumer market, which is now driven by both goods and services. In the first three quarters of this year, service retail sales grew 4 percentage points faster than goods retail sales, making services a key source of incremental consumption.
A Beijing resident surnamed Feng said his Double 11 purchases included a two-day hotel package and a home cleaning card. "There are more and more services to choose from. Buying these packages on major platforms offers good value, and fulfillment and after-sales service are more reliable," he said.
Physical goods, however, remain a major part of the shopping festival. Sales of smartphones covered by government trade-in subsidies on Tmall surged more than ninefold, while transactions in categories such as maternal and infant products and home appliances on Taobao's on-demand retail platform grew more than 70 percent year on year.
Combined sales on China's major integrated e-commerce platforms during the early phase of this year's Singles' Day reached 1.0263 trillion yuan as of Oct. 31, data firm Syntun showed. This year, the Tmall Double 11 event featured 1 million global brands and 72 million products in promotion. That contrasts sharply with the first edition in 2009, when only 27 brands took part and transactions totaled 52 million yuan.
AI ELEMENTS
One notable development this year was the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) tokens as an independent product category on multiple e-commerce platforms, a sign that AI is rapidly integrating into every link of the e-commerce chain.
Taobao, Douyin and Pinduoduo all embedded smarter AI shopping functions during this year's Double 11. Last year, Taobao and JD.com introduced AI shopping guides that could answer product questions and search by photo.
This year, many platforms rolled out conversational AI shopping assistants for the first time -- tools that can sort shopping carts, automatically calculate combined discounts and subsidies, and handle after-sales follow-up.
Li Mingtao, chief e-commerce expert at the China International Electronic Commerce Center, said consumers' use of AI shopping assistants has moved from trial to large-scale adoption, and the expanding functions mark a shift from tools to intelligent agents.
"In previous years, consumers spent considerable time hunting for coupons and comparing prices. AI shopping assistants take on that time burden, turning complex promotional rules into clear, actionable shopping plans," Li said.
AI is also changing how online retailers operate, improving efficiency and streamlining operations. Alibaba's QwenWork launched an e-commerce version ahead of Singles' Day, while JD.com upgraded its AI business center to provide merchants with dozens of tools covering product selection, operations, fulfillment and after-sales.
GLOBAL RESONANCE
The festival's influence is increasingly extending beyond China. With the rise of global digital consumption and improving cross-border e-commerce policies, many platforms and merchants looked overseas for new growth during this year's event, while international brands are leveraging China's Singles' Day to expand market share.
This year, Taobao opened a one-click overseas channel for the first time, allowing merchants to sell in both domestic and overseas markets with their existing stores and products. AliExpress's official warehouses covered six countries, with pre-event overseas warehouse inventory up 146 percent year on year.
"Going overseas is not simply about selling goods abroad," said Sun Yanyan, head of Sparkone Media, a cross-border e-commerce company. "It is about exporting China's mature digital retail, supply chain and AI operations capabilities, building a two-way channel that helps transform Chinese manufacturing into Chinese brands and better connects domestic and international markets."
While platforms expand overseas, quality imported goods continue to enrich choices for Chinese consumers. A Shanghai resident surnamed Liu bought Australian infant food and Belgian nutritional supplements on Tmall Global during Singles' Day.
"In the past, many overseas local brands were hard to buy," she said. "Now the platform has sufficient bonded warehouse stock and fast customs clearance and delivery, so I can shop for specialty goods from around the world without traveling abroad."
Currently, imported food products on the Taobao and Tmall platforms cover more than 100 countries, over 1,000 production regions, and more than one million items.
This year, the Singles' Day festival coincided with the 9th China International Import Expo (CIIE), held in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10. The expo attracted 4,142 overseas companies from 162 countries, regions and international organizations, with more than 480 representative new products making their debuts.
Many of these products were not merely on display -- they were simultaneously listed on Singles' Day platforms, shortening the distance between global innovation and Chinese consumers. At the Tmall Global booth, AI-related gadgets were among the highlights: Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, Oura smart rings and Fitbit Air wristbands were launched simultaneously at the CIIE and on Singles' Day.
According to Tmall Global, more than 1,800 new brands opened stores on the platform over the past year, and 1,300-plus imported brands participated in Singles' Day for the first time.
To address information gaps in cross-border shopping, Tmall Global launched a "Global Traceability Program" in May this year. More than 50 global brands have joined, and more than half of participating brands recorded double-digit year-on-year sales growth during this year's Singles' Day.
Besides Taobao and Tmall, other Chinese platforms such as Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop have brought Double 11 promotions to dozens of countries, while some Western retailers have adjusted their year-end promotional calendars in response.
Eighteen years on, Singles' Day no longer belongs to one country or one platform. From promotional calendars and logistics to product categories and consumer trust, it has become a global retail landmark -- and for many, an increasingly important indicator of changes in China's consumer market and of how the country continues to innovate and open up. ■
