BEIJING: China’s shoppers are getting wooed this week like never before.

The country’s biggest Internet firms are pulling out all the stops during the annual “618” shopping festival, in a bid to shake off the industry’s post-Covid malaise and return to something like the rah-rah years before 2020.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is offering 50% off Lululemon apparel, while rivals like ByteDance Ltd and PDD Holdings Inc advertise steeper-than-ever discounts.

Price cuts are just the start. Companies are enlisting A-list celebrities to flog products over live video and promising no-questions-asked returns.

Before taking on her duties as the new face of J’Adore fragrance, Rihanna found time to rustle up “jianbing” crepes on one Chinese platform. JD.com Inc even created a digital avatar of founder Richard Liu to hawk steak and blueberries.

“This year’s 618 is the most cutthroat shopping festival ever,” Sherri He, managing director at Kearney China, said. “eCommerce platforms are under huge performance pressure amid a consumption downgrade.”

This year’s 618 gala - a US$100bil extravaganza several times larger than a typical Black Friday - is more closely watched than ever.

From incumbent leader Alibaba to upstarts such as Bilibili and ByteDance’s Douyin, the aggressive discounts and unprecedented marketing underscore an urgency to rekindle growth.

Everyone in the ecosystem is feeling the pressure. For investors, 618 represents the first large-scale test in 2024 of whether the Chinese consumer is finally ready to splurge again - or to what extent a property crisis, stubborn deflation and uncertain job prospects are discouraging spending.

When all’s said and done, how Alibaba and JD perform may be key to reviving share prices that are at about a quarter of their 2020 highs.

“The market is hungry for data points that prove or disprove the consumption recovery story in China,” said Vey-Sern Ling, a managing director at Union Bancaire Privee.

“618 this year is important, because this year more than before, investors are trying to spot the inflection.”

It’s unclear when the companies might release final results - or how comprehensive they would be. Initial and independent estimates paint a mixed picture.

JD.com said it racked up record gross merchandise value (GMV). Alibaba said its platform saw more than 36,000 brands, including Burberry and Ralph Lauren, double their GMV from last year’s event, though it didn’t divulge overall figures.

Total sales across eCommerce platforms were down 7% from the previous year, at 742.8 billion yuan, according to market tracker Syntun.

That’s in contrast to data from Analysys, which found short-video platforms led growth over the first two weeks of the festival: Douyin grew sales by 30% and Kuaishou Technology improved by 18%, outpacing Alibaba’s 15% and JD.com’s 9.5% growth, according to that research.

An increase in no-quibble returns may help account for some of the discrepancy. Some luxury brands reported return or cancellation rates as high as 75% during last November’s Singles’ Day festival, far higher than the industry norm.

And they’ve slashed prices this year by as much as 50% in a growing panic over unsold inventory.

 - Bloomberg